Editing Baby Elephant Walk (section)

==Background==
The tune was written for an impromptu scene in ''Hatari!'' in which  Dallas ([[Elsa Martinelli]]) led three baby elephants to a waterhole to bathe.  The catchy simplicity has made it one of Mancini's most popular works, appearing on many compilation albums. [[Hal David]] composed lyrics for it, which were not used for the film but appear in the printed sheet music. [[Pat Boone]] used the lyrics in his recording released by [[Dot Records]] in 1965. Mancini's version was not released as a single.

[[Brass instrument]]s (including repeated blasts from the [[tuba]]) and [[woodwind instrument|woodwind]] elements are combined to convey a large and plodding elephant toddler that is filled with the exuberance of youth.  Mancini uses a [[calliope (music)|calliope]] introduction to suggest the sound of a circus.  A cheeky melody is then played over this on a clarinet, and the song concludes with the calliope playing the old four-note phrase known as ''"Good Evening, Friends".'' <ref>{{YouTube|id=g40-fFR1ZHU|title="Good Evening Friends"}}</ref>

The overall style is as that of [[boogie-woogie]], as Mancini explained: {{blockquote|I looked at the scene several times [and] I thought, 'Yeah, they're walking eight to the bar', and that brought something to mind, an old [[Will Bradley]] boogie-woogie number called '[[Down the Road a Piece]]' ... Those little elephants were definitely walking boogie-woogie, eight to the bar.  I wrote 'Baby Elephant Walk' as a result.<ref>{{citation |last=Mancini |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Mancini |title=Did They Mention the Music?: The Autobiography of Henry Mancini |year=2001 |publisher=Cooper Square Press |isbn=978-0-8154-11758 |page=109}}</ref><ref>{{citation |page=88 |title=Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music |first=John |last=Caps |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-2520-93845}}</ref>}}

The cheerful tone, like that of Mancini's "[[The Pink Panther Theme]]", presents a stark contrast to more melancholy Mancini standards such as "[[Moon River]]". Due to its "goofy" sound, it is often used in a humorous context.   As the [[allmusic.com]] album review states, "if ''Hatari!'' is memorable for anything, it's for the incredibly goofy 'Baby Elephant Walk,' which has gone on to be musical shorthand for kookiness of any stripe. Get this tune in your head and it sticks."<ref>{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r67340}}</ref>