After being secretly encouraged by Timothy, the ringmaster makes Dumbo the top of an elephant pyramid stunt. The performance goes awry when Dumbo trips over his ears and misses his target, causing the other elephants to suffer various injuries, and bring down the big top. Dumbo is made into a clown as a result, to the shame of the other elephants, and plays the main role in an act that involves him falling into a of pie filling. Despite his newfound popularity and fame, Dumbo hates this job, and is now more miserable than ever. To cheer Dumbo up, Timothy takes him to visit his imprisoned mother. The two are unable to see each other face to face, and can only entwine trunks. On the way back, Dumbo cries and then gets the hiccups, so Timothy takes him for a drink of water from a bucket that, unknown to them, has accidentally had a bottle of champagne spilled into it by the clowns. As a result, Dumbo and Timothy both get drunk and have surreal hallucinations of pink elephants.