When I was a little kid, I thought Babar (the cartoon elephant king character of numerous children's books) was called Bar Bar, and when I got older, I remembered it as Bar Bar too. And a number of friends of mine, who read the children's books as preschoolers, also thought his name was Bar Bar. (We were very young when we read those books.)
Well, Babar was a lovable benevolent king character, so I thought it might be fun to create a new elephant king character named Bar Bar. But whereas Babar was noble and kind, Bar Bar would be a ruthless dictator of a king, who ruled over an African country with an iron fist, sort of like an elephant version of Idi Amin. And he'd torture and kill anyone who opposed him, and he'd force all the animals throughout his kingdom to labor for him mining gold and blood diamonds, and to exploit all the land's natural resources through hellish strip-mining, so he could buy all the weapons he could to arm loathsome death squad militias to enforce his brutal regime's hold on power, so he'd rule well into his 80s, like Robert Mugabe. And he would be absolutely barbaric in his treatment of his subjects and his enemies alike. And in fact, the book would claim that the word "barbarism" was named after Bar Bar, and referred to his absolute brutality. And books like this might give kids a more realistic view of the world around them, especially with the rise of terrorism and natural resource exploitation in the region, so they won't become disillusioned as they grow up and see what the world is really like (but rather, become disillusioned and cynical at an extremely young age).
And remember: if you ever betray Bar Bar, he'll always get you no matter how long it takes, because an elephant never forgets!
Actually, this idea would make quite a fun/absurdist Robot Chicken sketch, I think.
This is Babar, for those who are unfamiliar with him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_the_Elephant
