BACKGROUND
The release of Bambi in 1942 signalled the end of the Disney “Golden Age”.
After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, everyone was waiting to see just what else Walt Disney and his artists could do with the medium of animation; Snow White had them all captivated and they wanted more.
Sadly, in 1939, many countries were enduring the impact and horrors of World War II, which began in September of that year. The United States of America did not join the war until December 1941, but this still did not make it an easy time to own a film studio.
The next Disney releases to come after Snow White were Pinocchio and Fantasia, both released in 1940. Because European markets were closed off due to the war, these films did not do particularly well financially, and their production budgets were even higher than that of Snow White. Pinocchio was received well by critics, but Fantasia was not, because of its new concept of setting animated scenes to pieces of classical music, an artistic concert of sorts, which did not appeal to the masses.
Dumbo (1941) would do much better just a year later, both critically and financially, but if Walt Disney hoped for a similar response to his realistically animated nature film Bambi, he was disappointed, as not only had World War II caused problems, but the Disney Animators’ Strike of 1941 had sullied the Studios’ reputation and disrupted their film production for around four months, plus Bambi annoyed and angered some viewers because of its anti-hunting stance. Back in the 1940s, it was not considered the beautiful, environmentally conscious masterpiece it is seen as by many today.
I’m not sure I’m allowed to say I don’t like Bambi, but… I don’t like Bambi.
I am not a fan of nature documentaries, and this feels very much like one, albeit a slightly more fun one. It details the life of animals, and it doesn’t always end happily for them – and that is certainly the case for poor Bambi. I think that’s my reasoning for not liking the film much, although I am happy to admit that it does have an important lesson attached to it, of being respectful of nature because it is as much alive and full of feeling as we are, and that’s a very good lesson to teach people of any age.
PLOT
I’m sure many people first watched Bambi as a child and were mildly traumatised by it, so let’s relive that trauma with a plot summary. Bambi follows the life of a young male fawn, and his two friends, Thumper, a young rabbit, and Flower, a skunk, as they grow up. One day in the forest, all of the creatures, like mice, birds, and the creepy-looking Friend Owl with his huge eyes, who go to see “the new Prince of the Forest-to-be” as Bambi’s mother gives birth to the fawn, Bambi. Almost immediately, Bambi tries to walk, but he struggles, and Thumper tries to help teach him how, despite the fact rabbits walk in a very different way to deer. The next day, Bambi tries again and succeeds. Thumper then teaches Bambi how to talk, learning the words “bird” and “flower”, at which point, they see a skunk in a flower patch. Bambi mistakenly believes the skunk is a flower, so the skunk becomes a new friend called Flower. It soon begins to rain with the “drip, drip, drop” of an April shower and the three friends return home. The rain shower becomes a huge thunderstorm, which scares most of the younger forest inhabitants.
Some time later, Bambi goes out to the meadow with his mother, where Bambi is warned by his mother to be careful not to run into open spaces as they can be unsafe. Bambi’s mother checks it is clear and they come out into the open. He then meets Faline, one of his mother’s friend’s children and is very awkward around her! But he begins to learn more about his species from the other deer, instead of learning how to do everything from either his mother or Thumper. They then see a group of stags running through the forest, where Bambi meets The Great Prince of the Forest, his father. The Great Prince tells all the deer to leave the meadow. Bambi becomes separated from his mother, but is helped by The Great Prince. A gun shot is heard… But Bambi’s mother is ok…for now. This is where Bambi first hears about “Man”, as he is told “Man was in the forest”.
Autumn comes and then turns to winter, and Bambi sees snow and ice for the first time. Thumper teaches Bambi how to ice skate, though he isn’t exactly a natural at it! The two also go and visit Flower, who is hibernating and probably shouldn’t be woken up. After a while, Bambi becomes bored of winter and there not being enough food. Luckily, he soon sees the first signs of spring coming in the form of fresh grass, but as Bambi and his mother are about to settle down to eat, his mother hears something and tells Bambi to run to the thicket and not look back. Another gun shot is heard… But Bambi keeps running like he was told to do. Eventually, Bambi stops and is concerned that his mother has not followed him. Cue one of the most well-known and most heart-breaking moments in movie history. Bambi cries out for his mother, searching, but she is nowhere to be found. The Great Prince tells him “Your mother can’t be with you anymore”, and tells Bambi to “come, my son”, as he leads him away in the snow.
One year later, Bambi, Flower, and Thumper learn about “twitterpations”, or “falling in love” to us humans, as they see all the birds twittering around as they find mates, being told by Friend Owl that it makes you weak in the knees, puts your head in a whirl, makes you feel as light as a feather, like you’re walking on air. All three thinks this sounds awful, confirming that it won’t happen to them but they soon find love interests of their own. Flower first, as he tries to ignore a female skunk, but finds he’s powerless to do so. Then Thumper, and finally Bambi with childhood friend Faline, after he fights a stag competing for her affections. We then find that Man is back in the forest, but this time not from the sound of a gunshot. Instead, Bambi is woken by the smell of smoke and follows it to find a campfire in the distance. Going deeper into the forest, Bambi learns that this is a hunter camp. Bambi is separated from Faline as everyone flees after a bird is shot, with dogs trying to hunt down Faline. Bambi fights them off but is shot. Meanwhile, Man’s campfire has spread and caused a huge wildfire. The Great Prince tells Bambi to get up and move. The two jump down a waterfall to the safety of a riverbank, where Bambi is reunited with Faline and his friends.
The next spring, Faline gives birth to twins. Bambi and his father share a glance as they watch over the scene at the top of a hill. The Great Prince then walks away, silently signalling to Bambi that he is now The Great Prince of the Forest.
It’s not exactly the most thrilling plot, with quite a lot of the action taking place “behind the camera”. It’s more or less a coming-of-age story, watching Bambi grow, with notes about how humans need to take responsibility for their actions within natural environments or risk damaging consequences for nature and the animals that live within it.
CHARACTERS & CAST
Though the film has many supporting characters, other animals living in the forest, the plot follows Bambi, his mother and father, and Thumper and Flower, so it benefits from this focus on core characters only. It also benefits from only having around 950 words of dialogue in total, which allows for moments of silence during those tense scenes and a time for reflection on the beauty of nature, as well as the threats to it.
Bambi begins life as an awkward, gangly young fawn, who doesn’t have much idea of how to act or behave in the forest. As a newborn, unsurprisingly, he can’t walk or talk so has to be taught how to do these things, by his mother and randomly by a rabbit, but this is a Disney movie after all. Over time, Bambi learns more about what life is like for animals in the forest, and is taught to be careful of his surroundings and not to trust that everything is necessarily safe; that Man could be in the forest and something bad might happen if he is. Once his mother dies, Bambi has to grow up quickly, as his future is to be The Great Prince of the Forest. He starts to take responsibility for others and the security of the forest, being the one to find the hunter camp first and trying to get the rest of the animals to safety. By the end of the film, Bambi has fully transformed into The Great Prince of the Forest, and watches over everything as the new protector.
Donnie Dunagan voiced young Bambi, when he was six-years-old, and he said that his lines were read by a voice coach and that he had to repeat them, with the same inflection to get the correct meaning across. He also stated that he was never told that Bambi’s mother was dead or that she was shot, only that she was injured and Bambi was trying to find her, when he was being given his “motivation” for the scene. Actor Hardie Albright then voiced Adolescent Bambi, with producer John Sutherland voicing Young Adult Bambi.
For Bambi’s mother and The Great Prince of the Forest, Bambi’s father, naturally Bambi’s mother takes on most of the parenting of Bambi. She is a caring mother, very protective of Bambi and very cautious when out in the open areas of the forest, as she is aware of the dangers of hunters. The death of Bambi’s mother is the most tragic moment of the film, especially when we hear Bambi calling for her, not realising how bad the situation is. Walt Disney’s daughter Diane was horrified to find that Walt had decided to keep the scene of Bambi’s mother being shot in his movie version of Bambi. She had read the original book, as Walt reminded her at the time, but she thought he would’ve changed it for his film as he had altered many elements of books and fairy-tales for his other film projects before[1]! Paula Winslowe voiced Bambi’s mother in this film, and she also voiced the Pheasant. She was married to John Sutherland, voice of Young Adult Bambi.
The Great Prince of the Forest is stoic and fairly emotionless, needing to keep himself calm in his role as the protector of the forest. He’s not exactly a great fatherly figure for Bambi though, not being particularly caring even when he tells Bambi that his mother “won’t be around anymore”. He also tells Bambi to get up and move after he’s just been shot in rather a harsh way, but I suppose he is just trying to keep him safe! Fred Shields voiced The Great Prince. Shields went on to narrate other Disney shorts, including those within the film Saludos Amigos (1942) and the segment “The Flying Gauchito” in its sequel film The Three Caballeros (1944).
Now to Thumper, who I personally find kind of annoying and overly energetic! Thumper was not an original character from the Bambi novel but was created for comic relief purposes. Animator Ollie Johnston liked the fact that Thumper is quite bossy when he’s trying to teach Bambi how to do things, and how he gets into trouble a lot. This is what I don’t like about Thumper but I’m ok disagreeing with Ollie on this one! Peter Behn voiced Young Thumper, and much like Donnie Dunagan, he had his lines recited to him and he just repeated the lines until he got them right. To be fair, Thumper does have some very good lines, such as him reciting his father’s talk about how good it is to eat your greens, though he thinks they taste awful, and “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all”, which is actually a double-negative, but we get what Thumper means; he is just a kid! Tim Davis voiced Adolescent Thumper and Sam Edwards voiced Young Adult Thumper. Edwards later made a few appearances as banker Bill Anderson on Little House on the Prairie between 1978 and 1983, and also had supporting roles in some of Disney’s live-action films, such as The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and Escape to Witch Mountain (1975).
Flower is the shy and soft-spoken skunk that I always used to think was a girl but that is most definitely not the case – oops, my bad. I think of the three “kids”, I like Flower the best, because he’s not running around all the time being crazy; he’s just sitting in his flower patch having a nice time. I also feel sorry for him when Bambi and Thumper are trying to wake him up during his hibernating time. Stan Alexander voiced Young Flower, with Tim Davis voicing Adolescent Flower also. Legendary Disney voice actor Sterling Holloway then voiced Young Adult Flower. Holloway voiced many well-known characters for Disney movies from the 1940s to the 1970s, including the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Kaa the python in The Jungle Book (1967), and most notably, Winnie the Pooh.
One other voice actor I would like to mention is Cammie King, who voiced Young Faline in Bambi. She also portrayed Bonnie Blue Butler, Scarlett and Rhett’s daughter, in Gone with the Wind (1939).
MUSIC
All the songs in Bambi are played in the background, so none are sung by any characters, which is not unheard of in Disney animated films, but not particularly common. This was decided to be the best approach to the music due to the fact that, given its realistic subject and animation style, it would not be appropriate for the forest animals to burst into song, as it would disrupt the feel and mood of the film.
For the soundtrack, four original songs were written, with all lyrics being written by Larry Morey and all music for the film being composed by Frank Churchill. The two had previously collaborated together on the soundtrack for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Churchill had also contributed to the music on many other Disney projects from the time he joined the Studios in 1930, such as the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” for the Silly Symphony short The Three Little Pigs (1933); “Baby Mine” from Dumbo (1941), co-written with Ned Washington, and the score for Dumbo, co-written with Oliver Wallace, both of which received Oscar nominations; and the song “Never Smile at a Crocodile”, which is a deleted song from Peter Pan (1953) and was co-written with Jack Lawrence. Churchill sadly passed away from suicide in May 1942, just three months before the release of Bambi.
The first song is the main title song “Love is a Song”, playing over the Opening Credits, and also appears as the finale song. This song was actually nominated for Best Song at the Academy Awards, where it lost out to Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” from the film Holiday Inn (1942). The next number to appear in the film is “Little April Shower”, which is the most well-known song from Bambi and likely one that you’ve either sung yourself as it starts to rain outside, or someone else has sung it to you. The music slowly builds in volume and drama as the rain gets heavier and a storm begins. The animals are all scared of the storm and can’t wait for it to be over. Though I don’t generally mind the opening few lines, I really dislike the storm as the singers just wail like ghosts as a way of imitating wind and it doesn’t sound pleasant to my ears. Originally, an early song was meant to be sung from the point of view of the raindrops; it was called “The Rain Song”. It was an incredibly repetitive song, almost like the rain was chanting, so very weird too and I’m glad they didn’t use it! To animate the drops of rain, the artists studied slow-motion photography of drops of milk to show the detailed splash patterns, which would have vanished quickly in normal time. The animators drew many of these to create the shower[2].
Following on from that is “Let’s Sing a Gay Little Spring Song”, which plays when the birds are finding their partners during the spring. It annoys Friend Owl a lot, who tries to get all the birds to fly away from him and leave him in peace. It is a bit cutesy and sweet, not to mention repetitive, so I can see where Owl is coming from!
Finally, we have “Looking for Romance (I Bring You a Song)”, which is the love ballad for Bambi and Faline as they begin to fall in love with each other. It’s the customary love song that every film needs, but personally I don’t like any of the songs within Bambi. That is probably down to the fact they are not sung by the characters, and I can understand the reasoning for that, but it means I don’t end up connecting with the characters emotionally through their songs, unlike other Disney movies, such as Beauty and the Beast (1991) or The Little Mermaid (1989), something those Disney “Renaissance” movies are known for. The other reason is because all four songs are performed by a forty-voice choir, the Disney Studio Chorus, with Donald Novis, which gives the music that odd whispery sound that was particularly prominent in earlier Disney movies. I find it a bit creepy and haunting at times…
The score for Bambi was nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, but lost to Max Steiner’s score for Now, Voyager (1942). The score does well to contribute to the atmosphere of the forest and the events surrounding the characters, without taking away focus from the central action. The instrumental that plays during Bambi and Thumper’s time in the snow and on the ice is probably the best of the score for me, though of course the scoring of the forest fire and Bambi’s mother do make those scenes seem more threatening and heartbreaking for the viewer.
PRODUCTION
Bambi took around five years to make, with development starting in 1937, when the film rights for Bambi, a Life in the Woods, a book written by Felix Salten, were passed over to Walt Disney after discussions with the original rights owner, Sidney Franklin. The original novel by Salten was first published in 1923. It is debated what the true meaning of the novel is as it has been lost in translations, however, some suspect that the novel is actually meant to be a parable about the inhumane treatment of Jewish people and other minorities. As Salten lived in Austria at the time of publication, around this time, the Nazi party was beginning to rise up within Germany and its influence would later spread outside of the country into Austria and surrounding areas. This threat of a more fascist world is seen by some as evidence that Bambi, a Life in the Woods was actually a political statement. Even more evidence of this is that in 1935, the book was banned by the Nazis, who saw the novel as a political allegory and copies of the book were burnt. Salten fled Austria in 1938 when Germany annexed Austria, and went to Switzerland. Salten had experienced discrimination and abuse as a Jewish person in Austria throughout his life. In a similar way to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, having the story be based around animals meant that the true meaning could be hidden within another layer of story. Salten later sold his film rights for $1,000 dollars to film producer and director Sidney Franklin[3].
The first English translation of the novel, by Whittaker Chambers, sold 650,000 copies between the years 1928, when it was first published, and 1942, when Disney’s Bambi was released. It was later translated again in 2022, when the original novel entered the public domain, and a new English translation was published under the name The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest, by Jack Zipes. It’s been claimed that Chambers’ translation sanitised the novel and stripped it of its actual meaning.
There are many conflicting views on just what the original Bambi novel really means. It could have been political propaganda; it could have been anti-war in general; it could have been existentialist; or simply a coming-of-age story, or environmental story. Basically, it’s up to anyone who has read the original novel to decide what it means for them[4]. I have not read it, so I am not informed enough to discuss Salten’s novel, and nor do I need to because this is about Disney’s film. The only thing to be aware of is that Walt Disney and his children would have read Chambers’ original English translation of the novel.
Regardless of what Bambi was meant to mean, this translation remains bleak and gruesome at times, due to its references to injured animals, intense scenes of hunting, and general social commentary. It was up to Walt Disney and his story men to make the story more child-friendly and similar in tone to what audiences were expecting from the Disney Studios. Disney added in humour and lighter moments to tame the material, as well as new characters. Humans are referred to as “Man” and not “He”, as they are in the original story.
Bambi was intended to be the second Disney animated feature, to be released right after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), but in actual fact, it became the fifth full-length animated feature film from the studio. This was down to the need for the animators to be able to capture the forest and its animals truthfully, as well as spending time dealing with the story to make it “more Disney”. Walt had realised that Bambi would require a different type of sophistication in the artwork that they had not done before, and to do it justice, the animators needed time to create and perfect this new style. Sidney Franklin, who owned the film rights to Bambi, had hoped to make a live-action film with voice-overs. After watching Snow White, Franklin contacted Walt to see if he would like to collaborate on the movie. It was decided that this live-action movie wasn’t going anywhere and that Walt Disney could make a better film if it was fully animated, so the rights were sold to Walt, however, Franklin remained an active consultant on the film and ensured the authenticity of nature remained. A dedication to Franklin appears at the end of the opening titles.
Story men were first assigned to the picture in 1938. Early attempts at the story included a scene of two leaves talking about the end of their life together as they are about to fall from their tree. This is an interesting scene in the novel that Walt particularly liked, however, it didn’t work in the context of the film, so it was cut. There were many other characters who were created but never used, such as a grasshopper and a colony of ants, and a rabbit called Bobo, who eventually became Thumper. There was also a different version of the sequence of Bambi seeing snow for the first time, where Bambi and the rabbits were chasing each other. This scene was re-worked to show Thumper teaching Bambi how to walk on ice instead. Real-life human models were used as reference material for this scene. Another story idea that never came to light on screen was to have a charred corpse of “Man” be discovered by Bambi and The Great Prince. At a test audience, this scene was shown to the audience and they did not like it so naturally, it was cut. They also considered showing Bambi’s mother injured on the ground, but again, decided against it[5]. It’s interesting that Disney chose not to show the death of their “first parent” in Bambi, but quite happily did so in 1994 with Mufasa’s death in The Lion King, traumatising an entirely new generation of children!
To correctly capture the authenticity of the animals as well as the environment of the forest, artist Jake Day was sent to Maine for several months to photograph and sketch animals and their environments. Artists also sketched animals at the Los Angeles Zoo[6]. They studied deer and fawns closely. Two fawns, named Bambi and Faline, were imported from Maine and housed behind the studio for this purpose. However, as they eventually began to act like pets, footage of wild deer in their natural environment, exploring and going about their day, was used to get the authentic action shots required. There needed to be a big leap in how the deer were represented in Bambi to how they were in Snow White, where animator Eric Larson described them as being drawn like sacks of wheat. They weren’t bothered by the anatomy of deer then, but this time, they had to study it and get it just right.
However, once they had drawn the animal characters true to their real-life anatomy, they then needed to get them to develop of range of emotion, as a Disney character is not just muscles and fur. The amazing characterisation of the animals in Bambi is great, and that is mostly down to the work of Marc Davis, one of the Disney animators, who went to a lot of effort studying child psychology books and children’s expressions, to replicate those same emotions within two-dimensional drawings of animals. He then showed the rest of the Disney animators how best to show this emotion on their animated characters[7].
In terms of capturing the essence of the forest, firstly, Walt Disney sent photographers to the forests of Maine, Oregon, Washington, and California. Some film was taken too, which would go on to inspire Walt Disney to make his True-Life Adventures nature documentary series in later years[8]. The problem with having such detailed pictures to use as reference points was that the animators ended up drawing the forest with too much detail, so that the action and the animals would not be as sharp on the screen as they needed to be. Artist Tyrus Wong was the one to create simple, impressionistic paintings for the backgrounds, which would create and suggest an atmosphere instead of being precise depictions of real-life. This suited the picture well and helped the team move forward. The multi-plane camera was used extensively for Bambi to move through these backgrounds, deep into the forest[9].
RECEPTION
Bambi opened in August 1942 with a US premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The world premiere for Bambi had actually been held in London on 9th August 1942, meaning this was the first Disney full-length animated feature to hold its world premiere outside of the US. The world premiere was meant to be held in Maine, however the State objected as they felt hunters would be offended by the film.
The State of Maine turned out to be right because when Bambi was first released, it received mixed reviews with some of those specifically about the hunting aspect of the movie. In a 1942 edition of Outdoor Life magazine, Bambi was denounced as “the worst insult ever offered in any form to American sportsmen”. It seemed as though the whole US hunting community had taken offence to Bambi, which was never Walt Disney’s intention; Bambi is not an anti-hunting film, but sought to show the dangers of irresponsible hunting.
Not only that but his depiction of animals in Bambi was blasted by some. In a story printed in the 22nd March 1952 issue of the Saturday Evening post magazine it stated that Walt Disney had been confronted by a woman at a dinner party in Palm Springs. She claimed to be an expert on American wildlife and proceeded to tell Walt in great detail everything that was factually wrong in Bambi. Eventually, Walt was able to give his response: “How right you are. And do you know something else wrong with it? Deers don’t talk.”[10].
Other critics found the film was too dramatic and not as fantastical as Disney’s other fairy-tale stories, and felt that some of the scenes, such as the shooting of Bambi’s mother, were not suitable for children, hence why so many children over these last eighty years have remembered this scene as being one of Disney’s most traumatic and horrifying. Yet some enjoyed the fact that the Disney Studios had taken themselves away from their typical style of film, and the realistic animation was appreciated.
Alongside the Academy Award nominations for music, Bambi also received another nomination for Best Sound Recording, but did not win. Bambi underperformed at the box-office, which may have been partly due to the wartime era in which it was released. However, given the age of the movie, it has benefited from multiple re-releases both in theatres and on VHS or DVD and Blu-Ray over the years, which has boosted its overall takings in the US and worldwide. Bambi was the last Disney animated movie to be re-released during Walt Disney’s lifetime, in Spring 1966[11]. Nowadays, Bambi is considered a classic and one of Disney’s best films, both for its amazing animation, moving moments, and for being one of the first movies to have a message around environmental awareness.
LEGACY
As Bambi’s reputation as a film began to recover, it has been referenced in other Disney projects. One of these is its direct-to-video sequel, Bambi II (2006). This sequel takes place just after Bambi’s mother is shot, and shows Bambi being taken care of by The Great Prince of the Forest, Bambi’s father, during the spring that followed. Alexander Gould, voice of Nemo in Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003), voices Bambi here, and surprisingly, Patrick Stewart, Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94) and Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise, amongst many other roles, voices The Great Prince. What a strange choice of role for Patrick Stewart; I hope he had fun with it! Like all other direct-to-video sequels by Disney it received a mediocre response from critics.
At the Disney theme parks, there aren’t too many nods to Bambi or its characters unfortunately. Bambi has never been a walkaround character, however, his friend Thumper is – as is his girlfriend or wife, I guess, Miss Bunny. Thumper and Miss Bunny have been spotted at Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort, as well as at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. As they are rabbits, they may appear around Easter at the US parks and in Paris, however, over the years, the two have been less frequently spotted, so they are very much rare characters and may only appear at Special Events now. Bambi’s other friend, Flower the skunk, was a walkaround character for a time, but has not been seen since the 1970s apparently.
Outside of character appearances, at Tokyo Disneyland, at the Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel, some of the main guest rooms are described as being decorated with characters from films such as Bambi on their website, however, I have not found anything concrete online that shows that. I assume it is small touches in their décor.
There are similar touches like this at woodland-themed Disney hotels such as the Sequoia Lodge at Disneyland Paris, Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort, and the Wilderness Lodge Resort at Walt Disney World. There probably would’ve been more Bambi theming in the Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge Resort at Walt Disney World that was planned as a new Disney Vacation Club Resort but was confirmed to be cancelled in 2022.
At the actual theme parks, within Hong Kong Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world, you can see figures of Bambi and Thumper skating on top of an icy mountain at the start of the attraction. At Shanghai Disneyland, within their Garden of the Twelve Friends walkthrough area, representing the Chinese Zodiac, Thumper used to be the representative for The Rabbit, however, in 2023, the Year of the Rabbit, Thumper was replaced with Judy Hopps from Zootopia (2016).
Elsewhere, at Walt Disney World, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, fifty statues of different Disney characters were added to all four parks in a collection called the Fab 50. A statue of Thumper and Bambi, with a butterfly on his tail, was built and is currently situated at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The Fab 50 statues all still remain at the parks. Also at Disney World, but this time in Epcot, for the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival held in spring, there is normally a topiary scene of Bambi and his friends.
Alongside this, clips or music from Bambi may be included in other Disney shows, parades or fireworks shows. There is also lots of Bambi merchandise available to purchase, including plush toys, pins, bags, and clothing.
Outside of the parks, Bambi has continued to build its presence. Bambi and other characters from the film were used for the original poster for the “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” campaign in 1944 by the United States Forest Service. Walt Disney had allowed these characters to be used in their campaign for one year. As the forest fire prevention campaign had proved popular with these additions, this led to the Forest Service creating Smokey Bear, their own character, to head future campaigns. This shows that the general public did take notice of the film’s message.
Another thing taken from Bambi is the phrase “Man is in the forest”. This phrase was used by some of the Disney animators to alert others to the fact Walt Disney was walking around the studio! [12]
Bambi is a favourite film of many people, including Walt Disney himself, and Osamu Tezuka, creator of manga series such as Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. Paul McCartney also said that the film Bambi had a major influence on his attitudes towards animal rights. Not only that but the film’s off-screen villain, Man, was placed at #20 on the Villains list of the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Heroes & Villains list in 2003. Stephen King also named Bambi as the first horror movie he ever saw.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The message of Bambi, as well as some of its more controversial moments, have continued to stick with viewers for many years after the film was first released in 1942. It certainly should make people sit up and think about their attitudes to nature and how they can improve their own relationship with their surroundings.
As I said, Bambi is regrettably a Disney film that I just don’t like much. It’s not exciting enough for me, and I don’t feel I get as absorbed into the lives of the characters as I do with some of the other Animated Classics, though I do appreciate the meaning behind it.
But this was a key moment in the history of animation as they pushed even more boundaries with the release of Bambi. It is a favourite amongst nature-lovers – it’s just unfortunate that I am not one of them.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Bambi Fun Fawn Facts’, MousePlanet.com, 26th July 2017.
[2] Credit: Disney, Bambi: The Magic Behind the Masterpiece (1997).
[3] Credit: Donna Ferguson, ‘Bambi’: cute, lovable, vulnerable…or a dark parable of antisemitic terror?’, The Guardian (online), 25th December 2021.
[4] Credit: Kathryn Schulz, ‘“Bambi” Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought’, The New Yorker (online), 17th January 2022.
[5] Credit: Disney, The Making of Bambi: A Prince is Born (1994).
[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Bambi Fun Fawn Facts’, MousePlanet.com, 26th July 2017.
[7] Credit: Disney, Bambi: The Magic Behind the Masterpiece (1997).
[8] Credit: Jim Fanning, 10 Facts from Walt Disney’s Bambi, D23 (online), 6th September 2012.
[9] Credit: Disney, Bambi: The Magic Behind the Masterpiece (1997).
[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney Animation Anecdotes’, MousePlanet.com, 14th December 2022.
[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Bambi Fun Fawn Facts’, MousePlanet.com, 26th July 2017.
[12] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Bambi (1942)’, pp. 13-15.
The Disney Purist 