BAMBI

:''This article is about the 1942 Walt Disney film. For other uses, see Bambi (disambiguation).
'''Bambi''' is a 1942 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942. The fifth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, A Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author Felix Salten. The main characters are Bambi, the young prince of the forest, his parents (the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother), and his friends Thumper (a white nosed rabbit), Flower (a skunk), and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline (also a white-tailed deer). For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a White-tailed deer from his original species of Roe Deer, since roe deer don't inhabit the United States, and the white-tailed deer is much more familiar.

Contents

Plot

Pre-production

History

Release dates

United States

International

Re-release schedule and home video

Recycled animation from ''Bambi'' in other films

Errors in ''Bambi's Animation

Smokey the Bear Wildfire Prevention

Bambi in popular culture

Soundtrack Listing

Voice cast

Supervising Animators

Notes

See also

References

External links

Plot

The story of the natural life cycle (birth, death, and re-birth) is the true plot of the film. It's a case study in the very basics of life: the "doe-eyed" innocence of childhood, parental love, discovering and learning about the world around us (both its beauty and its danger), loss and grief, developing friendships, loyalty, balancing risk and need, growing toward independence, being at one and in harmony with nature,and romantic love.
Like the majority of Walt Disney's feature-length animated narratives, ''Bambi'' embraces both joy and tragedy. Bambi is a movie that alternates frequently between these 2 extremes, with the one typically being used to set up the other. For instance, the joy of Bambi's first walk through the forest is interrupted by a frightening thunderstorm. His first visit to the meadow is joyful until it is interrupted by hunters who fire upon Bambi and his mother.
The pivotal scene in the movie involves Bambi's mother and her death at the hands of a hunter. In the sequence, the audience sees the joy/tragedy motif used again. The scene is set in late winter, and Bambi and his mother struggle to find food as mournful music plays. Joy is felt as they discover a patch of new grass, signaling the arrival of Spring, and joyful music is heard on the soundtrack. However,as they feast, the mood changes again, and we hear Man approach off-screen, represented only by his theme music (a low, 3-note motif). Bambi's mother suddenly catches Man's scent, and orders her child to run, but she's too late. As they flee across the snow field, shots ring out. The camera stays with young Bambi as he runs through the forest, finally stopping to catch his breath. He notices at this time (as does the audience) that his mother is nowhere to be seen.
In a series of heartbreaking dissolves, Bambi wanders desperately through the forest calling for her, but no answer comes. Bambi is startled by the sudden appearance of his father, the Great Prince, who informs him that his mother can't be with him any more. Bambi casts his head to the ground, and when he lifts it again, the audience sees that he is crying, realizing what has happened. Bambi follows his father into the forest, taking one last look back as he leaves his childhood and innocence behind.
The movie then skips (very abruptly) forward in time to the spring, when Bambi, Thumper, Flower, and Faline are all seen having grown up to adulthood. They become "twitterpated" over potential mates. Bambi and Faline become a couple.However, their happiness is threatened by Ronno, a buck who's after Faline himself. He fights with Bambi and at first seems to have the upper hand until Bambi somehow manages to wound Ronno in his shoulder and throw him from the clifftop on which they were fighting. Ronno falls from the cliff and into the river, from which he is not seen again.
Man enters the forest again, and is responsible for a forest fire that sends all the life in the forest running for refuge in a river. Faline is cornered by hunting dogs while fleeing, and is rescued only when Bambi bravely fights them off. Bambi and his Father barely escape.
The film ends with the birth of Bambi and Faline's 2 fawns, with Bambi standing proudly at the top of the mountain, looking down at them proudly as his Father did at his own birth.
The death of Bambi's mother is one of the best-known moments in American film history, a moment so upsetting to certain children that they had to be carried sobbing out of the theater during numerous theatrical presentations. For this reason, and because of the horror and violence of the climactic hunting/forest fire sequence, many critics question the suitability of ''Bambi'' for very young audiences. When Bambi was shown during the Christmas period in December 2006 on UK channel ITV 2, the scene of the death of Bambi's Mother and the Prince telling Bambi of her death was edited out.^[1] When one takes ''Bambi'' together with the other Disney feature films created during the same period of the early 40s, such as the dark ''Pinocchio'', the powerful ''Fantasia'', and the serious ''Victory Through Air Power'', one can see an attempt by Walt Disney to produce films pushing against the stereotype of Disney animation being "children's films". Nonetheless, it wasn't until nearly 40 years later that The Disney Company featured the death of a parent in one of their movies (Tod's Mom in the Fox and the Hound), and more than 50 years before they featured the on-screen death of a main character who wasn't a villain (Mufasa in The Lion King). The off-screen villain "man" has also became the most depised villain in animation history and has been placed #20 on AFI's List of Heroes and Villians.^[2]

Pre-production

Walt Disney early in the preparation for this animated film decided to go to enormous lengths to achieve realistic detail. The artists heard lectures from animal experts, and visited the Los Angeles Zoo^[3]. A pair of fawns (named Bambi and Faline) were shipped from the area of present day Baxter State Park in Maine to the studio so that the artists could see first-hand the movement of these animals. The source of these fawns, from the Eastern United States, was the impetus for the transformation of Felix Salten's roe deer to white-tailed deer^[4]. The background of the film was also the Eastern woodlands — one of the earliest and best known artists for the Disney studio, Maurice "Jake" Day spent several weeks in the Maine woods, sketching and photographing deer, fawns, and the surrounding wilderness areas^[5].

History

Release dates

United States ★ August 13, 1942 (New York City, New York release) ★ August 21, 1942 (USA release) ★ December 25, 1947 ★ July 3, 1957 ★ March 25, 1966 ★ June 20, 1975 ★ June 4, 1982 ★ July 15, 1988

International ★ 'U.K.': August 8, 1942 ★ 'Brazil': August 14, 1942 ★ 'Argentina': December 9, 1942 ★ 'Mexico': February 4, 1943 ★ 'Australia': April 15, 1943 ★ 'Sweden': October 4, 1943 ★ 'Eritrea': December 15, 1943 ★ 'Norway': December 26, 1946 ★ 'Denmark': March 3, 1947 ★ 'Hong Kong': March 13, 1947 ★ 'France': July 15, 1947 ★ 'Finland': August 29, 1947 ★ 'Netherlands': September 18, 1947 ★ 'Belgium': September 18, 1947 ★ 'Italy': February 11, 1948 ★ 'Poland': June 14, 1948 ★ 'Austria': June 10, 1949 ★ 'Philippines': June 24, 1950 ★ 'Spain': September 11, 1950 ★ 'West Germany': December 19, 1950 ★ 'Japan': May 18, 1951 ★ 'Lebanon': June 18, 1969 ★ 'Kuwait': December 21, 1987

Re-release schedule and home video

Bambi was released in theaters in 1942, during World War II and was Disney's 5th full length animated film. It was an advance over the previous movies in sophistication of the animation, due to the experience gained in character animation at the Disney studio. The famous art direction of Bambi, which suggests emotion and the feeling of a forest rather than depicting a real forest, was due to the influence of Tyrus Wong, a former painter who provided eastern and painterly influence to the backgrounds. ''Bambi'' was re-released to theaters in 1947, 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982, and 1988. It was released on VHS video in 1989 (The Classics version), 1997 (Masterpiece Collection version) and remastered and restored for the March 1, 2005 Platinum Edition DVD. How They Restored Bambi, Monsters and Critics. The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007. IGN. The Masterpiece collection version was the first Disney video to be THX certified.

Recycled animation from ''Bambi'' in other films

Animation from ''Bambi'' has been reused in several other Disney films, especially footage of birds, leaves and generic woodland. For example, one scene in ''The Fox and the Hound'' reused footage of the animals running from the rain in ''Bambi's'' "Little April Shower" sequence. The most reused footage from ''Bambi'' are the few seconds of Bambi's mother looking up from eating grass just before she is killed by the hunter. This footage has been used in hunting scenes in ''The Sword in the Stone'' and ''The Jungle Book''. It is also featured in ''The Rescuers'' during the song "Someone's Waiting For You" and in the opening scene of ''Beauty and the Beast'' and ''The Lion King''. Even a latter-day Donald Duck short featured Bambi and his mother. They are drinking from a stream and then a bunch of garbage floats past them in the stream and Bambi's mother says to him calmly, "Man is in the forest. Let's dig out." They then leave.

Errors in ''Bambi's Animation

Several errors occur in the animation for the original film, from color to appearance to the way the characters move around. The platinum edition of ''Bambi'' DVD was released with all of these errors fixed.

★ The color of Mrs. Rabbit's fur changes three times during the film, ranging from grey to peach.

★ During Bambi's walk through the forest starts with five rabbits walking with Bambi, including Thumper. Thumper's sisters change color from peach to brown, and sometimes there are 2 peach rabbits, or 3 brown ones. The number of Thumper's sisters ranges from 4 to 6 during this sequence. During the "Say Bird" part of the film, Bambi goes cross-eyed as he looks at the birds hovering above him.

★ When Bambi and the Great Prince are looking down on Man's campfires, we see a shot of crows following the sequence and as the crows fly away, the same frame is repeated. As we switch to Faline, her eyes change color from blue to red.

★ In the opening credits, each frame has a black border around it, like on a computer screen.

★ When the Great Prince is 'feeling the forest', for about 10 seconds, you can see a few lines wriggling under his feet.

★ In the scene when it's snowing heavily, and Bambi has just lost his Mother, after the Great Prince says "Come, my son" and they're both walking away, you can see the Great Prince's mouth move just a little bit, even though he's not saying anything. In the original script the scene had more dialog, but the scene was later changed.

Smokey the Bear Wildfire Prevention

In 1942 the animated feature film Bambi was released. Soon after, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed.
In late 2006, the Ad Council in partnership with the United States Forest Service started a series of Public Service Announcement ads that feature footage from ''Bambi'' (& more often, ''Bambi 2'') for wildfire prevention. During the ads, as the ''Bambi'' footage is shown, the screen will momentarily fade into black with the text "''Don't let our forests… become once upon a time.''", and usually (but not always) ending the ads with Bambi's line "''Mother, what we gonna do today?''" followed by Smokey the Bear saying "''Only you can prevent wildfires''" as the Smokey logo is shown on the screen.
The ads presently air often throughout the day on various television networks, and the Ad Council has also put them on Youtube.

Bambi in popular culture

★ Former Charger and Cowboy wide receiver Lance Alworth was nicknamed "Bambi".

★ In an interview to Newsweek magazine, Steven Spielberg says that he considers ''Bambi'' the biggest crying movie of all time. "When I was a kid, I would actually get up in the middle of the night and make sure my parents were still alive."^[6]

★ Early in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, as Pee-Wee Herman is wearing his bunny slippers and making them seem like real bunnies, the carpet underneath his feet shows a possible Bambi scene complete with Bambi, Thumper, Flower an an unnamed raccoon.

★ In 1993, the producers at Warner Bros. Animation made a parody of this element on one of their ''Animaniacs'' episodes, a Slappy Squirrel segment entitled "Bumbie's Mom". In it, Slappy and her nephew Skippy go see the movie "Bumbie"(a direct parody of Bambi)and Skippy cries when Bambi's mom is killed by the hunter. Skippy continues to cry about it weeks after seeing the movie, much to Slappy's annoyance, so she arranges a visit with the doe-actress who played Bumbie's mother (who Slappy knew back in her acting days) to convince him that she wasn't really shot , just acting. Of course, soon afterwards, Skippy sees a parody of ''Old Yeller'', and the process starts all over again.

★ In ''Kingdom Hearts'', Bambi makes an appearance as a Summon creature who runs around and drops items beneficial to the party.

★ Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse segment, used ''Bambi'' as a means to lampoon Disney's usage of older properties for direct-to-video sequels in the form of ''Bambi 2002''. Of course, it contained rather absurd things such as a rapping Bambi, the New York Yankees, and American tourists, just to name a few.

★ In NBC's comedy Scrubs, the protagonist, J.D. (Zach Braff), was given the nickname of Bambi by a female nurse, Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes), when he was an intern. This nickname was continually used throughout the series.

★ In the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever, the two henchwomen who guard the villain's house are called Bambi and Thumper.

★ In an episode of The Simpsons, titled Tales from the Public Domain, the family read the story of Joan of Arc. Lisa asks Homer, “Do they actually burn her?” Marge interrupts, ripping out the last page of the book. She claims that Sir Lancelot rescues Joan and they escape to live in a spaceship. Marge then eats the page, remarking that it is easier to chew than the video of Bambi.

Soundtrack Listing

# Main Title (Love Is A Song)
# Morning In The Woods/The Young Prince/Learning To Walk
# Exploring/Say Bird/Flower
# Little April Shower
# The Meadow/Bambi Sees Faline/Bambi Gets Annoyed
# Gallop Of The Stags/The Great Prince Of The Forest/Man
# Autumn/The First Snow/Fun On The Ice
# The End Of Winter/New Spring Grass/Tragedy In The Meadow
# Wintery Winds
# Let's Sing A Gay Little Spring Song
# It Could Even Happen To Flower
# Bambi Gets Twitterpated/Stag Fight
# Looking For Romance (I Bring You A Song)
# Man Returns
# Fire/Reunion/Finale
# Rain Drops (Demo Recording)
# Bonus Interview – Introduced by Richard Kiley: Walt Disney
# Bonus Interview – Introduced by Richard Kiley: Ollie Johnston And Frank Thomas
# Bonus Interview – Introduced by Richard Kiley: Henry Mancini
The original 1942 release included 2 additional songs (that were subsequently removed) Soundtrack, IMDb.:
"Twitterpated"
(Based on Friend Owl's lecture on the amorous effects of spring)
Written by Helen Bliss, Robert Sour and Henry Manners
"Thumper Song"
Written by Helen Bliss, Robert Sour and Henry Manners

Voice cast

Actor	Role(s)
Bobby Stewart	Baby Bambi
Donnie Dunagan	Young Bambi
Hardie Albright	Adolescent Bambi
John Sutherland	Adult Bambi
Paula Winslowe	Bambi's Mother and Pheasant
Peter Behn	Young Thumper
Tim Davis	Adolescent Thumper, Adolescent Flower
Sam Edwards	Adult Thumper
Stan Alexander	Young Flower
Sterling Holloway	Adult Flower
Will Wright	Friend Owl
Cammie King	Young Faline
Ann Gillis	Adult Faline
Fred Shields	Great Prince of the Forest
Thelma Boardman	Girl Bunny, Quail Mother and Frightened Pheasant
Mary Lansing	Aunt Ena, Mrs. Possum, Pheasant
Margaret Lee	Mrs. Rabbit
Otis Harlan	Mr. Mole
Marion Darlington	Bird calls
Clarence Nash	Bullfrog

Supervising Animators

★ Frank Thomas

★ Milt Kahl

★ Eric Larson

★ Marc Davis

★ Ollie Johnston

★ Wolfgang Reitherman

Notes

See also

★ ''Bambi 2''

★ ''Anti-hunting''

★ ''Bambi, A Life in the Woods''

★ List of animated feature films

References

1. Kevin Jackson ' Tears of a fawn', The Independent, Feb. 6, 2005.
2. AFI's 100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains
3. Walt Disney Collection: Walt's Masterworks — Bambi.
4. ''The Trouble with Bambi: Walt Disney's Bambi and the American Vision of Nature'' by Ralph H. Lutts: From 'Forest and Conservation History' 36 (October 1992)
5. Maurice E. Day, Animator, 90; Drew Deer for Movie 'Bambi': Obituary in the New York Times, published May 19, 1983)
6. Interview with Steven Spielberg

External links

★

★ Bambi Special Edition DVD Home Page

★ "AFI's 100 YEARS… 100 Heroes & Villans" American Film Institute, n.d., Retrieved May 11, 2006.

★ David Ansen and Sean Smith, "Oscar Roundtable: Prize Fighters", "Newsweek", February 6, 2006, retrieved April 29, 2006.

★ Spoofed by " Cartoons Gone Bad". Thamper is an Thumper spoof.

★ "Washington Talk: Breifing; Elks, Parks and Bambi" By Jeff Gerth and Philip Shabecoff, "The New York Times", March 6, 1989, retrieved April 29, 2006.

★ Barrier, Michael, Graham Webb, and Hames Ware. "The Moving Drawing Speaks." ''Funnyworld'' #18, Summer 1978. pp.21.

★ Babbit, Burce. Urges California Leaders to Help 'Fight Fire With Fire.'" US Dept. of Interior. Washington: GPO, 1998

★ Stewart, Doug (Jun/Jul 2002, vol. 40 no. 4) "Fires of Life". National Wildlife Federation

★ The Animated Film Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to American Shorts, Features, and Sequences, 1900–1979, Webb, Graham, , , McFarland and Co., 2001, ISBN 0-7864-0728-X

★ "Fire Wars." Director Kirk Wolfinger. Performers: Matt Snider, Neil Sampson, Bruce Babbit. Nova. May 7, 2002

★ The Trouble with Bambi: Walt Disney's Bambi and the American Vision of Nature