Trailer
Plot summary
A newborn fawn in the forest thicket is given the name Bambi by his mother, and the woodland creatures gather around him because his lineage means he will grow up to be the prince of the forest. A rabbit kit named Thumper, who is always being reminded of what his father taught him, joins the fawn as he tries out his unsteady legs and blurts out his first word. A baby skunk keeps the name Flower after Bambi mistakes him for a blossom. On the meadow, Bambi's mother warns him that the open ground leaves the deer unprotected, and there he meets Faline, a fawn his aunt Ena has brought.
Cast
- Thelma Boardmanas Girl Bunny / Quail Mother / Female Pheasant (voice) (uncredited)
Show all 20 cast
- Marion Darlingtonas Birds (voice) (uncredited)
- Bobette Audreyas (voice) (uncredited)
- Jeanne Christyas (voice) (uncredited)
- Dolyn Bramston Cookas (voice) (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bambi (1942)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Walt Disney considered having Bambi step on an ant hill and showing the damage to the ant civilization, but after weeks of development the idea was dropped because it had nothing to do with the story.
SPOILER
Bambi's mother's death was originally shown on screen, with a shot of her being shot after jumping over a log, but Larry Morey argued the scene was too dramatic and her death was moved off screen.- Walt Disney wanted the hunter to burn to death in the fire he started, but this was dropped when it was decided not to show the man at all.
- The film was intended to have six individual bunny characters like the dwarfs in Snow White, but Perce Pearce suggested five generic rabbits and one with a different color and one tooth, which became Thumper.
- A scene with two autumn leaves talking like an old married couple was cut because Walt Disney felt talking flora did not work, and a visual metaphor of two realistic leaves falling was used instead.
- To make the animals move realistically, Disney animators watched them up close, both at the Los Angeles Zoo and at a small zoo in the studio with rabbits, owls, skunks, and two fawns called Bambi and Faline.
- For the icy pond scene with Bambi and Thumper, the film used live-action footage of humans, with actress Jane Randolph and Ice Capades star Donna Atwood as references.
- Tyrus Wong's impressionistic forest paintings led to his hiring as a background artist; his backgrounds were revolutionary because they had more detail around the center and less around the edges, guiding the viewer's eye to the characters.
