Bambi - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Bambi or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Bambi

[tom]

This was originally meant to be Disney's second full length feature but there were difficulties in animating deer realistically so the project was delayed. Pinocchio (1940) was the second feature from the studios.

[bernice]

Unusual for the time, Walt Disney insisted on children providing the voices for the animals when they were young, instead of using adults mimicking youngsters.

[phyllis]

Bambi doesn't speak until 13 minutes into the film.

[carl]

This is the first Disney animated feature film to not have any humans and only one to do so until Robin Hood (1973).

[kenneth]

Many movie-watchers in the 1940s were not prepared to see killing in any Disney movies at that time. Which is pretty common nowadays showing the protagonist's relative, spouse, or parent killed in movies to make a deeper, and sadder story. This was the first Disney film to bring this out to the public.

[claude]

The first Disney animated feature film to be composed by Edward H. Plumb, who eventually became a recurring composer after Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith, and Oliver Wallace.

[jeffrey]

Didn't get released in Japan until 1957.

[ethel]

One of the many rejected ideas was to show the hunter killed by the very forest fire that he had accidentally started.

[stephanie]

"Bambi" premiered August 8, 1942 in London - a very daring move in the midst of war - and a few days later in New York. Despite glowing reviews, it was an initial box office disappointment. This prompted Disney to re-release Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) in the summer of 1944, a tactic that the studio regularly adopts now for all their animated features.

[violet]

Donnie Dunagan kept his role of Young Bambi quiet while in the Marines, as he feared he would pick up the nickname "Bambi". He would have a remarkable career in the service, becoming the youngest drill instructor in its' history, rising to the rank of Major and serving in the Vietnam War where he would be decorated for valour and wounded three times.

[eli]

To design Bambi's scenes, Walt Disney traveled to Argentina in 1941, and there he was inspired in the forests of Neuquén province in the southwest of that country.

[jessica]

Sidney Franklin originally initiated "Bambi" as a film project in 1933, envisioning it as a live action film. He had even gone to the stage of recording Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda's voices. Eventually he realized that the technology simply wasn't adequate enough to make the film. After seeing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), it dawned on Franklin that there was someone who could realize "Bambi" as a movie. So he contacted Walt Disney who immediately leaped at the idea of working on the project. Disney started work on the film in 1936, though he was also developing Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941) and Pinocchio (1940) at the same time. All this explains why there is a dedication in the film's opening credits "To Sidney A. Franklin - our sincere appreciation for the inspiring collaboration".

[chad]

The film briefly depicts two realistic leaves falling to the ground. The original plan was, however, to have the leaves be sentient and conversing like an old married couple while falling down. Walt Disney thought that talking flora did not fit this film and revised the scene.

[charlie]

"Man is in the forest" was a code phrase used by Disney's employees when Walt Disney was coming down the hallway.

[dustin]

For the film's Platinum Edition DVD release in 2005, over 110,000 frames were cleaned up individually, requiring more than 9,600 hours of work. This was done from a copy of the original nitrate negative borrowed from the Library of Congress.

[brent]

When Bambi is fighting Ronno. It's easy to tell who's winning when you look at the colors in the background. When Ronno is winning the colors are green, blue, and black. When Bambi is winning, the colors are yellow, orange, and sometimes pink. This is all explained in the commentary by Walt Disney himself in the 2-Disc Platinum Edition.

[miriam]

The forest setting depicted in the film was based on the forests of Maine and Vermont. Maurice "Jake" Day provided detailed sketches and photographs of the forests and their wildlife.

[melinda]

Final film to feature Frank Churchill as the composer. The film was released posthumously.

[frederick]

One of the reasons for the film's initial failure at the box office was that it was released in fewer markets than its predecessors. Events of the European theatre of World War II and severance of relations of the United States with Axis Powers members resulted in the film not being released in most of Europe and Japan.