Bambi
- This article is about the 1942 Walt Disney film. For other uses, see Bambi (disambiguation).
| Bambi | |
|---|---|
| File:Theatrical2.jpg | |
| Directed by | David D. Hand |
| Written by | Felix Salten (novel) Larry Morey (story adaptation) Perce Pearce (story direction) Gustaf Tenggren (illustration) |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Starring | Bobby Stewart Donnie Dunagan Hardie Albright John Sutherland Paula Winslowe Peter Behn Tim Davis Sam Edwards Will Wright Cammie King Ann Gillis Fred Shields Stan Alexander Sterling Holloway |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release dates | August 13, 1942 |
Running time | 70 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | (unknown) |
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 pink-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 more familiar to Americans.
Plot
The first half of the movie mainly involves Bambi's fawnhood, such as a walk through the woods, a day in the meadow, and his first encounter with snow.
The pivotal scene in the movie involves Bambi's mother and her death at the hands of a hunter. 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, three-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 that his mother is nowhere to be seen.
In a series of 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, he is crying, realizing what has happened (his mother was shot by Man). Nowhere to go, Bambi was forced to live with his father in the forest, taking one last look back.
The movie then skips 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 cliff 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 two fawns, with Bambi and his father standing proudly at the top of the mountain, looking down at them proudly as his father did at his own birth. At that point, the father, being proud of his own son, steps aside from his position, promoting Bambi as the new Great Prince of the Forest.
Pre-production
Walt Disney attempted to achieve realistic detail in this animated film. The artists heard lectures from animal experts, and visited the Los Angeles Zoo.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
Release history
Release dates
United States |
International
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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 in 1989[Classics], 1997[Masterpiece], and remastered and restored for the March 1, 2005 Platinum Edition DVD.[4] The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007.[5] The Masterpiece version was the 1st 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. 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.[citation needed]
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 2005, 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
- The off-screen villain "man" has been placed #20 on AFI's List of Heroes and Villains.[6]
- 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 saddest 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."[7]
- 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, and 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 Mother 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 Bambi'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. It contained a rapping Bambi, the New York Yankees, and American tourists.
- 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 2 henchwomen who guard the villain's house are called Bambi and Thumper.
- Bambi and Faline were featured as guests in House of Mouse.
- A famous cartoon short Bambi Meets Godzilla plays off Bambi's innocence.
- Bambi and Faline appear in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Also, in the original script, Judge Doom was revealed to be the hunter who killed Bambi's Mother.But,Spielberg realized this would be too extreme for the movie,so he changed it.[citation needed]This idea later showed up in Beauty and the Beast,where the evil Gaston was revealed as the hunter.
- Bambi placed #20 on Time magazine's list of top 25 horror films.
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 two additional songs (that were subsequently removed):[8]
- "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
See also
References
- ^ Walt Disney Collection: Walt's Masterworks — Bambi.
- ^ 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)
- ^ Maurice E. Day, Animator, 90; Drew Deer for Movie 'Bambi': Obituary in the New York Times, published May 19, 1983)
- ^ How They Restored Bambi, Monsters and Critics.
- ^ IGN.
- ^ AFI's 100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains
- ^ Interview with Steven Spielberg
- ^ Soundtrack, IMDb.
External links
- Bambi at IMDb
- Bambi Special Edition DVD Home Page
- "AFI's 100 YEARS… 100 Heroes & Villains" 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: Briefing; 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, Bruce. "Babbitt Urges California Leaders to Help 'Fight Fire With Fire.'" US Dept. of Interior. Washington: GPO, 1998
- Stewart, Doug (June/July 2002, vol. 40 no. 4) "Fires of Life". National Wildlife Federation
- Webb, Graham (2001). The Animated Film Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to American Shorts, Features, and Sequences, 1900–1979. McFarland and Co. 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
