50 Fun Facts About Bambi

Disney's Bambi is based on a 1923 novel by which Austrian author?

Bambi, a Life in the Woods was first serialised in Vienna's Neue Freie Presse in 1922.

In which year was Bambi released, its world premiere taking place in London that August?

The New Gallery Cinema premiere came on 9 August; the US release followed on 13 August.

Which producer sold Walt Disney the film rights to Salten's novel in April 1937?

Disney intended it to be his second animated feature after Snow White, but the realistic deer proved so hard to animate that four other features got there first.

Where in the story's forest was Disney intending Bambi to sit in the studio's release order?

Story work began in 1938 and production proper on 17 August 1939.

Salten's novel is about a roe deer. Why did Disney switch Bambi to a white-tailed deer?

Artist Jake Day spent weeks sketching and photographing deer in the forests of Vermont and Maine.

To help the animators, the studio kept a small in-house zoo. What were its two fawns called?

The zoo also held rabbits, owls and skunks; actress Jane Randolph and Ice Capades skater Donna Atwood served as live-action references.

Which Chinese-born artist shaped Bambi's forest look but was credited only as a background artist?

He was dismissed after the 1941 Disney strike, spent 26 years at Warner Bros., was named a Disney Legend in 2001 and died in 2016 aged 106.

Which character, a striped skunk, is one of Bambi's two best friends?

He was voiced by Stan Alexander; the name comes from Bambi mistaking him for a flower.

Thumper the rabbit is named for his habit of thumping which limb against the ground?

Four-year-old Peter Behn voiced him; his popularity in production led the filmmakers to expand his part.

Thumper's rule, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all', was taught to him by whom?

It is now known as the 'Thumperian principle'.

Thumper does not appear in Salten's novel. What was the equivalent character called there?

Disney's Thumper drew on Beatrix Potter's Benjamin Bunny for looks and personality.

Who voiced the young Bambi?

Cammie King, who played Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone with the Wind, voiced young Faline.

What word does Friend Owl use to warn the young animals about falling in love in springtime?

Bambi, Thumper and the young skunk all promptly succumb.

How is the hunter who kills Bambi's mother referred to by the animals?

He is never shown on screen.

What did Larry Morey have removed from the storyboard of the mother's death scene as too dramatic?

Time magazine later listed the film among its 25 greatest horror movies for the scene's 'primal shock'.

How long is Bambi?

It cost about $2 million and did not perform as hoped on release in wartime 1942.

Which number from Bambi's score was Oscar-nominated alongside Best Score?

Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb wrote the music, Larry Morey all the lyrics; the film was also nominated for Sound and Score.

Bambi has been re-released to US theatres six times, starting in which year?

Further reissues came in 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982 and 1988, lifting the worldwide gross to about $267 million.

Which hunting magazine's editorial said shooting Bambi's mother in spring would have broken hunting rules?

Walt Disney later allowed his characters to appear in fire-prevention public service campaigns.

Which musician has credited the death of Bambi's mother for his initial interest in animal rights?

He was born in 1942, the year the film came out.

Where did Bambi place on the American Film Institute's 2008 list of the ten greatest animated films?

It was added to the National Film Registry in December 2011, when it was described as one of Walt Disney's favourites.

Salten's novel Bambi was banned in Nazi Germany in 1936. On what grounds?

Many copies were destroyed; scholars still read the book as a parable of Jewish persecution.

Who produced the first English translation of Bambi in 1928, later becoming notorious for other reasons?

The translation sold more than 650,000 copies by 1942; Chambers later confessed to spying for the Soviets and accused Alger Hiss.

Critics recognise Salten's Bambi as one of the first novels of what kind?

Its darker naturalism was substantially softened by the film, which added cheerful companions absent from the book.

Bambi II (2006) set what record for the gap between an original film and its sequel?

It took the mark from Fantasia 2000's 60-year gap.

Who voices the Great Prince of the Forest in Bambi II?

The midquel is set between the mother's death and Bambi's adulthood, and follows the Prince learning to raise his son.

Bambi II premiered in cinemas in which country before going direct to video in the United States?

It sold 2.6 million DVDs in its first week in the US and won the Annie for Best Animated Home Entertainment Production.

Which company distributed Bambi to theatres in 1942?

Disney did not set up its own distributor, Buena Vista, until 1953.

Who was Bambi's supervising director?

Six sequence directors worked under him.

Bambi's rival for the doe's affections, seen in both films, is a young buck named what?

In Bambi II he bullies the fawn Bambi before the Great Prince intervenes.

On which date did Bambi's US novel copyright expire, putting Salten's text in the public domain?

The Disney film and its characters remain under copyright.

What percentage of critics' reviews for Bambi are positive on Rotten Tomatoes?

Time magazine wrote that the mother's death 'has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters'.

What hobby did the Chinese-born artist behind Bambi's look take up in retirement near Santa Monica Pier?

He had entered the US in 1919 through Angel Island as a 'paper son' and did not gain citizenship until 1946.

Who provided the voice of the adult Thumper?

Hardie Albright and John Sutherland were among the voices of the older Bambi.

Which Bonnie Blue Butler actress from Gone with the Wind voiced the young doe Bambi falls for?

Faline is the doe Bambi eventually falls in love with.

What was Bambi's production budget?

Worldwide box office over all releases stands at about $267 million.

On which date did full production on Bambi begin?

The film's animators found deer far harder to draw convincingly than the cartoon animals of earlier features.

Bambi II was produced by which arm of Disney, working out of Australia?

Brian Pimental directed; it also had limited theatrical runs in France, Germany and Benelux.

How many copies did the first English translation of Bambi sell between 1928 and 1942?

Simon & Schuster published it, and it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

Whose personality and appearance inspired Disney's version of Thumper?

Bugs Bunny had debuted only two years before Bambi came out.

Bambi fronted US Forest Service fire ads in 1942 but was loaned for only a year. Who replaced him?

Disney lent the character to the government for just twelve months, so the Forest Service needed a mascot of its own and Smokey was born.

In Salten's novel, how is the doe Bambi eventually mates with related to him?

She is Aunt Ena's daughter, a twin whose brother Gobo disappears in the winter hunt. Disney quietly dropped the family tie.

In 2018 a Missouri judge ordered a deer poacher to watch Bambi how often during his year in jail?

The case was described as the biggest deer-poaching prosecution in the state's history, and the viewing order was written into the sentence.

In Bambi II, what can Bambi's young rival do that he never did in the 1942 film?

The belligerent buck was a silent brawler in the original; the sequel gives him lines, a mother who calls him home and a turtle that bites his nose.

Who voiced the young Bambi in the 2006 sequel Bambi II?

Gould was a busy child voice actor of the mid-2000s, and the sequel paired him with Patrick Stewart as the stern Great Prince.

In 1994 Bambi became the first Disney film dubbed into a Native American language. Which one?

Only the dialogue was dubbed; the songs stayed in English. The version vanished after 2,000 VHS tapes until Disney+ streamed it in 2022.

In Salten's novel, what is Gobo wearing when he returns, believing it keeps him safe from men?

Gobo had been rescued from the snow and raised by a man. His trust is fatal: he walks up to a hunter in the meadow and is shot.

How many DVDs did Bambi II sell in the United States in its first week?

Straight-to-video at home, it still played in cinemas in France, Germany and elsewhere, grossing about $35 million theatrically.

Bambi's London world premiere on 9 August 1942 was held at which venue?

It was the first Disney film to open abroad. The US release followed five days later, into a wartime market that left it short of its hold-over target.

Salten's Bambi was first serialised in 1922 in which Vienna newspaper?

The serial ran from August to October 1922; Ullstein issued it as a book in Berlin the next year. Salten himself was a keen hunter.