50 free Bambi trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Bambi trivia questions with answers. Bambi is the Disney film everyone remembers for one scene, but its history is stranger than the mother's death: an Austrian novel banned by the Nazis and translated into English by a future Soviet spy, a studio zoo with two fawns, a Chinese-born artist whose paintings shaped every frame and who was credited only as a background painter, a hunting magazine that objected on regulatory grounds, and a sequel that arrived 64 years later. This quiz covers all of it, plus the characters (Thumper, Flower, Faline, Friend Owl, Ronno), the voices, the songs and the Oscar nominations. Early questions suit anyone who saw it as a child (which animal Flower is, what 'twitterpated' means). Later ones are for Disney historians: the fawns' names, the first re-release year, and what percentage of the studio's budget the film cost. Good for a family movie night or a Disney fan quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, the novel, the characters and Bambi II, and each question shows its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Disney's Bambi is based on a 1923 novel by which Austrian author?
Felix Salten
Bambi, a Life in the Woods was first serialised in Vienna's Neue Freie Presse in 1922.
Q 02In which year was Bambi released, its world premiere taking place in London that August?
1942
The New Gallery Cinema premiere came on 9 August; the US release followed on 13 August.
Q 03Which producer sold Walt Disney the film rights to Salten's novel in April 1937?
Sidney Franklin
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.
Q 04Where in the story's forest was Disney intending Bambi to sit in the studio's release order?
Second feature, right after Snow White
Story work began in 1938 and production proper on 17 August 1939.
Q 05Salten's novel is about a roe deer. Why did Disney switch Bambi to a white-tailed deer?
It was more recognised across the United States
Artist Jake Day spent weeks sketching and photographing deer in the forests of Vermont and Maine.
Q 06To help the animators, the studio kept a small in-house zoo. What were its two fawns called?
Bambi and Faline
The zoo also held rabbits, owls and skunks; actress Jane Randolph and Ice Capades skater Donna Atwood served as live-action references.
Q 07Which Chinese-born artist shaped Bambi's forest look but was credited only as a background artist?
Tyrus Wong
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.
Q 08Which character, a striped skunk, is one of Bambi's two best friends?
Flower
He was voiced by Stan Alexander; the name comes from Bambi mistaking him for a flower.
Q 09Thumper the rabbit is named for his habit of thumping which limb against the ground?
His left hind leg
Four-year-old Peter Behn voiced him; his popularity in production led the filmmakers to expand his part.
Q 10Thumper's rule, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all', was taught to him by whom?
His father
It is now known as the 'Thumperian principle'.
Q 11Thumper does not appear in Salten's novel. What was the equivalent character called there?
Friend Hare
Disney's Thumper drew on Beatrix Potter's Benjamin Bunny for looks and personality.
Q 12Who voiced the young Bambi?
Donnie Dunagan
Cammie King, who played Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone with the Wind, voiced young Faline.
Q 13What word does Friend Owl use to warn the young animals about falling in love in springtime?
Twitterpated
Bambi, Thumper and the young skunk all promptly succumb.
How is the hunter who kills Bambi's mother referred to by the animals?
Q 21Where did Bambi place on the American Film Institute's 2008 list of the ten greatest animated films?
Third
It was added to the National Film Registry in December 2011, when it was described as one of Walt Disney's favourites.
Q 22Salten's novel Bambi was banned in Nazi Germany in 1936. On what grounds?
As a political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe
Many copies were destroyed; scholars still read the book as a parable of Jewish persecution.
Q 23Who produced the first English translation of Bambi in 1928, later becoming notorious for other reasons?
Whittaker Chambers
Man
He is never shown on screen.
Q 15What did Larry Morey have removed from the storyboard of the mother's death scene as too dramatic?
A brief shot of her being shot after jumping a log
Time magazine later listed the film among its 25 greatest horror movies for the scene's 'primal shock'.
Q 16How long is Bambi?
70 minutes
It cost about $2 million and did not perform as hoped on release in wartime 1942.
Q 17Which number from Bambi's score was Oscar-nominated alongside Best Score?
Love Is a Song
Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb wrote the music, Larry Morey all the lyrics; the film was also nominated for Sound and Score.
Q 18Bambi has been re-released to US theatres six times, starting in which year?
1947
Further reissues came in 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982 and 1988, lifting the worldwide gross to about $267 million.
Q 19Which hunting magazine's editorial said shooting Bambi's mother in spring would have broken hunting rules?
Outdoor Life
Walt Disney later allowed his characters to appear in fire-prevention public service campaigns.
Q 20Which musician has credited the death of Bambi's mother for his initial interest in animal rights?
Paul McCartney
He was born in 1942, the year the film came out.
The translation sold more than 650,000 copies by 1942; Chambers later confessed to spying for the Soviets and accused Alger Hiss.
Q 24Critics recognise Salten's Bambi as one of the first novels of what kind?
Environmental
Its darker naturalism was substantially softened by the film, which added cheerful companions absent from the book.
Q 25Bambi II (2006) set what record for the gap between an original film and its sequel?
64 years
It took the mark from Fantasia 2000's 60-year gap.
Q 26Who voices the Great Prince of the Forest in Bambi II?
Patrick Stewart
The midquel is set between the mother's death and Bambi's adulthood, and follows the Prince learning to raise his son.
Q 27Bambi II premiered in cinemas in which country before going direct to video in the United States?
Argentina
It sold 2.6 million DVDs in its first week in the US and won the Annie for Best Animated Home Entertainment Production.
Q 28Which company distributed Bambi to theatres in 1942?
RKO Radio Pictures
Disney did not set up its own distributor, Buena Vista, until 1953.
Q 29Who was Bambi's supervising director?
David D. Hand
Six sequence directors worked under him.
Q 30Bambi's rival for the doe's affections, seen in both films, is a young buck named what?
Ronno
In Bambi II he bullies the fawn Bambi before the Great Prince intervenes.