This was animal anatomy, and beyond that animal locomotion. There was a certain awe and respect we had for this classic, Bambi, I decided I’d have to put my artists back in school to learn something you don’t get in the formal art education. But with Bambi, there was a need for subtlety in our animation and the need for a more lifelike type of animation. Snow White, Pinocchio, and the others were more the obvious cartoon-type of characters. “It was a change of pace for us from what we’d been doing. It was Sidney who played a big part in really moving us up a step, I’d say.”Įven after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was completed, Walt discovered that he had not yet developed the art of animation to the point where his artists could create a film as poetic and sophisticated as Bambi. Sidney insisted that we really get the story worked out. Franklin, Walt later said, “was one of our top producer/directors in the business and a man I respected very much. Believing that only the artistry of Disney animation could fully bring this gentle story to life, Franklin contacted Walt in 1935 to encourage him to make the film instead. MGM filmmaker Sidney Franklin purchased the screen rights to the Bambi novel in 1933, but soon realized a live-action film with an all-animal cast would be too challenging to achieve. Released just a few years later, the wacky and most un- Bambi-like comedy, The Shaggy Dog (1959), was based loosely (very loosely) on another Salten book, The Hound of Florence. Based on another Salten story, this Bambi-like live-action feature used real animals to tell the fictional “true-life fantasy” of a little pine squirrel. “When I read the book,” Walt later recalled, “I got excited about the possibilities about animals, what we could do with them.” Walt turned again to the writings of Salten in 1957 when he released Perri. First published in German in 1923, Bambi was first published in English in 1928 and became a best-selling selection of the Book of the Month Club. Walt’s fifth animated feature is based on the novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Austrian writer Felix Salten, the pen name of Siegmund Salzmann.

Supervising animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas wrote in their 1990 book-length account of the creation of Bambi: “Of all the great pictures Walt Disney made, this was his favorite. It is ours, too.” As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of this beautifully wrought film, let’s follow Bambi through a forest full of fun facts about this unforgettable film. Delicately rendered but with compelling scenes of great power and dramatic action, Bambi is considered by many to be the unsurpassed pinnacle of the art of animation. A timeless trek through a lyrical forest, Bambi (1942) is Walt Disney’s masterfully crafted animated tale of a young fawn and his family and friends as he discovers the glories-and the hard truths-of life in the wilderness.

Bambi 1928