History WesternAnimation / Bambi

* TheCameo: Being an iconic Disney character, Bambi and other characters have made multiple reappearances in Disney media:

* CarnivoreConfusion: Salten addresses it a bit more directly than Disney does. In the Disney film, the only predators are Friend Owl and Flower (not counting the hunter's dogs), and neither is actually shown eating anything (or anyone). In fact, the worst Friend Owl does to a squirrel is that he gives it an angry glare when it doesn't want to go away from looking at Bambi.
* CerebusRollercoaster: Both films, particularly the first one, vary between being some of Disney's most lighthearted, sentimental and cutesy animation and some of their darkest, most brutal animation.
* ComicBookAdaptation: Along with not one but two comic book retellings of the film itself, Disney also published a comic of the original novel's sequel ''Bambi's Children''. Though still using the film's mythos and cast, it follows the story of the second novel closer than the film did the first.
* ComingOfAgeStory: Bambi, and to a lesser extent his friends, goes from a child to a mature adult and then a father over the course of the film.
* CowardlyLion: Bambi in the midquel.
* CrossOver: Some of the old Dell comics have crossovers with other Disney series, such as "Thumper Meets The Seven Dwarves" and an issue where Bambi (as a yearling) meets Chip N Dale.

Salten's sequel book, ''Bambi's Children'', was also considered by Walt Disney for a film adaptation, though was cancelled in early development. Disney did make an adaptation of the novel through their Dell published comic series in 1943 however, alongside one based on the first film. Nearly a decade later, a [[Manga/{{Bambi}} one-shot manga version]] was drawn by none other than longtime Disney admirer Creator/OsamuTezuka, to tie in with the film's belated Japanese release in 1951.

Both the book and the movie are a ComingOfAgeStory that follows the titular character, a young deer (a roe deer in the book, [[AdaptationSpeciesChange a white-tailed deer in the movie]]), from birth to adulthood in the forests of Austria (in the book) or Maine (in the movie).

* SceneryPorn: The backgrounds of the movies look like something out of a Norman Rockwell {{painting|s}}. Perhaps the best known example is the long forest pan at the very start of the first film.

* SceneryPorn: The backgrounds of the movies look like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Perhaps the best known example is the long forest pan at the very start of the first film.

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: Despite being featured in a more down to earth setting, it is very difficult if not impossible to pin down a specific point in time in the series. There is no indication of what time the film or its midquel take place or where beyond the general depiction of an eastern American forest. The stories do not feature any (on-screen) humans[[note]]the sequel comic [[LooseCanon of dubious canon]] ''Bambi's Children'' does feature them and they are depicted in a culture consistent with the 1940's, when the first film and comic were made.[[/note]], only animals in the wild who have basic, symbolic personalities, and there are zero pop culture references, so there's hardly anything within the setting that could ever become dated. Even the characters more humanized behaviour in the direct-to-video midquel is ''just'' detached enough from any specific human culture to remain rooted outside of any specific time or place.

* EnclosedSpace: The story is set entirely in the boundaries of the forest, which the characters never leave. Justified as the Maine woods, especially in the 1940's (and still somewhat even today) are quite extensive.

* SpinOff: Thumper received his own series of books called "Disney Bunnies" in the 2000's.

Despite this, a {{Midquel}}, ''WesternAnimation/BambiII'', was released in 2006 (a DirectToVideo release for parts of US and Asia, and theatrical elsewhere). It focuses on the period of Bambi's life immediately following his mother's death. Released 64 years after the original film, it holds the world record for the [[SequelGap longest span of time between two consecutive installments of a film franchise.]]

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Released on August 13, [[TheForties 1942]], ''Bambi'' is the fifth movie in the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon. It's based on ''[[Literature/{{Bambi}} Bambi, a Life in the Woods]]'' (''Bambi, Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde'') a 1923 novel by Austrian author Felix Salten.

* UnbuiltTrope: Despite being the TropeCodifier for many cutesy baby forest anima] franchises, the first film was noticeably ominous and dark in many areas, especially after the TimeSkip where upon Bambi is no longer an innocent fawn but a badass stag constantly under threat of predators and hunters. The midquel is LighterAndSofter, though still stays loyal to the dark undertones and showing [[TookALevelInBadass Bambi's maturing]] in parts.

On January 24, 2020 Disney announced they would be remaking the film with the same photo-realistic animation style as ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019''. Geneva Robertson-Dworet (''Film/CaptainMarvel'') and Lindsey Beer will write the screenplay, with Creator/ChrisWeitz and Creator/PaulWeitz’s "Depth of Field" producing the film.

* SilenceIsGolden: The film is surprisingly light on dialogue, only having around 950 lines in the entire film. A fan analyzed the film and discovered that (not counting the non-diagetic songs and non-speaking voice effects), the film [[https://vimeo.com/340720744 only has around 11 minutes of dialogue total out of its 1:10 runtime.]] The midquel has loads more dialogue, however.

** First off, in the original novel Bambi and Faline are [[KissingCousins cousins]], but in the film it was changed so that they're not blood-related. However, Faline's mother is still called "Aunt Ena" for some reason. Weirdly enough, this has been included in a few storybook adaptations of the movie.
*** Calling Ena "Aunt" is less problematic today, when it has become fairly common practice, at least in the US, for children to refer to their parents' close friends as "aunt" or "uncle".

** "Your mother can't be with you anymore." ...It's spring again! Birds are singing!
*** The midquel takes place in-between this gap.

* OffModel: Faline's eyes switch between blue and brown several times.

* HopeSproutsEternal: After the forest fire, grass and flowers are seen growing amongst the charred, blackened tree trunks.

* IgnorantAboutFire: It's implied that "Man" started a forest fire by leaving his campfire unattended, nearly destroying the whole forest. A cut scene would've shown that "Man" was killed in the forest fire.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bambi-650_6270.jpg]]

* StockCartoonAnimalDepictions: The title character and all the other deer, which are all white-tailed deer. In the original book, they were all roe deer.

* AbsenteeActor: While Bambi is predictably present in the majority of his series works, he's notably absent from the ''Disney Bunnies'' storybooks in order to put the focus on Thumper. He's likewise absent from a few of the older Dell comic books starring Thumper for similar reasons.

In 2020 Disney announced they would be remaking the film with the same photo-realistic animation style as ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019''.