Bambi

Yes, we are actually talking about the 1942 Walt Disney classic and not the 1969 also classic Marv Newland short BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA. I recently had a discussion with a 9 year old who was adament the animation in VOLTRON was superior to that of BAMBI which prompted me to school him in the concept of the days when people hand drew or painted each individual frame of a cartoon or animated feature which boggled the poor little guys skull. In fact, watching BAMBI will pretty much boggle anybody's skull from that standpoint as the work is absolutely amazing. On watching it again I was surprised how the elements used here were revisited and expanded on in THE LION KING and I swear I was expecting Phil Collins to pop up any second and start singing The Circle of Life. As dark as BAMBI is what with the forest fire and Mama-Bambi buying the farm it was originally supposed to be even heavier with us seeing the charred remains of the hunter whose camp fire set off the big blaze and Bambi himself was to have been shot! Honestly! Many years later this one still holds up even if it wont interest most children over the age of five and you just have to love Peter Behn's vocal work as Thumper and Will Wright as Friend Owl's speech on "love" is a true great!