In December 2011, the film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically and aesthetically significant'. In June 2008, the American Film Institute presented a list of its '10 Top 10'-the best ten films in each of ten classic American film genres-after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound ( Sam Slyfield), Best Song (for 'Love Is a Song' sung by Donald Novis) and Original Music Score. Illustrator Maurice 'Jake' Day convinced Disney that the mule deer had large 'mule-like' ears and were more common to western North America but that the white-tail deer was more recognized throughout America.

In the original book, Bambi was a roe deer, a species native to Europe but Disney decided to base the character on a mule deer from Arrowhead, California. The main characters are Bambi, a white-tailed deer his parents (the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother) his friends Thumper (a pink-nosed rabbit) and Flower (a skunk) and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline. The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942, and is the fifth Disney animated feature film. Bambi is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten.

Rabbit thumper bambi