We arrive at Walt Disney’s 5th animated classic, “Bambi”! Released in 1942, it originally didn’t fare well in the box office due to the fact that it was released during WWII. But, the film has gone on to become a financial success due to many re-releases. It also received mixed critical reviews when it came out; but now is considered a classic and has even been selected by the National Film Registry to be preserved in its collection of films deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The story is well-known. It’s a sort of coming-of-age story of a deer named Bambi from his birth into adulthood. The film was Disney’s foray into a more realistic animation approach and taught valuable life lessons and emotions along the way. Now, I have to say that this film is one of the most memorable of the Disney classics in terms of its characters. I honestly couldn’t find any character who was forgotten/minor in this film. Everybody knows Bambi, his mother, Faline, her mother, Thumper and Family, Flower and Family, Friend Owl, Bambi’s father, Bambi’s rival, Man, and even the background animals! So far, this has been the hardest decision for me to make in this project, so I had to go with the last characters to be introduced in this film: Bambi and Faline’s twins!
This is at the ending when Faline gives birth and all the animals go forth to see her and the baby; in a manner so similar to Bambi’s birth that I’m pretty sure the animation was recycled! The animals gather around and are all happy and excited. Then a female raccoon cries out the famous word that causes everybody in the world to turn their attention, “Look!” And they do in fact look, i.e. take a closer look and they see that Faline hasn’t given birth to one, but rather two young deer who both seem to look exactly like Bambi in my opinion. I guess he had the dominant genes!
Bambi along with his father (presumably) are on a sort of precipice looking down at the gathering, both of them happy (presumably) to be a dad and grandfather respectively. And then the movie ends as the grandfather walks off and Bambi stays gazing! Now, I know that these twins are not important at all to the story; but they were the only choices I had to use as forgotten/minor characters. Like I said before, everyone else is too darn memorable! Everybody remembers Bambi and Faline; but few remember their offspring or wonder what became of them! Did they inherit the kingdom when they grew old as well? Did they have dealings with the horrible, unseen villain, “MAN”? Did they get “twitterpated” and mate and each give birth to quadruplets in a similar birth scene? We may never know unless they make a sequel!
Yes, Disney Toon Studios did indeed make a sequel to the film in 2006! And of course it’s not a gritty film as the above humorous picture implies; it’s actually a midquel about young Bambi and his relationship with his father after his mother’s passing. I guess they couldn’t come up with a good enough story revolving around the twins, so they had to make do by telling us what occurred between Bambi’s mother’s death and Bambi’s adulthood. I guess that does make sense because in the “Circle of Life”, the twins’ story might have been pretty much the same as Bambi’s, with the only difference being that there are two of them and not one. So it’s actually good that the sequel didn’t delve into that; but instead gave us more about the forest creature that we know and love
Anyway to wrap up, the twins are my pick for the forgotten/minor characters of this Disney classic!
The Animation Commendation 
According to BAMBI’S CHILDREN (the sequel to the original book), those two fawns are a male-female pair named Geno and Gurri. (Strange that the Disney film doesn’t recognize them by name…)
Interesting…well, they did appear at the end of the movie, so they didn’t need to name them.