Disney's Bambi It was an animator by the name of Maurice Day who first bought the Felix Salten book Bambi to the attention of Walt Disney. When Walt finally decided to make the movie, he thanked Maurice Day by holding the world premiere in Maurice' hometown of in the tiny Lincoln Theature of Damariscotta, Maine. Walt acquired the film rights to the book in the late 1930's. The author himself saw the movie for the first time at the European premier in 1942. Although the Disney corporation earned a lot from the production and a wide variety of merchandise, Salten earned very little. His daughter Anna Wyler however, entered into a more satisfactory arrangement when the copy write was renewed in 1954. Since it was the first Disney movie to star an all-animal cast, animators could not figure out how to make their characters more human and make them interesting enough to carry out a full film. However, their problem was solved the day they found the voice actor for Thumper. It gave them a new take on the picture and inspired them to draw the characters like kids in the neighborhood. Although the casting director though the young man was horribly untalented, the animators insisted he get the role. Bambi was the first Disney movie that stared a full animal cast. It was also the first Disney full-length animated feature to hold its world premiere outside the United States -it was first released in England. « Back