Bambi meets Thumper on “The View”

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on

Here, courtesy of Hulu, is an excerpt from last Friday’s telecast of ABC’s The View which featured the first meeting, 69 years after the fact, of the voices of Disney’s Bambi and Thumper – Donnie Donagan and Peter Behn. If anyone locates the whole View segment online, let us know:

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  • Rodolfo

    You would never know Disney owns ABC.

  • http://www.illegibleme.com Andrew Smith

    Equally, if anybody finds a version of this clip viewable outside of the US I’d be very grateful!

  • http://www.classicparamountcartoons.blogspot.com ParamountCartoons
    • Peter H

      Nope. Still not viewable in the UK!

  • Animus

    Lovers of classic Universal monster movies know Donnie Dunnagan as little Peter, the “Son of Frankenstein” from the film of the same name with Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Basil Rathbone, made in 1939. He has appeared at several monster conventions in recent years, where he is known as a fun, engaging and exciting guy. After acting in childhood he was a career military officer, and still has a tough but kind hearted personality.

  • Darryl Heine

    They were kids when they voiced, but now they’re grown up and pushing 70-80!

    What’s next? Guest voices on Family Guy?

  • G. Melissa Graziano

    My question is, why is it that these two had never met? Wouldn’t they have both been at the premiere at least?

  • http://mannycartoon.com Manny

    I’m as surprised as you are Melissa.
    There are Animation conventions and even Disney specific shows that I would have figured would have done this years ago.

    I guess the saving grace of it all is that they were so young when they did it that this reunion is still an option.

    I was great to see how full of life they both are.

  • Animus

    After he grew up and started his military career, Dunagan kept his past acting experiences secret for fear the other soldiers would kid him about being “Bambi.” He was living in retirement when some fans of his work in “Son of Frankenstein” did some detective work and looked him up. Monster fans had been wondering for years whatever happened to the little kid from that film. The former child actor had no idea that he had become a legendary figure in monsterdom. He also performed with Basil Rathbone in 1939′s “Tower of London.”

  • http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/ Michael Sporn

    Peter Behn, obviously the shyer of the two, played the outspoken one – Thumper. I would like to have heard a bit more from him, but Dunagan dominated. The outspoken man played the shy deer, Bambi.

  • TsimoneTseTse

    Yea, for not sharing his experience for 50 years, Dunagan came across like he had been telling this story his whole life.

    About them and the premiere, wasn’t there a story about Adriana Caselotti not being invited to the opening of “Snow White?”

    I was curious as to why Whoopie, Disney voice actress, didn’t ask anything about the Disney recording process “back in the day?”

    • Brandon Pierce

      I don’t know about Caselotti not being invited to the premier, by Disney refused to let her do interviews claiming that he “owned her voice”. Also, he didn’t like the idea of crediting voice actors (or animators at the time), because he thought it gave audiences a better illusion that the characters are real.

      Didn’t Peter Behn do an interview for the VHS behind the scenes documentary back in the 90s?

      Have these two ever won Disney Legend awards?