Trotting Like an Ant

"Trotting Like an Ant" is the third episode of the American animated television series Bambi. It first aired on Ausust 28, 1999, on ABC as part of Disney's One Saturday Morning.

Summary
Bambi encounters the Ant Society and decides he wants to be an ant, so he makes ant antennas and an extra pair of legs for himself and starts pretending to be like one. However, he soon finds out that it's harder to be like an ant when his friends start to worry about him and his new ways.

Plot
The episode starts with an ant civilization underneath the forest, working hard like they always do. However, their lives become disrupted when their anthill gets stepped on by Bambi, unaware that there was an anthill as he is prancing around. As the deer became curious, many ant workers come up to him, looking very cross with him, but he apologizes to them, and discovers that ants are really busy in the anthill, where they live. Although Bambi first thinks that it's just a simple hole, one of the ant workers proceeded to tell him that it's more than just a simple hole. Before Bambi can ask any further, the ants proceeded to get back to work, seemingly to repair the damage he has caused, and he decides to explore elsewhere where they won't have to deal with the ants. However, thinking about how busy ants are, he comes up with an idea that would represent an ant living among the forest animals.

Later that day, Bambi, now with an extra pair of legs, pincers, and ant antennas crafted by Thumper, struggles to trot like an ant, but eventually gets the hang of it. Thumper and Flower become confused, but eventually realize that it is Bambi's idea to be like an ant by doing things that an ant would usually do, and decide to accept it. Through the rest of the day, Bambi becomes busy with many things, like gathering food for his friends, helping them out, or even practicing some games that would be fit for an ant. That night, Bambi rests up in his home, thinking about how cool it was to be like an ant.

The next morning, Bambi wakes up to discover The Great Prince, who is worried about him becoming an ant, but eventually decides to just roll along with it, as he guides Bambi for a bit. When Bambi is free to do whatever, he heads to whatever his heart is telling him to do first, unaware that his friends are also becoming worried about him. As he continues to help more forest animals, they start to wish they were like ants, too, with Bambi telling them that all they need to do is to pretend that they are like ants. However, he is then greeted by his friends, who are worried sick about him, as he hasn't been playing with them lately, but Bambi couldn't say much about what's going on before he proceeds to get back to work, leaving them more worried than ever.

That night, Bambi has a dream of trotting freely in the forest as an ant-sized deer, taking in all the sights from an ant's perspective. However, when he comes across the anthill, it slowly becomes a nightmare when he realizes that now he has to work like them, which means he has to stay in the anthill forever with seemingly no way out until he dies, causing him to wake up from his horrible nightmare and realize that being an ant could be too much for him. The next day, once Bambi was done with his guided tour with The Great Prince, he rushes to Faline, but she slowly backs away from him, thinking that Bambi has become an ant. However, Faline slowly realizes who Bambi really is, and learns to love him again, before asking him to go on a "lovely tour", but he declines, and offers her the chance to help him out, instead, to which she accepts.

As Faline help Bambi out like an ant on various tasks, and playing around for a bit, he slowly realizes that while it's nice to get help, being an ant is more difficult than being a carefree fawn, even though he'll eventually have to work hard on protecting the forest when he becomes the next Great Prince of the forest. With this, Bambi finally decides to throw away the ant body parts that were crafted by Thumper, who decides that it's alright, since he liked it better when the fawn didn't had to work hard like an ant, anyways. As the sun sets, Bambi returns to the anthill, and notices the ants are curious to see him, compared to what happened last time, then thanks them for inspiring him to be like an ant, even though he's better off as a carefree forest animal, and finally decides to leave them be as he returns home to rest while the ants prepare to go to rest as well.

Production
This episode was inspired by one of the deleted ideas in the first Bambi film where Bambi would step on an anthill, and it would show the destruction of the ant civilization as well as what remains of it.

More coming soon!

US

 * Bambi: Season 1, Volume 1 (DVD)

Reception
Coming soon!