Saddest children's movie: Dumbo vs. Bambi

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I think Dumbo is sadder than Bambi. It is the natural thing for children to outlive their parents. But in Dumbo, the baby was taken away from his mother. Both Dumbo and his mom are heartbroken. In addition, it was shown in the beginning of the movie that Dumbo’s mom was longing to have a baby, but no baby came to her for a while. Even though Dumbo and his mom are reunited in the end, while Bambi remains separated from his mom, I still think Dumbo is an overall sadder movie.

Bambi seemed to be older when he lost his mom than the practically newborn Dumbo was. Also, Bambi’s mother dies, so only Bambi is heartbroken (plus it is more or less the “natural order” of things). Not to mention, no one was trying to make a freak show out of Bambi.

What do you think? 🙂
 
I think Dumbo is sadder also and it is also a good opportunity to remember children who’s parent(s) are in prison and to pray for them and their family’s. Mrs. Jumbo didn’t do anything wrong, but the feeling of one’s parent being locked up has to be pretty similar. Also, the children of inmates tend to be the ignored victims. If a child’s parent dies, they can boast about all the wonderful things their parent did, a child who’s parent is imprisoned usually has to hide that fact. Heck my dd’s uncle is in prison and most of my family doesn’t know that fact (or they do and they just don’t say anything) but she has come with me to visit him in prison. It’s sad to say that it is the best prison out of all the one’s he’s been in because it at least has a playroom, toys, coloring and games for the kids.
 
Good point, gmarie! It must be particularly devastating to have a parent in prison for a lengthy term. How sad that in your experience many prisons do not have a nice place for inmates to spend time with their little ones. 😦
 
I don’t think either of them are sad. They both have happy endings.

For true sadness in a children’s movie, try Bridge to Teribithia. Even my HUSBAND was sobbing!
 
Cat said:
I don’t think either of them are sad. They both have happy endings.

For true sadness in a children’s movie, try Bridge to Teribithia. Even my HUSBAND was sobbing!
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Hmm… didn’t that have just as happy an ending? The girl dies, but the boy and his sister then continue the tradition together? How is that different from Bambi’s mom dying and Bambi going on to grow up and have a family of his own? (Not saying that Bridge to Terabithia isn’t sad, but it also had a happy ending) 🙂 But I suppose it may be sadder for adults to see it acted out by live children rather than the animated stories of Dumbo and Bambi.
 
I’ve heard that the saddest children’s movie ever is Ole Yeller. In fact, I’ve never seen it because I’m afraid it will be too sad. Has anyone seen it?

CatholicSam, I agree with you that a movie with real actors is sadder for many than an animated flick. I know that’s true for me.
 
Cat said:
I’ve heard that the saddest children’s movie ever is Ole Yeller. In fact, I’ve never seen it because I’m afraid it will be too sad. Has anyone seen it?

CatholicSam, I agree with you that a movie with real actors is sadder for many than an animated flick. I know that’s true for me.
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I’ve seen it. I can’t remember if I read Fred Gibson’s book or saw the movie first. I’d have to say Old Yeller is sadder than Dumbo or Bambi (I read the original book for that one too but don’t really remember it) since the sad part comes near the end rather than in the beginning or middle.
 
Cat said:
I’ve heard that the saddest children’s movie ever is Ole Yeller. In fact, I’ve never seen it because I’m afraid it will be too sad.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s tied for first with “Where the Red Fern Grows”! :crying:

Bambi vs. Dumbo… has to be Dumbo. Do you see any tears in Bambi when his mother is killed? In Dumbo, even Timothy the mouse is reduced to tears during “Baby Mine” (which gets me bawling even without watching the movie… listen to Alison Krause’s version on one of those Disney goes country CDs 👍 !)
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Oh yes, how could I forget about Ole Yeller? That one doesn’t even have any semblance of a happy ending (although it’s been a while since I’ve seen it). The thing with Ole Yeller is that the sad part only happens at the end, right? There’s a lot of good story before that happens. I don’t think you should be scared of it. Just be prepared to make up your own happy ending in your mind after it finishes 😉
 
Not only do I think Dumbo was more sad then Bambi… I thought the separation scenes were sort of disturbing. OK… it’s just an animated movie for pete’s sake, but Disney is a master of these things and Dumbo is a pinacle of tragedy as far as showing humans at their most uncaring. I can’t watch that movie again.

On the other hand, being a horse lover - Disneys version of Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty” (1991?) is a masterpiece of cineamatography, musical score, and the story is beautiful, albeit quite heartbreaking in scenes. However it also has a redemptive theme in the end, and I can watch this movie over and over. 👍
 
CatholicSam said:
Oh yes, how could I forget about Ole Yeller? That one doesn’t even have any semblance of a happy ending (although it’s been a while since I’ve seen it). The thing with Ole Yeller is that the sad part only happens at the end, right? There’s a lot of good story before that happens. I don’t think you should be scared of it. Just be prepared to make up your own happy ending in your mind after it finishes 😉
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Good movie…👍
 
ridesawhitehors said:
On the other hand, being a horse lover - Disneys version of Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty” (1991?) is a masterpiece of cineamatography, musical score, and the story is beautiful, albeit quite heartbreaking in scenes. However it also has a redemptive theme in the end, and I can watch this movie over and over. 👍
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Oops! my mistake. BB was actully a Warner Bros. movie. :o Still good!
 
ridesawhitehors said:
On the other hand, being a horse lover - Disneys version of Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty” (1991?) is a masterpiece of cineamatography, musical score, and the story is beautiful, albeit quite heartbreaking in scenes. However it also has a redemptive theme in the end, and I can watch this movie over and over. 👍
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I’m looking forward to watching this movie in a few weeks 🙂
 
bluerose said:
In Dumbo, even Timothy the mouse is reduced to tears during “Baby Mine” (which gets me bawling even without watching the movie…
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I’m tearing up, just thinking about that song.

:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:
 
MarthaMartha said:
I’m tearing up, just thinking about that song.

:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying:
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I was thinking that the sad thing about that song is the line “Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.” Because, inevitably, that will never, never, ever happen. Even if a mom is with her baby all the time, the baby eventually does part and grows up (Dumbo and his mom are being cheated out of irreplaceable time together). But even in the best of cases, either the mom or the “child” inevitably will die and part.
 
My youngest daughter was raised on Dumbo! It’s the only movie she ever watched when she was a little toddler. To this day, she loves elephants. A few years ago when she was 19, up in Baraboo, Wisconsin, she stood in line with all the little kids to get a ride on the elephant. And she visits the zoo in her city all the time to see the two baby elephants. She’ll actually bring her schoolwork and sit in front of their habitat for hours.

When I think of the movie Dumbo, I don’t think “sad” at all. I think of the marvelous “Pink Elephant” song and all the psychedelic animation that accompanied it. I also think of those black crows on the line and how politically incorrect this would be today. I think the movie is funny, not sad!

As for the treatment of the elephant, I just finished reading a book about Edison. Mrs. Jumbo was actually treated pretty humanely compared to how rogue elephants were often treated. “Elephant Executions” were common; Thomas Edison did one by electrocuting the elephant with alternating current to prove that Westinghouse and Tesla were trying to foist a very dangerous kind of electricity upon the public. (Edison was a fanatic about direct current and very opposed to alternating current.)

I read another book called Water for Elephants. A fiction novel, but thoroughly researched, and in this novel, the lead characters kidnap (or elephant-nap!) the elephant because they are afraid that it will end up “executed.”

So even though Mrs. Jumbo was given solitary confinement, it’s better than execution.
 
Hey, what about *Old Yeller! *???

That one is way sadder than either Bambi or Dumbo. And I actually found Dumbo to be both sad and uplifting because Dumbo overcame his detractors, basically it is the story of turning lemons into lemonade! My daughter seemed to watch Dumbo over-and-over-and-over again. Probably a few hundred times, or so it seemed.

Bambi didn’t do much for me, my daughter didn’t seem to care much about watching it very often and I think it sends are really bad environmental and social message anyway. I’m not a hunter, but the anti-hunting message in that story is overwhelmingly bad and a someone who moved from the city to a rural area I can tell you that those deer may be cute, but they are also overpopulated, sick and starving to death in many areas because of the anti-hunting crowd. They live on my land, I think they are beautiful, but we know call them “rats with antlers” because they are destructive to the crops, flowers, and trees. Our deer herd is too large, but they are not starving because we have lots of natural food for them to eat. They are, however, being hit by cars and being chased down by coyotes and killed that way.
 
Cat said:
I’ve heard that the saddest children’s movie ever is Ole Yeller. In fact, I’ve never seen it because I’m afraid it will be too sad. Has anyone seen it?

CatholicSam, I agree with you that a movie with real actors is sadder for many than an animated flick. I know that’s true for me.
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Ole Yeller involves a loyal family pet who contracts rabies and must be shot (it’s set in the 1800s).
 
chgo, thanks for the synopsis! I don’t think we’ll be renting Ole Yeller. About twelve years ago, a stray kitten who was slumming in our yard was attacked by a raccoon which might have been rapid, and the vet said that they had to put the kitten down, since they have no way to test animals for rabies other than killing them. (I HATE raccoons to this day!)

I pulled both of our daughters out of school to come home and say good bye to the kitten, and they both still cry at the memory of that poor kitten, which wasn’t even our kitten!

I think Ole Yeller would finish us all off!
 
I’d have to say Dumbo, but boy, I still can’t watch Bambi with my kids. They tell me Bambi II is really a tear jerker, too.

My daughter says that Dumbo is pretty sad, too.
 
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