One Hundred and One Dalmatians

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This article is about the 1961 animated film. For the 1996 live-action movie, see 101 Dalmatians.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Directed by Clyde Geronimi
Hamilton Luske
Wolfgang Reitherman
Produced by Walt Disney
Written by Dodie Smith (novel "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians")
Bill Peet (story)
Starring Rod Taylor
Cate Bauer
Betty Lou Gerson
Ben Wright
Lisa Davis
Martha Wentworth
Music by George Bruns
Mel Leven (songs)
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s) January 25, 1961
Running time 79 min.
Language English
Budget $4,000,000 USD (estimated)
Followed by 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2003)
IMDb profile

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians) is the seventeenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was made and produced by Walt Disney, and it was originally released to theaters on January 25, 1961 by Buena Vista Distribution. It is based on the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.

The film features Rod Taylor as the voice of Pongo, the first of the Dalmatians, and Betty Lou Gerson as the voice of the villainous Cruella De Vil. The plot centers on the fate of the kidnapped puppies of Pongo and Perdita.

Contents

Pongo is a dalmatian who lives in a London bachelor flat with his owner (pet in Pongo's mind), Roger Radcliffe, a professional songwriter. Unlike Roger who spends his days writing music, Pongo is bored with bachelor life and decides to find a wife for his pet and a mate for himself. He sees a beautiful female dalmatian, Perdita and her pet, Anita heading to Regent's Park and later leads Roger to the park to meet up with them. After an awkward and unusual meeting that almost goes awry, Pongo's efforts pay off as Roger and Anita fall in love along with him and Perdita.

Once Roger and Anita (and Pongo and Perdita) get married, Perdita gives birth to 15 Dalmatian puppies. Cruella De Vil, an eccentric and wealthy social parasite known to Anita from their school years, offers the human couple a large sum of money in return for the puppies so that she can make a dog-skin coat out of them. The human couple refuses, but Cruella, who won't take no for an answer, hires Jasper and Horace Badun to kidnap the puppies. The humans try every effort to locate the stolen puppies but to no avail.

Heartbroken and desperate, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", a dog gossip chain, to alert the other dogs in England and locate their puppies. Once the puppies are located, it is up to Pongo and Perdita, along with the help of some animal friends they meet along the way, to rescue their 15 puppies along with 84 other puppies in Cruella's possession. In order to fool Cruella and the Baduns, the dalmatians smother their coats in black soot, covering up their spots making them appear like black labradors. They hitch a ride back to London in a moving van but not before Cruella and her partners see through the dog's disguises. Jasper and Horace in their truck and Cruella in her car race after the van with the dalmatians inside. Trying to cut the van off from two different directions, the villains' vehicles collide with one another and crash into a deep ravine while the dogs go to safety. Comically, the villains are shown alive and well, with Cruella berating the Baduns before starting to cry. Jasper's response: "Aaah, shaddup." (sic)

The dalmatian clan make it back home to London where Roger and Anita decide to raise the 84 other dogs along with their seventeen, so making 101 Dalmatians.

The production of the film signaled a change in the graphic style of Disney's animation. This occurred with the introduction of Xerography which eased graphic reproduction requirements, but at the price of being unable to deviate from a scratchy outline style because of the new (and time and money saving) technology's limitations, recognizable by its thick black lines. Since the line would not have fit the "round" Disney drawing style used until then (with the exception of Sleeping Beauty), a more graphic, angular style was chosen for this and subsequent films. Rotoscoping, a technique formerly used for tracing live action human characters into animated drawings, became less important.

The technology change also happened when Disney cut its animation department after the economical failure of the very expensive Sleeping Beauty, resulting in a reduction of staff from well over 500 to less than 100 and fewer resources put into the movies. Walt Disney, who at this point had started to direct his attention more towards television and his Disneyland amusement park and less on his animated features, disliked this development. But Disney's last two animated films, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats, were both xerography films; all animated Disney since his death use xerography. The "sketchy" graphic style would, however, remain the norm at Disney for years until the technology improved prior to the release of The Rescuers to allow a softer look. In later animated features the Xeroxed lines could be printed in different colors. In which, the xerography today were not scratchy. Unlike many other Walt Disney animated features, One Hundred and One Dalmatians only features one song in it, "Cruella De Vil" (ironic, considering that Roger was a professional songwriter). Even this song isn't sung to its entirety. The only other song is Dalmatian Plantation, which only contains two lines and is sung as a closer. The MPAA was close to re-rating this movie due to the new criteria about smoking.

In the original book, Pongo was mated with a "Missus Pongo", and Perdita was a lost female that was taken in to help wet-nurse the original 15 puppies. Perdita's mate was missing, but appeared up at the end. The four adult dogs were condensed into two in the film, and Disney made up for the missing adult dogs by adding two stolen puppies to Cruella's stash. In addition, Roger and Anita in the film are named "Mr. and Mrs. Dearly" in the book. This was the first animated Disney feature to take place in a contemporary setting.

Cruella DeVil takes out her anger on Jasper and Horace, her bumbling henchman. This image illustrates the exaggerated mannerisms and appearance of De Vil, key to her character's continued success among audiences and critics alike.
Cruella DeVil takes out her anger on Jasper and Horace, her bumbling henchman. This image illustrates the exaggerated mannerisms and appearance of De Vil, key to her character's continued success among audiences and critics alike.
  • Pongo

Voiced by Rod Taylor, is the protagonist and the father of the Dalmatian puppies. Pongo and some other dalmations also appear at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as meetable characters.

  • Perdita

Voiced by Cate Bauer and Lisa Daniels, is Pongo's mate and the mother of the Dalmatian puppies. She's quieter and more refined than her husband.

  • Roger Radcliffe

Voiced by Ben Wright, is Pongo's owner and a struggling songwriter; eventually becomes rich when creating a song about Cruella de Vil, who is Anita's social parasite.

  • Anita Radcliffe

Voiced by Lisa Davis, is Perdita's owner and Roger's wife. She is something of an artist.

  • Cruella de Vil
Main article: Cruella de Vil

Voiced by Betty Lou Gerson, is the villainess of the film; an eccentric rich woman who has the puppies kidnapped in order to turn them into a fur coat. She is a social parasite; she visits her ex-classmates, keeping pretence of friendship, while taking advantage of their fears. She has an obsession for pelts, but in fact is only shown wearing a single, voluminous white coat. Beneath this, she wears a skintight swimming suit and sometimes a black dress. Cruella smokes constantly and has no scruples with either committing blackmail or driving badly. She drives a long red car that appears to be a Bugatti Type 57, and is known for operating it recklessly.

  • Jasper and Horace Badun

Voiced by J. Pat O'Malley and Frederick Worlock respectively, are Cruella's comic relief henchmen who carry out the kidnapping. Jasper is tall and thin, while Horace is short and fat; otherwise, they are obviously fraternal twin brothers. They argue often. Although they appear to be stupid, Horace appears to be the more intelligent of the two, but is absolutely intimidated by his brother, who has the more ready tongue. Jasper has a closed mind to the possibility of sapience in dogs-- as well as the equal possibility of cleverness in his brother. He drinks alcohol, whereas Horace eats sandwiches. Both enjoy watching a weekly television program called "What's My Crime?", wherein the misdeeds of lawbreakers are guessed by a panel of contestants. One of the guest stars of this program, Percival "Meathead" Faunsquater, is an acquaintance of theirs.

  • Nanny

Voiced by Martha Wentworth, is Roger and Anita's maid. Very maternal and fussy. Detests Cruella, has no patience for teasing, and is very attached to the puppies. Worthless in a crisis except to give the alarm.

  • Lucky
Main article: Lucky (Dalmatian)

Voiced by Mimi Gibson, is the runt puppy from Pongo and Perdita who nearly dies immediately after being born. He is given the name "Lucky" because of being revived by Roger, who thawed him out by means of friction. He loves watching T.V. Lucky is usually played as a troublemaker, and often left behind because he never pays attention.

  • Rolly

Voiced by Barbara Baird, is one of Pongo and Perdita's puppies; always hungry, and shown as pudgier than the rest of the young puppies. His collar is usually shown tight around his neck with his fat bunched up around it.

  • Patch

Voiced by Mickey Maga, is Pongo and Perdita's puppy. (All of the puppies below are Pongo and Perdita's 15 puppies) Loves Thunderbolt and has a spot on his right eye. Patch is normally very aggressive, barking and growling, but in the end, shows signs of being afraid of Cruella De Vil.

  • Penny

Voiced by Sandra Abbott, Is the only dog that doesn't have a specific name after her appearance or habbits like her other siblings. She's often seen along side her brother, Patch. Penny tends to agree to anything the other puppies decide.

  • Freckles

Voiced by Mary Wickes, is another puppy of Pongo and Perdita's; has a pattern of spots over the bridge of the nose resembling freckles on a human child. Freckles is generally shown very tired, or asking many questions.

  • Pepper

Unknown voicing, unusally wrinkles his nose, resulting in his name.


  • The Colonel, the Captain, and Sergeant Tibs: An Old English Sheepdog, a horse, and a cat who help mastermind a rescue mission to save the puppies from Cruella.

This film was the highest grossing film of 1961 and one of the studio's most popular films of the decade and was re-issued in 1969, 1979, 1985, and 1991, the last re-issue being one of the top 20 films of the year at the box office [1].

This film was released on VHS in 1992 with a trailer of Aladdin (as part of the Walt Disney Classics video series), March 9, 1999 (as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection),and on DVD December 19, 1999 as part of Disney's Limited Issue series. A Platinum Edition DVD release was originally scheduled for March 2007, but it was unexpectedly replaced by Peter Pan, as revealed from the Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid. [2] It is confirmed to be released on March 4, 2008.

In the years since the original release of the movie, Disney has taken the property in various directions. The most widely known, as well as the earliest of these endeavors was the live-action remake, 101 Dalmatians. Starring Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil, none of the animals talked in this 1996 edition. This version's success in theatres led to 102 Dalmatians, released on November 22, 2000.

After the first live-action version of the movie, a cartoon called "101 Dalmatians: The Series" was launched. The designs of the characters were stylized further, to allow for economic animation, and appeal to the contemporary trends.

Most recently, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure was released direct-to-video, as a sequel to their 1961 animated film. Released on January 21, 2003, it returns closer to the style of the movie, but still slightly simplifying the imagery. The movie took a musical-like approach, with almost double the amount of songs compared to the original, some of which were in the original film as well.

Author Dodie Smith released her own sequel to the book, The Starlight Barking, which has never been adapted by any film company.

Pongo, Perdita and some of their puppies were featured as guests in House of Mouse, and Cruella De Vil was one of the villains featured in Mickey's House of Villains.

In Kingdom Hearts, Pongo and Perdita, living in Tranverse Town, have lost their puppies when the Heartless appeared. One of the side missions is to collect the 99 puppies.

v • d • e
Disney theatrical animated features
Official canon

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) • Pinocchio (1940) • Fantasia (1940) • Dumbo (1941) • Bambi (1942) • Saludos Amigos (1942) • The Three Caballeros (1944) • Make Mine Music (1946) • Fun and Fancy Free (1947) • Melody Time (1948) • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) • Cinderella (1950) • Alice in Wonderland (1951) • Peter Pan (1953) • Lady and the Tramp (1955) • Sleeping Beauty (1959) • One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) • The Sword in the Stone (1963) • The Jungle Book (1967) • The Aristocats (1970) • Robin Hood (1973) • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) • The Rescuers (1977) • The Fox and the Hound (1981) • The Black Cauldron (1985) • The Great Mouse Detective (1986) • Oliver & Company (1988) • The Little Mermaid (1989) • The Rescuers Down Under (1990) • Beauty and the Beast (1991) • Aladdin (1992) • The Lion King (1994) • Pocahontas (1995) • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) • Hercules (1997) • Mulan (1998) • Tarzan (1999) • Fantasia 2000 (1999) • The Emperor's New Groove (2000) • Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) • Lilo & Stitch (2002) • Treasure Planet (2002) • Brother Bear (2003) • Home on the Range (2004) • Chicken Little (2005) • Meet the Robinsons (2007) • Bolt (2008) • The Princess and the Frog (2009) • Rapunzel (2010)
Live-action films
with animation
DisneyToon features
Other
See also
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