When One Hundred and One Dalmatians debuted on January 25, 1961, it introduced a much different look for a Disney animated feature.
During production, Ken Anderson, art director of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, took inspiration from Ronald Searle, a cartoonist whose work had appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Life. Backgrounds in the film adopted a much more contemporary style, resembling modern art, and represented a tonal shift from traditional Disney background paintings.
This style of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, celebrating its 65th anniversary this month, was very prevalent in animation at the time and was first introduced by United Productions of America Studios. It’s one of the many unique aspects of the film that made it such a hit.
Walt Disney purchased the rights to the novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith, a year after the book was published in 1956. Walt gave the book to story artist Bill Peet and tasked him with writing a screenplay before any storyboarding would be done. This was a first for a Disney animated feature.
In the film, dalmatians Pongo (actor Rod Taylor) and Perdita (actresses Cate Baure and Lisa Daniels) and their “pet humans,” husband and wife Roger (Ben Wright) and Anita (Lisa Davis) Radcliffe await Perdita’s delivery of their litter of puppies, but then, Anita’s former schoolmate Cruella De Vil (Betty Lou Gerson) emerges, looking to “adopt” the puppies (with nefarious plans to make a spotted dalmatian fur coat).
Cruella hires two dim-witted henchmen, Jasper (J. Pat O’Malley) and Horace (Fred Worlock), to kidnap Pongo and Perdita’s fifteen puppies. Pongo and Perdita run away from home to find their puppies. When they arrive at Cruella’s dilapidated lair, “Hell Hall,” they see them along with a slew of other dalmatian puppies (in all, 101 to be exact).
As Pongo, Perdita, and all the puppies escape, they are pursued by Cruella, Horace, and Jasper in an exciting car chase before they make it home again, with all 101 puppies, to Roger and Anita.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians, directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi, came with the daunting task of drawing and animating spots on the dalmatians (the total number of spots in the film was 6,469,952).
Disney artists initiated a new process called Xerography, developed by Ub Iwerks, to assist with this. The animator’s drawings were copied (Xeroxed) onto clear animation cels, which were then painted and placed over the backgrounds and photographed. This saved time and money and preserved much of the animator’s original drawings.
This process gave the film another very different look, with the characters taking on a “rougher, sketchier” appearance.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians also introduced the world to Cruella De Vil, brought to the screen by the immense talents of master animator Marc Davis, who had animated such other icons as Tinker Bell in 1953’s Peter Pan and Maleficent and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Cruella served as Davis’ last animation assignment before transitioning to work on Disney’s theme parks, where he was among the first of a team that would eventually be called Imagineers. Here, he joined the creative crew that brought us It’s a Small World, the Haunted Mansion, and more.
Eric Larson sketches a Dalmatian.
Thanks to this work and that of other members of Walt’s Nine Old Men, including Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, John Lounsbery, and Eric Larson, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a box-office success, becoming the 20th-highest-grossing film that year.
It was remade in live action in 1996, with a script by Home Alone’s John Hughes, featuring Glenn Close as Cruella, and was also a hit, inspiring a sequel, 102 Dalmatians, in 2000.
Disney also produced a 101 Dalmatians animated TV Series that ran on ABC from 1997 to 1998. And in 2011, Oscar winner Emma Stone starred as Cruella in a live-action “origin story” for the character.
It’s all part of a long-lasting legacy and more proof why, from its style to its story to its villain, One Hundred and One Dalmatians is still seen as one of Disney’s most popular and beloved animated films, sixty-five years later.
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
A couple of quick corrections: There were 99 puppies; adding Pongo and Perdita brings us to the titular number. And the film Cruella was released in 2021.
I always enjoyed this movie; it wears its more modern art style well, the animals are universally appealing, and Davis and Gerson give us one of the all-time great Disney villains. But I’ve always been bothered by the title; it should be One Hundred One Dalmatians, without the “and”.
The book by Dodie Smith is a delightful read. It was available in paperback with a Disney cover during the early years of the film’s release. Instead of one Nanny, there are two–Nanny Cook and Nanny Butler. And Perdita (whose name means “lost one”) is not Pongo’s wife, but is a stray adopted by the family in order to help Mrs. Pongo with the feeding of the fifteen puppies. And the little puppy who almost dies is named Cadpig who has a remarkable Christmas Eve adventure on the journey back home. In short, it’s the same story as the movie–but different!
Not only does this Disney animated feature adopt a bold and noteworthy visual style for its time, but it’s also a departure in that there are practically no songs in it. Aside from “Cruella de Vil” which is presented as the closest thing to a full production number that the movie offers, the other songs are purely incidental. Such as the “Canine Crunchies Commercial” and “Dalmatian Plantation”, neither of which could truly be termed a song in the context of the film. The Disneyland Records adaptation, which our friend Greg Ehrbar has discussed at length, provides full versions of these songs, including “Playful Melody” which in the film is only heard as background music and an alternate version of “Dalmatian Plantation” different from the one Roger sings a few bars of at the end. The Read-a-Long record set also included a “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” theme song which was likewise not included in the movie.
Remarkably, the direct-to-video sequel, “Patch’s London Adventure,” which was essentially a rewrite of a Lucky Puppy story from the 60s, uses a visual style for the animation that matches the style of its predecessor–long after that visual style (which lasted for decades and eventually looked wearily generic as the prevailing Disney “house style”) had been discarded. It was a wise move on the part of the producers to make the sequel look as closely as possible like an extension of the original.
I first saw the movie when I was about four years old, and Cruella, and her car, scared the Dickens out of me.
Bought it on Blu-Ray just a few years ago, and loved it. Outstandingly well made (of course)! I always liked that “Canine Crunchies” thing.
“One Hundred and One Dalmatians” is my favorite Disney animated feature and, I believe, the second film I saw in a theater. My parents took me to see it on its first rerelease as it debuted the year before I was born. I absolutely love the more modern/angular animation style, snowy landscapes and London setting.
Segregation affected the movie’s debut. It premiered at St. Petersburg’s “whites only” Florida Theatre. African American animator Floyd Norman worked on the film, but he would been barred from seeing his own work on screen at the premiere because of his skin color.
Call it morbid curiosity if you want but why, of all the places in the United States they could have premiered this film, did they pick there? Did St. Petersburg have some kind of specific tie to the Dalmatian breed? Was Walt already gunning for some place to put Walt Disney World at the city leadership was trying to butter him up?
I don’t know what were the factors behind Walt Disney’s decision to hold the premiere there, but there’s no question that St. Petersburg’s Florida Theatre was a magnificent venue. When it opened in 1926, it was the first public building in the city, and one of the first movie palaces anywhere, to have air conditioning. It seated 2,500 people, had five balconies and a three-manual Wurlitzer pipe organ, and was elaborately decorated in a Spanish galleon motif as a nod to local colonial history. Most of the information about it online concerns a series of performances given there in 1956 by Elvis Presley. The Florida Theatre closed in 1967 and was torn down to make way for a parking lot.
I see I’m not the only one for whom this was their first movie in a theater. I was 5 when I saw it in the movies. I rewatched it last year for the first time in many decades and it was absolutely delightful.
Tall, angular Mary Wickes was the live action model for wicked Cruella De Vil. The prolific character actress made 40 films (White Christmas, Sister Act) and was a cast member of 10 TV series.
Mary Wickes was also in the Mickey Mouse Club serial “Annette”, which she did concurrently with her work on the Dalmatians film.
Happy barkin birthday to the DALMATIONS! I had the 1961 story record in 1969 (when it got first reissue!)