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What kind of Disney movie reads Playboy?
Only two years separated the releases of Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians but they are, in every sense, eras apart. 101 Dalmatians feels so different, looks so different and sounds so different from its immediate predecessor that it almost feels like the work of a different studio. This is the first of what I call the Scratchy Movies, because of the harder, scratchier outlines of the characters compared to previous Disney eras. Take a look:
Tar and Sugar Era.
Never-Heard-of-Em Era.
Restoration Era.
Scratchy Era.
You see how the lines are so much starker and rougher in the last one? Why is that?
Well, during the production of Sleeping Beauty Walt basically realised that this would be the last time he could make a movie like that. He had to either find a way to bring down the costs of animating his movies or shut down the animation wing altogether and focus on live action movies and theme parks. Thankfully, Disney realised that animation is the very heart and soul of the Disney brand and that shutting down the animation department would be a declaration of war on the childhood of every living human being.
I live for the day when I will finally see Michael Eisner stand trial in the Hague.
It was then that legendary animator Ubi Iwerks came up with a solution: Xerox. Iwerks was probably Walt’s oldest friend, an animator he knew from all the way back in his days in Kansas City. Iwerks co-created Mickey Mouse with Disney, by which I mean Disney asked him to create a character, Iwerks then created Mickey Mouse, and so for some reason they are considered the co-creators of Mickey Mouse.
Because I TOLD him to do it.
Well, regardless of who is the true sire of the Black Mouse, by the early nineteen sixties Iwerks was in charge of special processes, essentially the R&D department of the animation wing. Using essentially the same technology as your office photocopier, Iwerks developed a way to copy the animators’ drawings directly onto the cels, resulting in a much cheaper and quicker animation process. The downside of this, as you can see, is that you essentially have to cut out the entire inking process whereby those rough scratchy lines are softened. The animators, incidentally, loved this technique because it allowed their work to be seen more clearly onscreen. The inkers, not surprisingly, did not love it because they were now out of a job. To put it bluntly, the Scratchy movies are not pretty. There is no way you could honestly claim that they are anything near as beautiful as the movies that came before them. But that does not mean that they are without value, in fact at least one of their number has a decent claim to being one of the most beloved Disney movies ever made. The Scratchy movies make up for their visual limitations with charm, wit and some absolutely killer tunes. This is the era of the really great Disney songs, “Bear-Necessities”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “Cruella De Vil” I could on and on. This era is like the younger, stoner brother of the earlier ones. Sure, he may be a bit of a mess, a lot less polished, and he certainly won’t amount to as much. But you can’t deny he has a certain laid-back charm, he’s cool, he’s funny as hell, he plays that guitar like a goddamn boss and he’s just more fun to hang around with.
But do NOT. Lend. Him. Money.
So, let’s take a look at 101 Dalmatians.
We begin with the most “sixties” opening credits I have ever seen. Seriously, the only way these credits could be more sixties would be if the Pink Panther appeared to the strains of Henry Mancini and then James Bond walked on and shot him.
Consider yourself…extinct.
The credits are by far the most technically ambitious of any Disney movie we’ve seen so far and the animators go to great lengths to show off the new Xerography process which allowed them to reuse the same piece of animation over and over and over again to create an entire Inbred of Dalmatians (that is the collective noun for Dalmatians, I think you’ll find). Xerography was absolutely essential to this movie, as without it there would have been simply no way to animate all those dozens of puppies with their thousands of spots.
Behold, the greatest breakthrough in animation history.
Anyway the movie begins with our dalmatian hero, Pongo, narrating the story of how he met his future mate Perdita.
Interestingly, this does not take him SEVEN GODDAMN YEARS.
Pongo lives in London with his owner (or “pet” as he refers to him) Roger, a professional songwriter. Deciding that the bachelor life is getting them both down he arranges for Roger to bring him to the park so that Pongo can meet Perdie and Roger can meet Perdie’s owner Anita. He does this in classic early nineteen sixties romantic comedy fashion.
“Terribly sorry miss, but I believe my dog has ensnared us in a meet-cute.” “Oh blast. I suppose we’ll have to get married now?” “Well, it is the law. Sixties, you know.”
So yes, they get married, the two humans and two dogs move in together and all, as they say, is gas and gaiters. Perdita is soon expecting a litter of puppies, and Roger is working on a new song. He’s got the melody down but can’t seem to nail the lyrics. Their peace and quiet is shattered with the arrival of Cruella De Vil, Anita’s old school friend, who storms into the house trailing cigarette smoke, a six foot tall, rake-thin diva draped in furs and spewing bile at every living thing in a six mile radius.
Well.
She. Sounds. FABULOUS!
Cruella De Vil will usually top any list of the greatest Disney villains of all time, and not without good reason. Voice actress Betty Lou Gerson gives a wonderfully larger than life, Tallulah-Bankhead-gone-nuts performance, and the animators giver her a very distinctive presence. And of course, she gets one of the very best Disney villain songs; Cruella De Vil, a hilarious, dark, jazzy masterwork that has been covered by everyone from Dr. John to The Replacements to…
You know what? I listened to it. I actually listened to it. I thought to myself “No, I’m not going to just mock this on the assumption that it’s terrible. I will give this a fair shot.” It sounds like sugar coated cockroaches hate-fucking in your ears. Nothing but the sound of sickly, loathsome, ecstatic clicks and chirrups, the rustle of wing on carapace and the continuous drumbeat of abdomen striking thorax.
Regardless, it’s still a great song.
Cruella is looking for the puppies but once she hears that they won’t be born for another three weeks she promptly skidaddles, making Anita promise that she’ll let her know the moment the puppies arrive. Roger swans in, singing Cruella De Vil. Roger and Anita are often overlooked, but they bring a great deal to this movie. They’re so much more interesting than Jim Dear and Darling, they have very appealing character design and they actually behave like a real, recognisable married couple.
Oh yeah. I know THAT look.
Perdita is terrified that Cruella will take the puppies, but Pongo swears to her that he won’t let that happen. Weeks pass, and on a dark and stormy night Roger and Pongo wait anxiously in the kitchen as Perdie gives birth to the puppies.
Naaaaaaaaaaaaah…it’safuckloadofpuppieeeeees!
They’re both so tightly wound up that when Nana (their home help) bursts into the kitchen with an excited “The puppies are here!” Pongo actually leaps into Roger’s arms.
“Like, zoinks Pongo ol buddy ol pal!”
“Reah!”
Nana excitedly calls out the number of puppies as each one is born, and as the number gets higher and higher Pongo’s reaction goes from happiness to joy to shock to just…well…
Bahia.
Nana calls out “Fifteen!” excitedly before slowing re-entering the kitchen holding a small bundle and sadly declaring “Fourteen.”
Well…that took a unexpected turn into tragedy. One of the puppies is stillborn. Roger consoles Pongo, saying “Oh Pongo, boy. I’m afraid it’s just one of those things. And yet…and yet I wonder.”
To the laboratory!
Actually, not a million miles from that. Roger massages the puppy’s body to bring it back to life. It should be a very tense scene, but it’s kind of spoilt by the fact that there’s thunder and lightening flashing outside the house, meaning that when the puppy finally starts to move I was expecting Roger to cackle “It’s alive! ALIVE! THEY CALLED ME MAD!!!” Incidentally, this is actually based on a real event. Dodie Smith, the author of the original novel The One Hundred and One Dalmatians had a Dalmatian who gave birth to a litter of fifteen puppies, the thirteenth of whom was stillborn but who was resuscitated by Smith’s husband.
Anyway, Cruella storms in eager to buy the entire litter but Roger tells her to screw off. Cruella takes this with good grace and calmly leaves…no, no, no, I’m kidding. She curses them and their descendants yea, even down to the seventh generation and storms out swearing vengeance.
Cut to a few weeks later and the Dalmatians are sitting around the TV watching Thunderbolt, a show about a superheroic dog who battles evil.
Reboot’s better.
The puppies are cute but…they’re all the same character. They really are. One is fat, and one has a patch over one eye, and one is addicted to TV but they’re all just tics. The scenes where the puppies are talking with each other sound like someone having a conversation with himself. And considering how indistinguishable the puppies are from each other visually they become extremely non-descript.
Pongo and Perdie put the puppies to bed and go for a walk with Roger and Anita. They pass Horace and Jasper, two of Cruella’s henchmen. Horace is fat and dumb, and Jasper is tall and not quite as dumb and wait just a damn minute here! Okay, I’m going to have to do all these in one go. Deep breath…
YOU!
ARE!
ALL!
WHORES!
Horace and Jasper have been sent by Cruella to steal the puppies but Horace is worried that they’ll get caught. Jasper tells him that it’s not his job to think because “I’ve got the knob for this job.”
What the FUCK are you planning on doing with those puppies Jasper?!
Anyway, despite being duller than a pair of damp rusty butter knives in a burlap sack, Horace and Jasper manage to break into the house and make off with the fifteen puppies. Roger and Anita call the police, but to no avail and Pongo and Perdie decide that if they’re going to get their puppies back they’ll have to do it themselves. Of course, if they were living in Ireland the puppies would be back by now. We have a very simple and effective way of dealing with kidnappers.
We call Liam Neeson.
On their evening walk, Pongo and Perdie send out an APB to every dog in London. I mostly love this scene because Roger and Anita are both wearing trenchcoats and fedoras and it looks like they’ve walked out of a film noir or something.
Anyway, there now follows a looooong scene where the Dalmatians’ message is passed from dog to dog, starting with a great dane named Danny who relates it to…holy shit. Jock?!
Yes, Jock from Lady and the Tramp makes a cameo in this movie. But…that doesn’t make any sense. Lady and the Tramp took place in turn of the century America and this movie is set in London in the nineteen fifties. How could Jock possibly be still alive unless…wait a minute. Scottish. Seemingly Immortal. Oh my God!
HEEEEEERE WE ARE! BORN TO BE KINGS!
Actually, pretty much all the main canine characters from Lady and the Tramp make an appearance in this sequence, Lady, Tramp, Peg and Bull are all seen. The message finally leaves the city and makes it’s way into the countryside. Now, this scene sums up my biggest complaint against this movie. It is padded to fuck. Let me break down what happens here. Pongo sends a message which gets picked up by Danny the great dane. Danny has some dialogue with his little yorkie buddy explaining that the message is about fifteen Dalmatian puppies being stolen. He then passes it on to Jock, who passes it on to around five other dogs. The message reaches a bloodhound called Towser in the countryside and he has a conversation with his friend Lucy the goose, pretty much repeating what we already know. Towser then passes the message along until it’s heard by a horse named the Captain who tells a cat named Sergeant Tibs to wake a sheepdog named the Colonel. The Colonel then goes and asks Towser to relay the message…
Oh please! More details! What time of year was it? What colour jumper were you wearing?
THIS IS NOT EFFICIENT STORY TELLING! There are at least four speaking parts here that could easily have been cut and the movie would be so much tighter.
Anyway, the Colonel asks Towser to relay the message and…holy shit.
Otto Von Bismarck?! You’re in this one too?!
Oh ha ha. Fuck you Mouse, I’m out of here. I’m not going to be another lame running joke you drive into the ground. I will not be your next Thor Putnam!
Wait! Come back!
Damn it.
I’m so alone.
Anyway, we’re not done yet. The Colonel barks to Towser, who barks back. Then the Colonel barks back to get THE REST OF THE MESSAGE.
And THEN! TOWSER BARKS THE MESSAGE TO THE COLONEL. AND THE COLONEL SAYS THE MESSAGE IS “FIFTEEN PUDDLES STOLEN.”
So that’s FIVE AND A HALF MINUTES we’ve spent setting up that one, incredibly lame joke.
Tibs and the Captain finally get it through the Colonel skull that the message pertains to puppies and Tibs remembers that he heard puppies barking in Hell Hall, the De Vil’s ancestral home. The Colonel then barks back to Towser who tells Lucy…
GET ON WITH IT!
It’s not my fault! Anyway. The Colonel sends Tibs in to Hell Hall to scout the area. Tibs discovers that not only are the fifteen stolen puppies being held in Hell Hall by Horace and Jasper, but eighty four other Dalmatian puppies that Cruella has bought are there too. Now, this brings me to the movie’s second major flaw. Lack of focus.
Tibs is pretty much the hero of the movie for most of the third act which is largely taken up with his attempts to smuggle the ninety nine puppies out of Hell Hall. Now, Tibs is a very likeable character, excellently voiced by David Frankham as a true-blue, for-Queen-and-Country English military officer, but the fact remains that this character just appears over halfway through the movie, becomes the hero for around the length of one act and then disappears never to be seen again. Now, I’m not saying that sort of thing CAN’T work in a movie…
Damn, that man wears Hugo Boss like a god.
Well, anyway. Tibs manages to get the puppies out of the living room with the help of some recycled animation from Cinderella.
By recycling, we can all do our part! The power is yours!
Tibs and the puppies lead Horace and Jasper on a merry chase through Hell Hall but finally they’re cornered. Jasper closes in on them with a crowbar and is about to give them the Jason Todd special when Pongo and Perdie burst through the window and a surprisingly hardcore fight scene ensues.
ZUUL MUTHAFUCKA, ZUUL!
What? Nostalgia Critic’s dead, it’s not like he can take the joke with him.
Tibs leads the puppies back to the Colonel’s barn and Pongo and Perdie are finally reunited with them. They also realise that they’re now suddenly in possession of the largest Inbred of Dalmatians in recorded history. One of the puppies tells them that Cruella was planning on skinning them to make a fur coat. Horrified, Pongo and Perdie decide to take the rest of the puppies home with them.
Horace and Jasper arrive at the farm and Pongo and Perdie lead the puppies away while the Captain, the Colonel and Sergeant Tibs fight keep them distracted and hang on just a minute…
Why do all these farm animals have military ranks? Whose army is this anyway?
Four legs good, two legs bad.
We get a few scenes of the Dalmatians wandering in the frozen countryside but it’s mostly padding. They stop off at a barn where some nice cows give the puppies milk and Pongo gets a sandwich from a collie.
“That is one lousy looking sandwich.”
“Sorry, I don’t have thumbs.”
They finally get to a village where they plan to stowaway on a furniture truck bound for London but Cruella, Horace and Jasper are waiting for them. They disguise themselves as black labradors by rolling in soot but at the last minute Cruella twigs what’s going on and chases after the furniture truck in her car while Horace and Jasper follow in their van. Cruella, now utterly insane, tries to run the van off the road.
This woman drove to Bahia, presented herself to the ruler of that dark and hate-warped realm, was taken as his lover, slit his throat in the darkest hour of night as they lay in bed together and now rules there as Queen.
But she gets hit by Horace and Jaspers’ van and they all go off the cliff together and the Dalmatians escape.
Meanwhile, back in London, Cruella De Vil has become a massive hit and Roger is now rich. Of course there’s always the chance that Cruella will sue him for slander but hey, Britain’s defamation laws are pretty lax, right? Anita and Roger are still heartbroken but Pongo and Perdie suddenly burst in with their fifteen puppies with a certain degree of accrued interest. Roger’s reaction to all these extra puppies is to say “Pongo, you old rascal!” and that is not how sex works.
Roger announces that they’ll keep the puppies and buy a big house in the country to keep them. I gotta be honest, spending the rest of my life up to my oxters in puppy shit is not my idea of a good time, but they seem alright with it so we’ll call it a happy ending.
101 Dalmatians has a great deal of charm, one great song and some very impressive crowd animation. But I can’t really call it a good movie. There are serious pacing problems, a whole lot of padding and the early London scenes are overall a lot stronger than the ones that come later meaning the movie is on a constant downward slide. So, of course, with all those massive flaws it was a huge hit, one of the top ten films of 1961 and the Disney movie that finally, after twenty three years, toppled Snow White as the studio’s most successful movie.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
If the question 101 Dalmatians was to answer was: “Can Disney make feature length animation in a way that is financially viable?” then the answer was a resounding, unqualified “yes”.
If the question was “Can Disney make feature length animations cheaply that are also great movies?” then, by the time 101 Dalmatians finished its conquest of American cinemas, that question remained stubbornly unanswered.
Scoring
Animation: 15/20
Rough? Yes. But as well as being the first of the Scratchy films this is also probably the best looking. The backdrops are wonderfully detailed, the character designs are charming and the canine models move as beautifully as they did in Lady and the Tramp. Also, there’s no denying that animating ninety nine puppies is a massive technical achievement.
The Leads: 13/20
Pongo is great, Perdie is a bit of a wet blanket and the puppies are largely interchangeable.
The Villain: 17/20
If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.
Supporting Characters: 08/20
Anita and Roger are great, but this movie is too overpopulated by half. There are a lot of dull supporting characters that could very easily have been excised and the overstuffed cast really brings the movie down in my opinion.
The Music: 16/20
The score has a lovely early sixties ambience and one of the all time Disney great villain songs.
FINAL SCORE: 69%
NEXT WEEK: There is a prophesy that says that whomsoever reviews this Sword in this Stone shall be king of all England. Start practicing your curtsy, ‘cos the Unshaved Mouse is in it to win it.
Neil Sharpson AKA The Unshaved Mouse, is a playwright, comic book writer and blogger living in Dublin. You can follow him on Twitter. The blog updates every Thursday. Thanks for reading!
unshavedmouse 
I wonder if Doug Walker reads your blog, lol! Anyway great job!
Oh and you spelt the name, Ubi Iwerks; and I’m pretty sure it’s Ubbe or Ub for short. But maybe I’m wrong!
Ubi, Ubbe, U.B., Ub, el Ubberino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. Ub is probably more correct but Ubi stuck with me because if memory serves that’s how he’s t
Credited on steam boat willie. If doug walker read my blog I would nerdgasm myself into a coma.
Are you a fan of Doug Walker’s new “Demo Reel” and him and his brother’s “Sibling Rivalry”?
The trailer for Demo Reel really didn’t do anything for me. I thought the Twilight sibling rivalry was pretty good.
This is a movie I’m really torn over…a lot of the Disney movies of this era are less family movies and more kids movies, and this is certainly one of them. And yes, the pacing problems are undeniable. I like the side characters, though….I like the Nanny, I like the fact that Horace has always the right theory, but Jasper always considers him as too stupid, and I especially like the cat (btw, in case your military rank question was serious, if you pay attention you might notice that the horse if wearing a blanket with a military emblem, so I guess it’s a soldier’s horse). And for all the padding, there are some pretty suspenseful scenes in the movie (I guess partly because of the padding…they really took their time, but in some scenes, it’s actually to the advantage of the movie). Especially the last one, when all the dogs had to sneak on the truck always had me on the edge of the seat.
Oh I know, they live in military stables. I just wanted to make an Animal Farm joke. I think you’re right, the movies definitely got more kid friendly in this period.
I dislike watching the Scratchy movies on DVD because I get so distracted by the lackluster art. I feel like photoshopping every frame and fixing everything, but the same movie on Blu Ray is even worse. I swear sometimes I’ll see sketch lines that aren’t even supposed to be there.
And please, never stop with the Bahia jokes, they kill me every time.
I can’t stop. Bahia will not let me…
I wish I actually knew what Bahia was so I can laugh with the joke as well! But, any running gag is funny, regardless whether one gets it or not 😀 !
I need some explanation for the Bahia bits. I don’t understand.
There’s a complete explanation in the FAQ. It’s an OLD running joke on this blog.
It started in the Three Caballeros review. Jose Carioca keeps asking Donald Duck if he’s been to Bahia and then they go and Bahia is absolutely insane so “Going to Bahia” became code for going absolutely fucking insane.
I’m Loving reading these reviews. Just wanted to chime in on your point about the creation of Mickey Mouse. While the exact way Mickey came about is disputed, The fact that Walt was almost single handedly responsible for Mickey’s personality as well as the originator of his voice more than justifies full credit as co-creator. Ub himself is said to have acknowledged in later years when asked, that really the success of Mickey comes down not to who came up with him first, but how Walt used him.
True, but I don’t think people even realise that Ub was involved. Thanks for reading!
Cool that you acknowledged Iwerks’ majorly important contribution to the face of Disney’s animated works. I’ve heard that name before and I like that you brought him up. Also, apt description of the feel of the 60s-era movies. I guess that could sum up the general feel that comes to mind when picturing the cold-war era. In a word, groovy. Ok, maybe that wouldn’t describe 101 Dalmatians too well, but once Phil Harris gets into the picture the term fits the era well.
Oy. I hope Columbo manages to get Bond taken in for poaching an endangered species. If he isn’t still trying to chase a horse on a plane to hell. I’d like to think he’s smarter than that.
Yeah, I definitely agree on your point about Roger and Anita. Stands to reason, I think the general 50s feel (which Lady and the Tramp is dripping with) tends to have a sort of everything-in-its-place near-blandness to it. The feel of the 60s was less neat and seemed to have a bit more character to it in a way. Also, is it just me or is the Nanny pretty much the flipside to Nana? One’s a canine nanny who acts strangely human and the other’s a human nanny described as “seeming almost canine”.
…Wait a minute, which of Malfoy’s thugs is Jasper and which one’s Horace? The rest of them I can kind of get, but I always found Crabbe and Goyle pretty much interchangeable. And I don’t know about Jasper being the not-quite-as-dumb one. Most of the time he seems to just think he is. Anyway, I kind of like those guys because Cockney-spouting goons are always fun.
So, I’m curious, did Doug ever give you any flak for stealing his joke? Did he… did he call you a whore? Oh my word, I hope he did not.
And also, Animal Farm reference and Comrade didn’t say anything? That’s a wonder.
…Wow, I never noticed the possible allusion to that “you rascal” line until now. Well, for all we know, Roger could have suspected his unfixed dog had just turned out to be sowing inbreds’ worth of wild oats all this time. And yes, it’s a wonder that Roger didn’t have to worry about getting sued for that song. Not only that, but didn’t all those puppies that weren’t Pongo and Perdy’s technically belong to Cruella? She bought them, and even if she lost rights to them for trying to kill them, why would that mean Roger and Anita inherit them? Pretty much the conclusion of the story is a mass animal heist.
So will there ever be a followup story where Maleficent summons a strike on Bahia where Cruella reigns in an act of defiant vengeance for beating her to the dethroning of the original wicked Queen of Glowerhaven? Because in that case, Disney can shut up and take my money.
Cruella is Anita’s classmate? Either Anita looks very young for her years or Cruella is RADDLED for her age
Meth is a helluva drug.
That it is
” Of course there’s always the chance that Cruella will sue him for slander but hey, Britain’s defamation laws are pretty lax, right?”
Not only that, but all the puppies but Pongo’s are Cruella’s legal property; technically, she’s perfectly entitled to demand for them to be returned to her. There are no witnesses who can testify in a court of law she ordered the fifteen stolen other than Jasper and Horace, who really have no reasons to betray her as things stand by the end of the movie (they have a lot more to lose than she does, and the case against them would be much stronger). Neither are there human witnesses who can honestly say Cruella was going to kill the puppies and thus commit extreme animal cruelty.
Cruella actually has a much better case against the leads than they do against her, and much more money to act on them as well, in the event they are found with all those animals Cruella bought (presumably) fair and square.
By the way, who are the two hoodlums with Baboo, Squat, Scratch, Grounder, Crabb and Goyle? I have the feeling I *should* remember them, but I can’t.
Victor and Hugo, they were a spin-off from Danger Mouse.
Thank you. Over here, they only ever showed Count Duckula (which I loved).
I actually got a press invite to the screening of the new Danger Mouse but I had to turn it down because I’ll be on holiday 😦
Tehcnically they were a spin-off from Count Duckula, which in turn was a spin-off from Danger Mouse. I recently wondered if Horace & Jasper might have inspired V&H in some way.
Just me, or do the scores for this movie somewhat resemble “An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West”?
We need a comprehensive list of everyone who’s been to Bahia.