‘101 Dalmatians’ Saved Disney 60 Years Ago by Delivering Glamour on a Dime (2024)

Disney was hoping for a hit when they released 101 Dalmatians in theaters 60 years ago today. After Cinderella kicked off a streak of animated masterpieces in the 1950s, the animation studio had closed out the decade with a major fumble: Sleeping Beauty. That film, now a beloved classic, way underperformed at the box office—and it was also by far the most expensive animated feature film Disney had made up to that point. The lay-offs, they did happen, and Sleeping Beauty’s failure was such a big deal that it scared Disney away from adapting fairy tales until The Little Mermaid in 1989! So not only did 101 Dalmatians (based on a 1956 children’s novel by Dodie Smith, originally serialized in Women’s Day magazine) have to make bank, it also had to do so on a budget.

When you grow up watching Disney animated movies by just pulling a random clamshell VHS out of the cabinet (oh, that reference dates me), context eludes you. You just know that some Disney movies are shiny and some are scratchy, and you never think to question why that is because hey, there’s a singin’ and dancin’ dog on the screen! But there’s a reason why some movies are shiny (Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast, et.) and some are scratchy (Robin Hood, The Rescuers, Oliver and Company, The Jungle Book, etc.). That reason? Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians.

In order to save money and squeak out one more animated film (seriously, Disney was considering axing its animation department altogether), art director Ken Anderson proposed they use a technique discovered by Mickey Mouse co-creator Ub Iwerks. Iwerks had figured out a way to photocopy an artist’s rough pencil drawings directly onto an animation cell. This bypassed the inking stage, wherein an artist would usually trace and embellish and perfect the scratchy pencils onto a cell.

This cut 101 Dalmatians‘ budget roughly in half, although it also cut the lush lines seen in hits like Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. This annoyed Walt Disney himself, who felt that this scratchy style robbed the animation of its fantastical quality. He’d come around, though, when he saw how successful 101 Dalmatians would be.

Walt Disney was right about these penciled cells being void of fairy tale whimsy. 101 Dalmatians didn’t need that. This animated adventure was set in modern London, not some make believe medieval realm. It starred real people, not princes and witches. Really, Dalmatians and the Xerox process were a perfect match.

Of all the films of the Xerox era, which lasted until 1977’s The Rescuers, 101 Dalmatians actually feels just as glamorous as 1950s Disney. The scratchiness and London setting gives the entire film a specific midcentury aesthetic, which makes the xerography look intentional rather than necessary. And when that animation style is married to these characters?

There’s truly no other way for us to see Cruella De Vil. The animation’s unrefined elegance perfectly captures the movements, the sneering shade, of Disney’s campiest villain (pre-Ursula, that is). The sketchy style just looks like how cigarettes smell, ya know? But this sketchy style has range, too. It also gave us the affable Roger, the hottest Disney daddy ever according to this site. The man is as awkwardly charming as Dick Van Dyke, and we’re still here for it.

After 101 Dalmatians crushed it at the box office, Disney kept this scratchy animation style going with The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), and The Rescuers (1977). Even after Disney moved retired the Xerox machine, they still adhered to a looser style through much of the ’80s until Little Mermaid. And while there are some real triumphs in that run, 101 Dalmatians is really the only one that completely turned a cost-cutting measure into a whole vibe.

Stream 101 Dalmatians on Disney+