101 Dalmations Trivia and Goofs
Trivia
Someone counted all black spots in the movie, frame-by-frame, and reached the total of 6,469,952
Several of the characters from Lady and the Tramp (1955) can be seen in a pet shop window during the twilight bark sequence.
When Pongo and Perdita fight the Bad'uns, the same sounds in the background are from the scene that Tramp fights three alley dogs on Lady and the Tramp (1955).
Due to the commercial failure of Sleeping Beauty (1959), production costs needed to be cut. As a result, this was the first Disney feature film to use photocopying technology (Xerography), which made an animated film with this much visual complexity possible. It also set the visual style of Disney animation (a scratchy, hard outline look) for years until the technology advanced enough (with the production of The Rescuers (1977)) to allow a softer look.
Cruella De Vil was designed as a manic take-off on the flamboyant actress Tallulah Bankhead, as well as some of her personality quirks.
In the early 1990s merchandise tied-in with the video's release was quickly pulled from shelves because the word Dalmatian had been spelled incorrectly as "Dalmation" on some of the product packaging. The merchandise was only available at Disneyland or the Disney Stores.
Walt Disney disliked the rough drawing style brought about by the Xerography process.
HIDDEN MICKEY: on almost all the Dalmatians.
During the twilight bark, after the poodle barks on the car, Tramp is seen on top of the car in the upper right corner. Lady is then seen running into the alley from the bottom left.
On previous Disney animated features, the top animators were assigned a character and drew the bulk (if not all) of that particular character's scenes individually. Animation on this film was far more of a 'team' effort' - for example, seven of the famed "Nine Old Men" worked on Perdita. There was one notable exception: 'Marc Davis (II)' drew Cruella DeVil's animation entirely on his own.
Goofs
In the park, Roger is dragged away from the park bench where his hat is sitting, but is shown wearing it seconds later.
In the park, Anita's hat switches between black and beige.
When Anita is pulled from the pond, the book she was carrying has become a handbag.
During final car chase, Jasper and Horace see the moving truck approaching the intersection from their right, but when the vehicles collide, the moving truck has come from their left.
Pongo and Perdita set off from London to Suffolk (north), but when dawn breaks we see them running left to right across the screen, with the dawn breaking in the background. Since dawn is in the southeast in England in the winter, this means they are running roughly southwest.
After watching TV, when the puppies are going off to bed, when Pongo counts puppies 8 through 14 (seven puppies), there are only five puppies, including Rolly, who actually go through the door.
Cruella sets her purse down on the table to write a check. After tearing up the check, and hollering at Roger, she storms out the door - and never picks up her purse to bring it with her.
After the art lady in the attic yells "Prissy, come in here!", she pulls Prissy inside and the window closes. In the next shot when Prissy knocks over the painting as she runs over to the other side of the attic, the window she was at is opened again.
When Pongo is fighting Jasper, the puppy that runs out to help changes from Patch to Lucky.
Patch's right ear is solid black, and his left ear spotted. However, sometimes the left ear is solid white, and sometimes it's solid black. In the same scene where Patch turns into Lucky, his ear goes from spotted to white, and in the following scene in the Colonel's barn, both of his ears are solid black.