101 DALMATIANS – The Diamond Edition Blu Review

101 DALMATIANS was one of my favorites films as a child. I generally found that Disney cartoons involving animals, like it and JUNGLE BOOK were a lot funnier and less sentimental than all those boring girly fairy-tales like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS and SLEEPING BEAUTY. I also liked the fact that the action took place not in some fantastic never-never land but in the real England. 101 DALMATIANS of course deals with the theft of a litter of Dalmatian puppies by a woman named Cruella De Vil who wants to skin them and turn them into fur coats. The human authorities are baffled, so it falls to the kidnapped puppies’ parents, Pongo and Perdita, to track them down and rescue them- along with a lot more Dalmatian pups acquired by Cruella for the same nefarious purpose.

101 DALMATIANS is rather different in look from a lot of earlier Disney cartoons, which were characterized by bright colors. Here, by contrast, the color scheme is surprisingly restrained for a film aimed at children. Much of the action takes place either at night or in the depths of a snowy English winter, and the palette reflects this. Black and white are much in evidence (as one might expect in a film about black-and-white dogs), and the other predominant colors are blues, greys and purples. The action takes place in a modern-day London, and this restrained look may also reflect American ideas of the British as a nation of quiet, restrained, phlegmatic people, qualities exemplified by the human protagonists, Roger and Anita Radcliffe. Many of the animals Pongo and Perdita meet in the course of their adventures generally represent recognizable British “types”, such as The Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog with a distinctly military bearing. (His subordinates are a horse named Captain and a cat named Sergeant Tibbs). One character who is neither quiet nor restrained, is the villainess Cruella de Vil. She is perhaps Disney’s most memorable villain, a monstrously hyperactive woman with an obsession with fur; she is always seen wearing a fur coat. Her main distinguishing feature is her hair, half-black and half-white. The second-tier villains are the comically incompetent Badun brothers, Jasper and Horace, whom she employs to steal the puppies. My one complaint was that the music (in comparison with something like JUNGLE BOOK) was a bit forgettable – even though Roger is a songwriter, there are only three songs – the only memorable one being Cruella’s famous theme.

The new Diamond Edition Blu-ray of 101 DALMATIANS is presented in the film’s original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression. As I mentioned earlier, with 101 DALMATIANS taking place in an overcast London, the palette isn’t the symphony of color one is used to in a Disney animated classic, but the image is still sharp and true to Disney’s design, carefully matching the look of the original cel and background paintings.

The DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 audio is also outstanding. Dialogue is clean and clear and George Bruns’ playful jazz-inspired score is prominent.

Disney has packed the Diamond Edition of 101 DALMATIANS with a host of new (and old) extras:

Lucky Dogs (HD, 9 minutes): Interviews with Disney artists such as Imaging alum Rolly Crump, ink and paint artist Carmen Sanderson, animator Burny Mattinson, animator Floyd Norman and voice actress Lisa Davis who talk about their experiences working at Walt Disney Animation Studios in an era of lay-offs and other industry challenges. They all agree on how much fun it was working there and talk about the cost-cutting techniques on 101 DALMATIANS and how they resorted to the Xerox copying to save time and money.

The Best Doggoned Dog in the World (HD, 51 minutes): The tenth black-and-white episode of The Wonderful World of Disney‘s fourth season (from 1961) is presented in its 51-minute entirety

Dalmatians 101 Hyperactive young actor Cameron Boyce counts down five interesting facts about 101 DALMATIANS and throws out some great trivia (did you know Lady and The Tramp both made cameos in the film?) – runs 5 minutes

The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt (HD, 2 minutes): Elaborates on the scene in 101 DALMATIANS where the dogs are watching this show on TV. It continues the adventure for another 90 seconds and shows Thunderbolt surviving a fall down a waterfall and capturing a horse thief.

Classic Bonus Features (HD/SD): A number of worthwhile extras and special features have also been returned from past DVD releases of 101 Dalmatians, including:

Redefining the Line: The Making of 101 Dalmatians:

Puppy Dog Tales (5:33)

Howling at the Moon (3:36)

New Tricks (5:16)

Animation 101 (7:51)

Drawing All Cars (4:12)

Seeing Spots (5:45)

A Dog’s Eye View (1:40)

Music & More Bonus Content:

Music Video by Selena Gomez: “Cruella De Vil” (3:25)

Deleted Song: “March of the One Hundred and One” (2:29)

Abandoned Song: “Cheerio, Goodbye, Toodle-oo, Hip Hip!”(2:32)

Abandoned Song: “Don’t Buy a Parrot from a Sailor” (2:39)

Demo Recordings and Alternate Versions

Cruella De Vil: Drawn to Be Bad (7:10)

Sincerely Yours, Walt Disney (12:48)

Trailers & TV Spots

Promotional Radio Spots