It's true, even Walt hated it. It was cheap but very profitable for Disney thou.
Don't get me wrong It was a good and fun movie, and Cruella was a great villain, but the animation on this suck even compared to Pinocchio from 20 years earlier!
I saw this when I was nine in '61, and liked the animation. It seemed "hip" and jazzy and not so kiddy-fied.
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Just because it wasent typical Disney animation. Does not make it ugly. It was a different style and I also thought it had a jazzy feel to it.
~ Party at the Moon Tower.~
I agree. The style of animation was perfect for the time period
shareIt definitely is a unique sort of style.
Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.
I like the sketchy, angular look of the animation. It fits well with the setting and characters.
This was one of the first movies I can recall seeing as a child, so I have a bit of a soft spot for it. There are a few things about the live action remake that I prefer, like the dogs' thoughts and emotions being conveyed solely through their behavior, and Anita and Perdita showing more independence than in the animated version, but the original is head and shoulders above the remake in terms of style. The script is better, too.
"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
sketchy became a cliche in the 60s, mostly ruined the genre for 2 decades
shareYep, sketchy animation was ubiquitous in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and I don’t care for the cheap appearance of much of it, either. I guess that I give some of the early ‘60s Disney films a pass because the animation is still a lot better than most of what was being produced in those days. Although I find it fascinating to contemplate what One Hundred and One Dalmatians might have looked like in a smoother, more elegant animation style, I think the sketchy appearance fits the very urban, slightly claustrophobic settings in the early part of the film as well as the lanky anatomy of the adult Dalmatians. Everything has an unpolished look that, in my humble opinion, works rather well. Maybe I’m more forgiving of One Hundred and One Dalmatians because it’s a pretty darn good movie. Wasn’t it the first feature-length Disney film to use the Xerox method? At the time, maybe no one was fully aware just how ubiquitous the style would become.
Granted, they were released in the ‘70s, but I think The Aristocats and Robin Hood are two Disney movies with some of the worst animation I have ever seen from the company. Save the barnyard dog characters and maybe a song or two, I don’t care for much of anything in The Aristocats (although no offense to anyone who likes it!), and the animation just looks cheap--at least by Disney standards. I have fond memories of watching Robin Hood as a kid, and while I still think it’s, if nothing else, entertaining, the animation really is the pits.
"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
I wish I understood what you're talking about. I don't know anything about animation. Sketchy compared to what? Sleeping Beauty or ???
Can you give examples of "a smoother, more elegant animation style"? Are we talking "Snow White" or "Jungle Book"?
The way I found myself here was because my daughter and I watched "The Rescuers" and I didn't care for it. Not so much for the animation style, but the somber tone, sad orphan story line. There was not enough warmth/charm etc. to counterbalance the unrelentingly dark plot and scenes.
And in one scene, the two mice were flying on a bird over N.Y. City traffic, and NOTHING in the background was moving. Completely static. Even I notice something that glaring. Very un-Disney-like.
Any help you can give to understand sketchy vs. smooth elegant animation would be greatly appreciated.
I'm not an animation expert by any means, but my understanding is that the main difference between Disney's "sketchy" animation and "smooth" animation before the advent of computer technology lay in a particular cost-saving measure that was implemented in the late '50s.
In the traditional process used by Disney before about 1960, hand-drawn rough animation--i.e., the sequence of penciled drawings that the animators create--was traced onto transparent animation cels, painted, and then photographed over the correct background. The artists who did the the work of inking the animators' drawings onto the cels were responsible for ensuring that the animated elements had clean, smooth lines.
The Xerography that Disney started using in the late '50s meant that tracing the animators' drawings onto the cels was no longer necessary, because the drawings could be photocopied directly onto the cels. This process was much cheaper. However, it meant that the resulting animation was rough and "sketchy," rather like the original artwork. With animation being carefully inked by hand onto the cels, stray lines and such would never normally have occurred, but with the photocopying process, these minor flaws were often transferred to the cels. This is why most Disney films from the '60s and '70s have that scratchy look. The technique is noticeable in films like One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The AristoCats, Robin Hood, and The Rescuers. I don't mind it in some of these movies, but in others, it is distracting. Hope that helps!
"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Yes, that helps a lot and thank you for taking the time to explain. I felt foolish to ask, but now I'm glad I did. I thought sketchy just meant that the artists were making the film look like a sketch on purpose, as a style that would fit the era or the theme of the film.
It never occurred to me that it had to do with the technology. My daughters will be very interested in your explanation and it will give us an excuse to watch pre- and post 1960 Disney films for the next several movie nights!
Again, many thanks.
Well, the artists on the Disney animated films from the 1960s and 1970s did design those films' backgrounds to have a loose, sketchy look so they wouldn't clash with the "scratchy" appearance of the animation. I don't think the sketchy aesthetic was ever fully intentional, though; it was simply an inevitable consequence of the Xerography, and to the artists' credit, they found ways to make it work.
The technology had drastically improved by the early 1980s or so, if the films Disney was making around that time are any indication. Since digital inking and painting became possible in the late 1980s, the quality of traditional animation from Disney has been much closer to what they were achieving in the 1940s and 1950s--in some ways, it's even better, I think. But I'm a big fan of well-done CGI, too. Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph are enjoyable movies.
"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Don Bluth period is kinda ugly compared to Snow White and Pinocchio
shareIt's better than the 2013 modern 3D animation coming out now, that's for sure. I don't think it's ugly.
shareI always liked the animation in this movie. I like the sketch style and how it comes across as quite grainy. That being said I'd like to get this for my daughter and was wondering how that would transfer over on blu ray. Might ruin that old feel it had
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If I may just add to this thread that the Animators actually liked this style. The Xerox cells were copies of the actual hand drawn animation with just line clean up by the in-betweeners. It gives you a direct view of the animators skills without the clean remade lines of the inkers.
I happen to like this style for both its "modern" look and a better presentation of the drawings.
To each his own, but I do not think ugly is the right word - "different" is better.
Ric
"....Disney thou."
"Don't get me wrong It was a good and fun movie...."
"....but the animation on this suck...."
Unbelievable.
This was the beginning of Disney's middle period of animation which stretched from 1961 to 1989. They started using Xerox machines to save money. Some films in this period looked better that others: 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Black Cauldron, and The Little Mermaid are the stand-outs from this period visually.
share101 Dalmatians is the best, baby!
Rod Taylor RIP. May you finally get that Dalmatian Plantation in the sky.
I just saw it last night on my big-screen HD tv and it looked beautiful. The backgrounds were deep and atmospheric, with lovely colors. The dogs and humans were detailed and moved realistically and smoothly. A few times I paused it just to look at it like a painting for a while. Great animation!
shareDo people here know what 'animation' means? It referse to MOVEMENT, not the VISUALS, lines or characters.
You should say 'ugly visuals' or 'ugly drawings', not 'ugly ANIMATION', as animation is the MOTION, not the drawings, and hence, can't really even BE 'ugly' or 'pretty', just 'fluid' or 'jerky' or 'realistic' or whatnot.
Please learn what english words, like 'animation' mean, before calling something ugly.
Also, 'ugly animation' (you should learn to use capital letters, too) is not a claim or a statement, it's not a sentence, so it can't be 'true'.
"This movie has ugly drawings" - now, THERE is something that can be either true or not, but just two words is not enough. How can you fail this much in a short post like that?
😂 Thank you! I know you’ve been here long enough that this kind of illiteracy and carelessness is the norm in this cesspool of a site; but it still needs to be called out, now, more than ever. I hope you stay with us.
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