What if Walt Disney was the producer of Looney Tunes/Walt Disney Animated Classics/One Hundred and One Dalmatians

One Hundred and One Dalmatians, often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians, is a 1961 American animated comedy-adventure film produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. The 19th Disney animated feature film, the film tells the story of a litter of dalmatian puppies who are kidnapped by the villainous Cruella DeVil (voiced by Betty Lou Gerson), who wants to use their fur to make into coats. Their parents, Pongo and Perdita, (voiced by Rod Taylor and Cate Bauer, respectively) set out to save their children from Cruella, all the while rescuing 84 additional puppies that were bought in pet shops, bringing the total of dalmatians to 101.

Originally released to theaters on January 25, 1961, by Buena Vista Distribution, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a box office success, pulling the studio out of the financial slump caused by Sleeping Beauty, a costlier production released two years prior. Aside from its box office revenue, its commercial success was due to the employment of inexpensive animation techniques—such as using xerography during the process of inking and painting traditional animation cels—that kept production costs down. It was reissued to cinemas four times: in 1969, 1979, 1985 and 1991. The 1991 reissue was the twentieth highest earning film of the year for domestic earnings. It was remade into a live action film in 1996.

This is the first Disney animated feature film to take place in the time period it was made (late 1950's to early 1960's), as all previous features were either period pieces or set in some kind of fantasy world with no specifically recognizable time period. Adjusted for inflation it is the 11th highest grossing movie of all time and second highest grossing animated film, just behind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it is also a critical gem, as critics praised it for defying Disney convention and for its character animation.

Plot
Pongo is a dalmatian that lives in a London bachelor flat with his owner, professional songwriter Roger Radcliffe. Bored with bachelor life, unlike Roger who spends his days writing music, Pongo decides to find a wife for Roger and a mate for himself. While watching various female dog-human pairs out the window, he spots the perfect couple, a woman named Anita and her female dalmatian, Perdita (or Perdy for short) heading to Regent's Park. He quickly gets Roger out of the house and drags him through the park to arrange a meeting. After an awkward and unusual meeting that goes awry, Pongo's efforts pay off and had accidentally caused both Roger and Anita to fall into a pond, but it works out well as they fall in love. Both couples marry.

Once Roger and Anita (and Pongo and Perdita) get married, Perdita gives birth to a litter of puppies. That same night, they are visited by Cruella DeVil, an eccentric and wealthy social parasite known to Anita from their school years. She offers the Radcliffes to buy the entire litter for a large sum, but Roger says they are not selling any of them. Weeks later, she hires two thieves named Jasper and Horace Baddun to kidnap them all. The humans try every effort to locate the puppies and the Badduns but to no avail, specially when Roger begins suspecting Cruella hired them. When Scotland Yard is unable to prove she stole them or find them, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", normally a canine gossip line, to alert and ask for help from the other dogs in London to locate them. The first one to answer the call is the Great Dane.

Colonel, an old sheepdog, along with his compatriots Captain, a gray horse, and Sergeant Tibbs, a tabby cat, find the puppies in a place called Hell Hall (aka The DeVil Place), along with others that Cruella had purchased from various dog stores. Tibbs learns they are going to be made into dog-skin fur coats and Colonel quickly sends word back to London. Upon receiving the message, Pongo and Perdita immediately leave to retrieve their puppies. Meanwhile, Tibbs overhears Cruella ordering the Badduns to kill and render them that night out of fear the police will soon find them. In response, Tibbs attempts to rescue them himself while the Badduns are watching the television, but they finish their show and come for them before Tibbs can get them out of the house. Pongo and Perdita burst through a window just as the Badduns have cornered them and are about to kill them. Horace is knocked into the fireplace and Jasper gets his pants pulled down while Colonel and Tibbs guide the puppies from the house.

After a happy reunion with their own puppies, Pongo and Perdita realize there are 84 others with them in Cruella's possession. Shocked after learning of her plans, Pongo and Perdita decide to adopt them all, certain that Roger and Anita would never reject them. They begin making their way back to London, aided by other animals along the way; including the Collie and the cows who give them shelter and food. However, Cruella, realizing the Badduns' incompetence had left the puppies had escaped, is in hot pursuit of them and will stop at nothing to catch them. In order to try and fool her and the Badduns, they cover themselves with soot so they appear to be Labrador retrievers.

They then pile inside a moving van going back to London. As it is leaving, melting snow cleans off the soot and Cruella sees them through their disguises. In a maniacal rage, the Badduns in their truck and Cruella in her car follow the van with the dogs inside. Cruella repeatedly rams it off the road (promptly damaging her car in the process), while the Badduns try to cut it off from another direction. They nearly succeed, but just as they are about to do so, a panicked Horace accidentally tears the steering wheel from the truck's dashboard, causing the vehicle to swerve out of control. Because of this, they end up colliding with Cruella and her car, sending both vehicles crashing into a deep ravine. Comically, they are shown and well among the wreckage of their demolished vehicles. As Cruella screams in anger and frustration and berates the Badduns for ruining everything, she begins weeping over the loss of her car and her dream coat, as the van drives away.

Back in London, Roger and Anita are attempting to celebrate Christmas and Roger's first big hit, a song about Cruella, but they miss their canine friends. Suddenly, barking is heard outside and after their nanny opens the door, the house is filled with dogs. After wiping away more of the soot, they are delighted to realize the dalmatian clan has returned home. They decide to use the money from the song to buy a large house in the country so they can keep all 101 dalmatians.

Live-action remake, TV series and sequel
In the years since the original release of the film, Disney has taken the property in various directions. The earliest of these endeavors was the live-action remake, 101 Dalmatians starring Jim Carrey and Anne Hathaway as the voices of Pongo and Perdita, respectively, and Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil. Its success in theaters led to a sequel, 102 Dalmatians, released on November 22, 2000.

After the first live-action version of the film, a cartoon called 101 Dalmatians: The Series was launched. The designs of the characters were stylized further to allow for economic animation and to appeal to contemporary trends

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, the official sequel to the original animated film, was released direct-to-video on January 21, 2003.

Trivia

 * Despite its success, Walt Disney always disliked the film because it not had the fantasy element of his other animated films.
 * The TV show that the Baddums and the puppies are watching when Tibbs finds them is the 1929 Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoon Springtime.
 * According to a newspaper headline seen the morning after the puppies' theft, the bulk of the film takes place in 1959.