50 Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos From the Making of Disney’s Classic “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (1961)

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (also known as 101 Dalmatians) is a 1961 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions. Adapted from Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel of the same name, the film was directed by Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wolfgang Reitherman from a script by Bill Peet.

After Sleeping Beauty (1959) disappointed at the box office, Disney was losing money and there were discussions about closing down the animation department. During the film’s production, Disney told animator Eric Larson: “I don’t think we can continue; it’s too expensive.” Despite this, he still had deep feelings towards animation because he had built the company upon it.

Ub Iwerks, in charge of special processes at the studio, had been experimenting with Xerox photography to aid in animation. By 1959, he used a Xerox camera to transfer drawings by animators directly to animation cels, eliminating the inking process, thus saving time and money while preserving the spontaneity of the penciled elements. However, because of its limitations, the camera was unable to deviate from a black scratchy outline and lacked the fine lavish quality of hand inking. Disney would first use the Xerox process for a thorn forest in Sleeping Beauty, and the first production to make full use of the process was Goliath II (1960). For One Hundred and One Dalmatians, one of the benefits of the process was that it was a great help towards animating the spotted dogs. According to Chuck Jones, Disney was able to complete the film for about half of what it would have cost if they had had to animate all the dogs and spots.

Meanwhile, Ken Anderson, the studio’s art director, learned a television production studio—Hurrell Productions—was using Xerography to produce television commercials featuring Disney characters. Inspired by the aesthetic, Anderson experimented with a Xerox copier to directly transfer the animators’ drawings onto transparent cels, thereby eliminating the inking process. Anderson screened an animation test to Disney and the animators; although Disney expressed concern at the graphic style, he gave his approval stating: “Ah, yeah, yeah, you can fool around all you want to.” For the stylized art direction, Anderson took inspiration from British cartoonist Ronald Searle, who once advised him to use a Mont Blanc pen and India ink for his artwork.

In addition to the character animation, Anderson also sought to use Xerography on “the background painting because I was going to apply the same technique to the whole picture.” Along with color stylist Walt Peregoy, the two had the line drawings be printed on a separate animation cel before being laid over the background, which gave the appearance similar to the Xeroxed animation. Disney disliked the artistic look of the film and felt he was losing the “fantasy” element of his animated films. In a meeting with the animation staff concerning future films, Disney angrily said, “We’re never gonna have one of those goddamned things,” referring to the film’s art direction; he also stated, “Ken’s never going to be an art director again.”

Anderson took this to heart, but Disney eventually forgave him on his final trip to the studio in late 1966. As Anderson recalled in an interview: “He looked very sick. I said, ‘Gee, it’s great to see you, Walt,’ and he said, ‘You know that thing you did on Dalmatians.’ He didn’t say anything else, but he just gave me this look, and I knew that all was forgiven and in his opinion, maybe what I did on Dalmatians wasn’t so bad. That was the last time I ever saw him. Then, a few weeks later, I learned he was gone.”

As with the previous Disney films, the actors provided live-action reference as an aid to the animators before the animation process begun. By January 1959, Mary Wickes, who had played the maid Katie in The Mickey Mouse Club serial Annette, was hired as a model for Cruella De Vil. The live-action reference for Nanny was provided by both Don Barclay and Barbara Luddy, who had voiced Lady in Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Merryweather in Sleeping Beauty (1959).[17] Helene Stanley – who had been a model for the titular character in Cinderella (1950) and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1959) – performed the live-action reference for Anita.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was released in theaters on January 25, 1961, to critical acclaim and was a box-office success, grossing $14 million domestically in its original theatrical run. It became the first animated feature to earn over $10 million during its initial release, and became the eighth-highest-grossing film of the year in the North American box office and the highest-grossing animated film when reissues of films are not counted.

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Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie, the World’s First Fully Animated Cartoon

On August 17, 1908, Fantasmagorie, the first fully animated feature film was released in Paris by the Gaumont company. Created by Emile Cohl, Fantasmagorie is considered one of the masterpieces of animated cinema and of early cinema as a whole. Done in a white-on-black style, reminiscent of a film negative, the film broke with the realist tradition emerging in live action at the time. It was much more stylized and fantastic, in some ways anticipating the surrealist movement of later decades.

There is no distinctive narrative to the successive images. Therefore, it is believed that Fantasmagorie is in a way a tribute to the short-lived French Incoherent art movement. The film was very short; its projection time was less than two minutes. Yet, the amount of work Cohl had to put in it was enormous, and the final effect – astonishing.

Cohl worked on Fantasmagorie from February to either May or June 1908. It was the single most demanding task that Colh had ever attempted as an artist. First he had made a drawing on white paper with black ink. Then he traced that drawing through a second sheet, changing nothing in the outline except for a minute alteration that would be perceived later as motion. Eventually hundreds of drawings were completed in this manner, then photographed in sequences. The result was printed in negative, so in the final film the illusion was produced of white lines moving on black. At the beginning and end Cohl’s own hands appeared in positive, necessitating in these two shots the use of white ink on black paper to match the negative animation sequence.

Cohl made over 700 drawings. Each one represented one discrete phase which the projector would eventually synthesize into motion. Although the film would be projected at the rate of 16 frames per second, Cohl guessed that he could cut his work in half by making only eight drawings for each second, then photographing each twice. The result was a film with extraordinary fluidity of motion, starling perspective alterations, and a convincing illusion of solid figures moving in spatial depth.

The Sad Sack During World War II

Nobody ever had it as bad as the Sack—the Sad Sack, George Baker’s perpetually luckless anti-hero of World War II. The world was calmly to dump on him, and Baker made sure it did—creating in the process one of the most popular cartoon characters of the twentieth century.

During World War II, the United States military published a magazine called YANK, the Army Weekly. It was distributed weekly in 21 editions to 17 countries worldwide from 1942 to 1945, explicitly catering to service members stationed overseas. With a readership of over 2.6 million, YANK became the most famous military magazine worldwide. YANK, the Army Weekly, was a publication created by soldiers for soldiers during the Second World War. YANK offered a wealth of insights from ordinary American service members, making it a valuable resource. The magazine was filled with stories, cartoons, poems, and letters from soldiers on the front lines. YANK provided an important source of entertainment and connection for its readers, helping to create a sense of camaraderie and togetherness among the troops.

YANK magazine’s popularity was largely due to its humorous cartoons and comic strips, which enlisted soldiers created. One such creation was “The Sad Sack,” a clumsy and disillusioned private introduced by Sgt. George Baker. Initially drafted in 1941, Sgt. Baker was assigned to create animations for Signal Corps training films, which all changed with “Sad Sack”.

In “The Sad Sack,” we follow an anonymous, low-ranking G.I., a “hopeless underdog,” as he experiences the frustrations and typical twists of military life. The title of “The Sad Sack” cleverly incorporates the everyday military slang "sad sack" (a word that can't be used here) from World War II, referring to a person or soldier who is incompetent or prone to making mistakes.

Besides his work as a U.S. Army and Star & Stripes Cartoonist, George Baker also worked for Disney. In 1937, Walt Disney hired Baker to work on the studio’s full-length animated features, including Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. Baker was known for his expertise in animating thunderstorms, waterfalls, and other special effects.

“The Sad Sack” was present from the debut of YANK and continued until the December 28, 1945, issue when the blundering G.I. “Sad Sack” received an honorable discharge and returned to civilian life.

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The Copyright Expires: The Original Mickey Mouse is Entering the Public Domain in 2024

Every year on January 1, works protected under copyright law enter into the public domain due to their copyright protection expiring. Thus, as a new year approaches, those in the field of copyright look to see which works will expire at the end of the year. As the world entered January 2023, many excitedly anticipated that Disney’s copyright protection of Mickey Mouse in the United States (US) would expire at the end of 2023, allowing Mickey Mouse to enter the public domain as of January 1, 2024. This means that Mickey Mouse can be reproduced, adapted, published, publicly performed, and publicly displayed by anyone in the United States without infringing upon Disney’s copyright.

Mickey Mouse was introduced to the world in the 1928 short film Steamboat Willie.

The copyright on the 1928 movie Steamboat Willie – the short film that introduced the world to Mickey Mouse – will expire in 2024. That means the Steamboat-Willie-version of Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain. That means everybody in the public has the ability to use that creation for their own interpretations, their own versions.

To be clear, it’s only the version of Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie that anyone in the public can use without permission to create new stories and new art. That Mickey Mouse has a long rat-like black nose, basic oval eyes with no pupils and a long, spindly, curvy black tail. Any future iterations of Mickey Mouse – including any showing Mickey Mouse in color – are still under Disney’s control.

But the copyright on the Steamboat-Willie-version will run out in 2024 after 95 years. Initially, copyrights only lasted 28 years. But, due in large part to Disney’s lobbying and legal efforts, copyrights were first extended to 75 years, then later to 95 years. Yet now that 95-year protection is about to run out on Steamboat Willie.

Walt Disney with his main character Mickey Mouse.

Although the original Mickey Mouse’s copyright protection will expire at the end of 2023, Disney will still be able to protect the Mickey Mouse brand through trademark law. Mickey Mouse is protected as Disney’s property because it is a registered trademark. Trademark protection can theoretically last forever if Disney can continually show that Mickey Mouse is associated with its company. Disney will likely be able to continually show an association with Mickey Mouse.

In 2007, Walt Disney Animation Studios redesigned its logo to incorporate the original version of Mickey Mouse. Therefore, although someone may use the original version of Mickey Mouse in a work, they are not able to use this version of Mickey Mouse for any branding purposes or any purpose that would cause consumers to be confused about the source of the Mickey Mouse product. These intersections between trademark and copyright law may stop Mickey from strolling into public use for the coming years.

What happens with Mickey Mouse will also serve as a beta test for future copyright expirations. Versions of Disney characters Pluto and Donald Duck will enter the public domain soon after the first version of Mickey Mouse.

Amazing Photos of 13-Year-Old Kathryn Beaumont Modeling for Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Kathryn Beaumont (born June 27, 1938) is a British-American former actress, singer and school teacher. She is best known for voicing Alice in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Wendy Darling in Peter Pan (1953), for which she was named a Disney Legend in 1998.

When Walt Disney began production on the animated classic Alice in Wonderland in 1949, he sought the perfect voice to play the literary ingénue. He was looking for a voice, recalled Kathryn Beaumont, that “would be English enough to satisfy British audiences, but not so English that it would put off American audiences.” After hearing 10-year-old Kathryn’s audition, Walt chose her for the voice of Alice and, later, Wendy Darling in Peter Pan.

Kathryn came to the United States under contract to MGM and appeared in several films, including On an Island With You starring Esther Williams. She soon landed at The Walt Disney Studios, where she not only recorded the voice of Alice, but also portrayed her on film. Animators regularly referred to her filmed performances as they brought her character to life.

“At Disney, the animators would often use footage performed by actors to help guide and inspire them as they drew each scene,” recalled Beaumont. “There was no background or set of anything, it was just the blue background that was always on that particular stage. They would set up the lights and the camera, and I would do the different movements that went with the different parts of the story.”

In 1951, Kathryn went on a promotional tour for Alice in Wonderland, which included a trip aboard the Queen Mary to her native England. Within two weeks of her return, she was cast as Wendy in Peter Pan. Again, she served as both speaking voice and physical model of the animated character. She also served as a model for Tinker Bell.

In 1950, Kathryn appeared with Walt in his first one-hour television special, One Hour in Wonderland, and returned the next year, as Wendy, in The Walt Disney Christmas Show.

After the 1953 release of Peter Pan, Kathryn graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Southern California, where she earned a degree in education. She taught elementary school in Los Angeles for the next 36 years, retiring in 1997.

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20 Amazing View-Master Slides of SuperStar Barbie in 1978

View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master “reels”, which are thin cardboard disks containing seven stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film. It was originally manufactured and sold by Sawyer’s.

View-Master slides of SuperStar Barbie in 1978

The View-Master system was introduced in 1939, four years after the advent of Kodachrome color film made the use of small high-quality photographic color images practical. Tourist attraction and travel views predominated in View-Master’s early lists of reels, most of which were meant to be interesting to users of all ages. Most current View-Master reels are intended for children.

These amazing View-Master slides from Cindy Hammerquist show SuperStar Barbie in 1978.

“SuperStar Barbie sends her sister, Skipper, a ticket for a glamorous vacation among the stars. When Barbie realizes they haven’t had enough time alone, Barbie and Skipper go off on a camping trip together. Then Barbie gets into a dangerous predicament and there’s only Skipper to help.” (copy on back of package)

SuperStar Barbie View-Master Slide: A1, SuperStars

SuperStar Barbie View-Master Slide: A2, Skipper arrives for her vacation

SuperStar Barbie View-Master Slide: A3, Skipper watches fashion show rehearsal

SuperStar Barbie View-Master Slide: A4, A fitting

SuperStar Barbie View-Master Slide: A5, Skipper watches Barbie on TV

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Early 1950s Tijuana Bible, a Humorous Pamphlet About Urination

Tijuana bibles were palm-sized pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era.

Most Tijuana bibles were obscene parodies of popular newspaper comic strips of the day, such as “Blondie”, “Barney Google”, “Moon Mullins”, “Popeye”, “Tillie the Toiler”, “The Katzenjammer Kids”, “Dick Tracy”, “Little Orphan Annie”, and “Bringing Up Father”. Others made use of characters based on popular movie stars, and sports stars of the day, such as Mae West, Clark Gable and Joe Louis, sometimes with names thinly changed. Before World War II, almost all the stories were humorous and frequently were cartoon versions of well-known dirty jokes that had been making the rounds for decades.

The artists, writers, and publishers of these booklets are generally unknown, as their publication was illegal, clandestine, and anonymous. The quality of the artwork varied widely. The subjects are explicit sexual escapades usually featuring well-known newspaper comic strip characters, movie stars, and (rarely) political figures, invariably used without respect for either copyright or libel law and without permission.

The typical bible was an eight-panel comic strip in a wallet-sized 2.5 in × 4 in (64 mm × 102 mm) format with black print on cheap white paper and running eight pages in length.

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34 Lovely Vintage Photos of the Puppet Film ‘The Czech Year’ (1947)

The Czech Year (Czech title: Špalíček), also called A Treasury of Fairy-Tales, is a 1947 stop-motion-animated feature film from Czechoslovakia. It was a puppet filled film about the folk customs of Czech people.

The film was the first feature film directed by Jiří Trnka, and it proceeded to win several international awards and make his name famous in the animation world.

The traditional customs and tales of a Czech village are depicted in six separate sequences: “Shrovetide”, “Spring”, “Legend About St. Prokop”, “The Fair”, “The Feast” and “Bethlehem”.

Here below is a set of lovely vintage photos of the puppet film The Czech Year in 1947.

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Vintage Posters for the Early ‘Tom and Jerry’ Cartoons in the 1940s

Tom and Jerry is an American animated franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the rivalry between the titular characters of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters.

Tom and Jerry sound like two perfectly generic, ethnically vague, mid-20th century American male names. In other words, they were perfect for the names of a stylistically simple cartoon cat and mouse. But creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera didn’t come up with those names — the ones for their iconic, undying creations — until after they’d already produced a cartoon about the pair. The first Tom and Jerry cartoon, 1940’s Puss Gets the Boot, is actually a Jasper and Jinx toon. Jasper was the name of the cat and Jinx the name of the mouse. Hanna and Barbera just didn’t think those monikers suited their creations, and seeking ideas from crew members, they went with animator John Carr’s suggestion of Tom and Jerry.

Carr didn’t invent that pairing of words that just happen to sound good together. “Tom and Jerry” was a phrase floating around the English language for more than a century. In 1821, British writer Pierce Egan wrote Life in London, the stories of a couple of roustabout toughs named, you guessed it, Tom and Jerry. The book was so successful that it inspired a stage play and a boozy eggnog cocktail called the Tom and Jerry that would ultimately outlast the popularity of the source material.

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Mickey Mouse’s First Official Visit to the USSR, 1988

Mickey Mouse made his premier appearance in the communist country on October 15, 1988, kicking off a two-week Walt Disney film festival. The famed cartoon character was met at Sheremetyevo airport by Misha the Russian bear who presented him with the traditional welcoming gift of bread and salt.

Photo by Galina Kmit

“We had a huge turnout,” said Disney publicist Howard Green. There about 100 people were on hand to greet the world‘s most famous rodent.

Mickey and his entourage of 45 Disney executives were treated to a red-carpet welcome at the airport, a privilege usually reserved for visiting heads of state.

“The invitation came from the Russians,” Green said. “The purpose of this visit is a goodwill gesture to coincide with Mickey’s 60th birthday, and at the same time we are trying to see the films they are making,”

Walt Disney’s mouse was born in the 1928 animated cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie’ and the Russians wanted to be in on the 60th birthday celebration.

The Pocket Telephone: Century-Old Comic Predicting the Horrors of the Mobile Phone

Early 1900s comic predicts the mobile phone. Calls the prospect a “modern horror.” This cartoon by W.K.Hasleden was published in the Daily Mirror in 1919 with the following title: ‘The Pocket Telephone: When will it ring!’

The accompanying text reads: “The latest modern horror in the way of inventions is supposed to be the pocket telephone. We can imagine the moments this instrument will choose for action!”

30 Out-of-Context Vintage Comic Panels That Prove All Superheroes Have Dirty Minds

Superhero comic books are inherently filled with over-the-top characters dressed in outlandish costumes performing strange and bizarre deeds. When you throw so many fantastical elements together, it can be almost awe-inspiring to a new reader.

Similarly, if you focus to just a single panel, it can often seem like complete nonsense, because out of the overall context, the panels lose some of their meaning.

Below is a collection of 30 hilarious out of context panels.

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Rare and Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos of Live-Action Models For Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" (1959)

These vintage photographs offer a glimpse into the making of 1959 classic Disney film Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty was a spectacular piece of animation that has held up very well after all these years. The detail that went into it is incredible and it was the studio’s most costly production until The Rescuers over 18 years later. Due to so few theaters being able to run it at 70mm, a higher resolution widescreen format, the movie did so poorly that there were mass layoffs throughout the animation department. It has since been re-released multiple times and on rare occasions there are screenings of the 70mm version that audiences have gushed about.

Sleeping Beauty was the last movie to use traditionally inked cels, which were replaced by Xerox technology in 101 Dalmations and on. It was also printed in 70mm, which had fallen out of favor by the time the movie was released after 8 years in the making.

Most viewers only saw the film in 35mm and Walt Disney was furiously disappointed to learn their efforts went mainly unnoticed. The movie under-performed at the box office and Walt Disney decided to stay away from fairy tales. It wasn’t until after he passed away that the studio decided to try another fairy tale with The Little Mermaid.

Helene Stanley, a dancer and model, as the live-action model used for Princess Aurora’s movement reference.

Young Prince Phillip and Queen Leah

King Hubert and King Stefan

Ed Kemmer was the live-action reference model for Prince Phillip.

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