Disney's 101 Dalmatians on This Day in History

This Day in History: 101 Dalmatians premiered from Walt Disney Productions on this day 60 years ago in 1961. 101 Dalmatians was released after Sleeping Beauty which was actually a financial flop. It cost 6 million dollars to produce Sleeping Beauty but it only made just over 5 million at the box office. 101 Dalmatians had roughly half the budget and grossed over twice as much, using a new technology: Xerography. Xerographic animation would replace the need to ink each film cell and just use photocopies. 101 Dalmatians became one of the most profitable Disney animated movies of all time. However, this era came to be known as the dark age of Disney animation because of the use of Xerox animation. The Xerox age of Disney animation would dominate the studio between 1961 to 1988. One Disney employee, Don Bluth, did not like this new cheaper process in animation, so he left Disney and ventured out on his own, producing such hits as The Secret of Nimh, The Land Before Time and An American Tail, which outperformed Disney's The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. 

However, this then led to the Disney Renaissance in animation between 1989 and 1999, with the releases of The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan. 

“The Little Mermaid” was released on November 17, 1989, and earned $84.4 million in domestic box office. In his review, film critic Roger Ebert said, “Here at last, once again, is the kind of liberating, original, joyful Disney animation that we all remember from “Snow White,” “Pinocchio” and the other first-generation classics.” In 1990, the movie won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for Best Score and Best Song (“Under the Sea”).