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Monday, August 29, 2016

Original Production Animation Cel of Rolly the Dalmatian Puppy from "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," 1961


Original hand painted production animation cel of Rolly the Dalmatian Puppy from "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," 1961, Walt Disney Studios; Numbered 2 in ink lower right; Set on a lithographic background; Size - Rolly: 4" x 3 3/4", Cel: 12 x 11", Image: 11" x 11 1/2"; Unframed.

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"I'm hungry, Mother. I'm hungry!" - Rolly

"One Hundred and One Dalmatians" ("101 Dalmatians"), is a 1961 full length animated feature film by Walt Disney Productions. It was adapted from Dodie Smith's 1956 novel of the same name. It stars Rod Taylor as the voice of Pongo and Cate Bauer as the voice of Perdita; with Betty Lou Gerson as the voice of the evil and villainous Cruella de Vil. The animation of all the characters from the film was quite extraordinary.

The film "Sleeping Beauty," 1959 was very expensive to make and it took a huge financial loss at the box-office; as a result, the Disney animation studio was considering closing. During the production of "Sleeping Beauty," Walt Disney told animator Eric Larson: "I don't think we can continue, it's too expensive." Because Disney's entire company was based on animation, he was looking for a way to continue with animation, and at the same time significantly reduce costs.


Close up of the original production animation cel of Rolly.

The animator Ub Iwerks had been experimenting with Xerox photography to aid in animation process. By 1959 he had modified a Xerox camera to transfer the drawings by the animators, directly onto animation cels. The process would preserve the spontaneity of the penciled drawings but eliminate the inking process, thus saving time and money. However, the limitation was that the camera was unable to deviate from a black scratchy outline, and the resulting cels lacked the fine lavish quality of hand inking.

One of the enormous benefits of the Xerox was that it was a tremendous help towards animating the spotted dalmatian dogs. According to famed animator 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. To achieve the spotted dalmatians, the Disney animators envision the spot pattern as a star constellation. Once they had an "anchor spot," the next spot was placed into the pattern, and so on until the fully spotted dalmatian was achieved. All totaled, the film featured 6,469,952 spots, with Pongo having 72 spots, Perdita 68, and each puppy 32.


Original production animation cel of Rolly without the background.

Rolly is one of Pongo and Perdita's original fifteen puppies. He is the heaviest, constantly hungry, and was voiced by Barbara Baird; who is primarily known as a TV actress of the late 1950s and 60s. This is a wonderful original production animation cel of Rolly. He is full figure, eyes and mouth open, and a great image of one of the dalmatian puppy stars!

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