Alright, here’s another thing I felt like doing for this thread. For those of you who are fans of the Angry Video Game Nerd, you may have remembered him doing his “Chronologically Confused” video where he argued about how confusing the titles of movie and video game sequels can be. Well, as you may know, he recently did a chronologically confused video on the “Legend of Zelda” series. I just noticed that the whole “101 Dalmatians” franchise is chronologically confusing as well. So I thought that maybe I’d do a little talk about the story and go all “Angry Nerd” on it.
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Let me take you back to the year, 1956. The author known as Dodie Smith had just released her hit novel, “The 101 Dalmatians”. It was a pretty interesting story, and it got readers’ attentions. Basic story is about this couple known as the Dearly’s who have two Dalmatians who later have puppies, the puppies get stolen by Cruella De Vil, and the two dogs stop at nothing to save their puppies before Cruella turns them into evening wear.
Then, in 1961, Walt Disney releases “101 Dalmatians”, an animated movie based on the book. This movie’s a mega favorite to a lot of Disney fans, but there are actually some who hated this film. Why is that? Well, what is the biggest complaint that people always give about a movie based on a book? It doesn’t follow the book! Now, I’m not really sure how Smith’s reaction to the movie was, but I’m not here to find that out. All I’m going to say is that if you read the book and you watched the movie, you’ll see that they are both extremely different in many ways.
Then, in 1967, Smith releases a sequel to her book known as “The Starlight Barking”. This book is about all these dogs in London passing on a message about some kind of phenomenon happening in London. Sounds like it’s just about as catchy as the original; I wonder if Disney will adapt that into a movie.
Well, after Dodie’s death in 1990, a lot of confusion will be going on through the entire story of the 101 Dalmatians. Little did we fans know, this was the beginning of an accident waiting to happen.
In 1996, Disney releases a live-action remake of “101 Dalmatians”. It got a lot of positive feedback, but does it follow the book better? No. In fact, I think this one follows the book even less than the original. Compared to the original movie and the book, everything in this movie seems to be modernized. I mean, what the ****? Remember, there were no computers or video games back in the 1950’s. And the video game that’s being shown in the movie looks like something that would appear on the Playstation, Saturn or Nintendo 64, which, believe it or not, was a new thing back then (1996).
In 1997, we were given the Saturday morning cartoon series. According to a source I read a few years ago, this series is supposed to take place where the live-action movie left off, but, uh-oh, I see a problem here. At the end of the animated movie, Roger talks about moving out into the country, which is what they do in the first episode of the series, but at the end of the live-action movie, they move into a mansion, and the Dearly’s have a baby. In the cartoon series, however, they had no baby, and in the final episode, Roger and Anita find out that they’re not legally married, so they decide to get married for real, which they do at the very end.
More importantly, what’s with the setting of this show? It takes place in a city called Gruetly. Where the hell is Gruetly? The books and the movies all take place in London, but here, we have this uninspired area that doesn’t even look a thing like London. There’s tons of evidence that it takes place in the U.S., most notably, nobody talks with a British accent. I then realized that Gruetly is not a real place. It was totally made up in the twisted minds of the show’s creators. That’s kinda like how “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” takes place on a non-existent planet called Mobius. But hey, you can do anything in a cartoon. Just for fun, let’s make a little estimate on where it might take place. Well, let’s see: It probably takes place in the northern eastern section of the U.S. because it seems to be a snow zone, and skunks appear in the series. It’s also apparently a border state, because it seems to take place near the ocean. So where would it be? New Hampshire? Yeah. I guess that makes the most sense…because only in New Hampshire can you see Dalmatian pups do something like this:
Then came 2000, and Disney made a sequel to their live-action “101 Dalmatians”. But, wait! It wasn’t “The Starlight Barking”! No! Instead, Disney made something completely different: a movie known as “102 Dalmatians”.
Now this movie is most known for introducing three new Dalmatian puppies: Little Dipper, Oddball, and Domino. How are they supposed to fit in to the family? Well, some way that Oddball is Dalmatian #102 while Little Dipper and Domino are already members of the family (either in the litter of the original 15 or part of the 84 adopted pups). Others say that Little Dipper, Oddball and Domino are the niece and nephews of the pups. Wow. Babies having babies? I never thought I’d see the day.
Then in 2003, we get a direct-to-DVD animated movie known as “101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure”. This was supposed to be the sequel to the animated “101 Dalmatians” movie.
Okay, we have a bit of a problem here. We have a novel…an animated movie based on the book but doesn’t follow it at all…a live-action remake of the animated movie, which follows the book even less…a sequel to the book…a sequel to the live-action movie…and a sequel to the animated movie…all of which tell a completely different story, and caught in between all this is a cartoon series that isn’t even in the right setting, and some of these medias aren’t even in the right time zone! WHAT THE F*CK??? If you want to try to make sense out of this stack of media, then be my guest, because any chance of making any sensible consistency out of this mess is deader than sh*t!
Okay, let’s just calm down and try to figure this out. As always, the best place to start is at the beginning. Now we’ve got the original book, the animated “101 Dalmatians” and the live-action “101 Dalmatians”, which all basically tell the same story, but neither follow another. Well, let’s just say “**** it” to the live action movie just because it’s a disgrace to the story, and the book…**** it, because the animated movie is closest to the franchise we all know and love, and it’s just going to get more confusing if we use the book. Better yet, let’s just count all three of them as one and say they’re all the same thing.
So let’s recap the summary of the original story: So Pongo finds Perdita and has Roger meet Anita, they get married, the dogs have puppies, Cruella steals the puppies so that she can make coats out of them, Pongo and Perdy go out to find the puppies, they find them only to find more puppies, they take them all home, and Roger decides to move out into the country.
Now, it’s most likely that the cartoon series is the next one that follows it, since the first episode, “Home is Where the Bark Is”, explains how the pups got from the city to the farm which Roger was talking about moving to.
But just a second. In “101 Dalmatians II”, the movie starts out the same way with the family packing up to move to their farm house, but Patch gets left behind and spends some time exploring London and hanging out with Thunderbolt.
My theory is that this movie and the first episode of the series occurred at the exact same time. “Home is Where the Bark Is” showed Lucky, Rolly and Cadpig’s side of the story, while “Patch’s London Adventure” showed Patch’s side of the story. Everything we see happen in “Home is Where the Bark Is” from when the main pups get off the bus to the end of the episode happened while Patch was still in the city. The end of the episode is right about the time when Roger should realize that Patch is still in London, and then the other pups go save him.
From that point on, everything else in the cartoon series follows the story all the way up to the series finale. Sure, there were some continuity issues within the series like in “Full Metal Pullet” and “It’s a Swamp Thing”, but I’m just going to confuse myself even more if I go on with that.
“102 Dalmatians” most likely took place after the series, since there is no mention of Little Dipper, Oddball or Domino in any of the other movies, books or whatever. And since one or more of the pups gave birth to these pups, it should make the most sense, right?
I’m currently unsure as to where “The Starlight Barking” fits in. It probably falls in between the original book/movie and the cartoon series, but I’ll have to read through the book before I can make a positive estimate.
For a long time, I’ve always wondered how these are all logically and chronologically connected, much like how a lot of Zelda fans have for the “Legend of Zelda” series. As it turned out, it was just a big mess of a timeline, and fans have come up with so many different theories. But the point is that people have enjoyed the Dalmatians a lot, so I guess we just got to accept these things for what they are. If we can’t enjoy them, then we just can’t enjoy any of the movies, or books, or cartoon series’ or video games.
Video games? Where does “Escape from De Vil Manor” fit into the timeline? If Oddball and Domino are playable characters, it most likely takes place after “102 Dalmatians”, right? Or am I thinking of another game? Ah, never mind; just **** it.
I know, it’s a confusing puzzle, and Dodie Smith is probably rolling around in her grave because of this. I’m sure that when or if another Dalmatians movie comes out, I’ll just have to figure out where that one fits in too. These many sources of media weren’t really made to connect. Instead of looking at them as a whole, we gotta look at them separately, and that’s what makes this franchise so fun. I know it’s kinda tricky to work on this puzzle, but it’s still fun and shows creative thinking, which if any of you have done, I commend you for. They’re all made to be single fun experiences, so just enjoy them, and have a great day!