Trivia / 101 Dalmatians: The Series

• Channel Hop: While not directly hopping to another channel, all 65 episodes aired simultaneously on two different networks. 12 episodes of the 65 episode order premiered on ABC, which aired as part of One Saturday Morning, while the other 53 episodes aired on weekday afternoons in syndication as part of what was left of The Disney Afternoon (which at this point, became an unnamed block and was dropped by some of its former stations). The syndicated episodes would later play on ABC after their initial debut.
• Children Voicing Children: Many of the kid characters (both puppy and human) were played by real kids or teens; Toran Caudell as Tripod, Justin Shenkarow as Patch, Rachel Crane as Ivy De Vil, Francesca Smith as Amber, and Ryan O'Donohue as Billy Fences. Averted with the three main pups in the English version, but played straight in the Russian dub.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The show only had a few home media releases in the late '90s- 101 Dalmatians Christmas (which consisted of "A Christmas Cruella" and "Coup De Vil"), which was released on VHS in 1998 with a reissue in 2000, and the Series Finale Dalmatian Vacation (in its movie form instead of the three individual parts as they originally aired) on VideoCD around 1998. Not only did the VideoCD have severe sound issues, but the VHS of the movie was only released overseas. Since then, the show would appear in reruns on Disney Channel and Toon Disney, and the last time it aired was in Bowdlerized repeats on Disney Junior.
  • The show is now available to purchase on the iTunes store in four volumes, however only in the U.S, at this time, and "Alive 'N Chicken/Prima Doggy" is not included in any of the episode collections. The show has also since been added to Disney+, this time with "Alive 'N Chicken/Prima Doggy" intact.
  • The "movie" version of "Dalmatian Vacation" (with all three parts edited together as one TV movie with songs and some additional scenes added in) has not been released since the '90s on VideoCD (and on VHS outside the US), with only the individual three episodes making it up airing in reruns on Toon Disney through the 2000s and on Disney+.
• Kids' Meal Toy: In late 1997, McDonald's released a set of eight flip cars, each one featuring two characters. One side had one of the dalmatian characters, while the other side had a non-dalmatian character. The eight toys consisted of Lucky and Cruella, Cadpig and Spot, Rolly and Mayor Ed Pig, Pongo and Swamp Rat, Perdita and Scorch, Tripod and Dumpling, Two-Tone and Lt. Pug, and Dipstick and Cydne.
• Missing Episode: "Alive n' Chicken" was banned from running on Toon Disney following the 9/11 attacks due to featuring a scene of Spot flying a model plane into the windmill.
• The Other Darrin: Pamela Adlon and Debi Mae West frequently switched-off playing Lucky from episode to episode. Debi Mae West took over full time for most of the later episodes until Pamela Adlon came back for the final three episodes.
  • Pamela Adlon played Whizzer in his first appearance in "Purred It Through The Grapevine"; Christine Cavanaugh played him for the rest of the series.
  • While Cruella De Vil was usually played by April Winchell, Tress MacNeille played her in "Close But No Cigar" and for a very brief scene in "The Fungus Among Us".
  • Princess was played by April Winchell in "Shake, Rattle, And Woof" instead of Cree Summer.
• Out of Order: The show aired almost every episode out of order in the original run. This was due to the episodes being split into two packages (one for ABC to air on Saturday mornings and one for syndication on weekday afternoons) which caused the episodes to get jumbled up. That wasn't the end of that one, though—since the program began airing on the Disney Junior channel in repeats, the broadcasts have been airing in what seems to be an order picked by throwing darts at a board. The recap episode "Humanitarian of the Year" was aired before many of the stories it recaps, while the third part of "Dalmatian Vacation" aired with the first two parts not even anywhere in sight on the schedule. They have also started airing repeats of episodes they have already aired, even though there are still numerous episodes that they haven't, and it's beginning to look like they just don't have those episodes to air.
• Release Date Change: Like the rest of One Saturday Morning, "Home Is Where The Bark Is" was originally going to air on September 6, 1997, but was delayed to the week after due to ABC covering Princess Diana's funeral.
• Toyless Toyline Character: While their movie counterparts had plush toys made of them, this series' versions of Lucky and Rolly do not have any plush of them made of all. Neither does Cadpig as she was made for the show. The only way these characters exist in toy form is the McDonald's Happy Meal flip cars (the only merchandise this show had aside from some coloring books)
• What Could Have Been:
  • Some production art shows◊ that at some point in development of the show, the Chow Tower was originally going to be located directly behind the Dearly Farm barn before being moved to the side of the barn, and the Colonel's rail car being placed where the Chow Tower would have been.
  • A suggested name for Two-Tone was going to be "Pants", and she originally had a bit of a "bad girl" look to her, even smoking a dog bone. "2-Tone" was another way her name would've been spelled until the staff went with her name as it was in the live-action film.
  • Patch and Penny were both going to be major characters in the show, with Penny even appearing in an early preview for the series. However, Michael Eisner thought six main characters would've been too much (despite Recess, another Disney show premiering the same year, also having six leads). Patch was Demoted to Extra while Penny was dropped completely (ironically, Cadpig was named "Penny" in some countries). Patch was also going to have a bit of a mischievous streak early on, and would've been particularly protective over Cadpig (a trait from the original novel); neither traits showed up in the show.
  • Cadpig was originally going to have black ears, a pink nose, and a purple bow for a collar.
• Working Title: The show was originally going to be named Dalmatians 101.

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