Lady and the Tramp is the fifteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney and was originally released to theaters on June 16, 1955 by Buena Vista Distribution, a new division of Disney which assumed distribution rights of the studio's product from RKO Radio Pictures. It was the first animated feature filmed in the Cinemascope widescreen film process. The story pairs a Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a rich family and a mutt named Tramp who lives on the streets. Once the two of them meet, they share an adventure together and eventually fall in love.
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This film began a spinoff comic titled Scamp, named after one of Lady and Tramp's puppies. It was written by Ward Greene and was published from October 31, 1955 until 1988. Scamp also stars in a direct-to-video sequel in 2001 titled Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure.
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The 1962 reissue of the film was shown on a double bill with the initial release of Almost Angels.
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In the movie, while Lady and Tramp are strolling through the town at night, they come across a heart with two people's initials that were drawn into wet cement. The initials are someone else's, but the two dogs then make pawprints inside the heart. The initials are believed to be a homage to famous children's authors J.M. Barrie and Elwyn Brooks White.
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The Beaver in this film seemed to be the inspiration for Gopher in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), down to the speech pattern (a whistling sound when he makes the "S" sound). This voice was created by Stan Freberg, who has an extensive background in commercial and comedy recording voice overs and soundtracks. On the DVD he demonstrates how it was done and that a whistle was eventually used because it was hard to continue repeating the effect.
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Before animating the fight between Tramp and the rat, animator Wolfgang Reitherman kept rats in a cage next to his desk to study their actions.
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A statue of Lady and the Tramp appears in the Third District of Traverse Town, a world in the video game Kingdom Hearts.
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According to legend, the film's opening sequence, in which Darling unwraps a hat box on Christmas morning and finds Lady inside, is based upon an actual incident in Walt Disney's life. After he'd forgotten a dinner date with his wife, he made it up to her by offering her the puppy-in-the-hat-box surprise and was immediately forgiven.
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Peggy Lee, who, along with Sonny Burke, created the songs for the film, later sued Disney for breach of contract claiming that she still retained rights to the transcripts. She was awarded $2.3m, but not without a lengthy legal battle with the studio which was finally settled in 1991.
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Jock's real name, as is revealed during the movie, is "Hether Lad o' Glen-Cairn." Jock was not the only character who was the subject of a name-game either. In fact, Lady was just about the only character who did not at one point or another have a different suggested name. For instance, prior to being "Tramp," Tramp went through a number of suggested names including Homer, Rags and Bozo. It was thought in the 1950's that the name "Tramp" would not be acceptable, but since Walt Disney approved of the choice, it was considered safe under his acceptance.
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Tramp had other names in the movie, and when asked by Lady about having a family, Tramp states, "I have a different family for every day of the week, point is none of them have me." Each family mentioned had a different name, nationality, and meal.
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The hyena's laughter in the zoo scene was later reused in the Disneyland ride "It's a small world", for the laughter of the hyenas in the Africa scene.
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The movie is cited by many legendary Disney animators, including Walt Disney himself, to be the first Disney movie (and so far only) to have a suggested "sex scene." This is when the title characters wake up in the morning, cuddled together in the park, and leaving a knowledgable viewer fully aware of what they were doing the previous night. Furthermore, since they were not "married," this means the film managed to show sex out of marriage positively (albeit with consequences) which was prohibited in the Hollywood production code. This is further complicated by the fact that Lady apparently comes home pregnant, and the dogs next door are aware of it as well, whispering about the courtesy of proposing marriage to her. This gives further meaning to the junkyard dogs who chase Lady through the alley as well, which suggests she is in heat. These gentle suggestions were possible in the 1950's only because the characters in question are dogs.
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- Even though Trusty survives in the film, death is still shown in the dog pound. A dog known as "Muttsy" is put down. He is taken away and the lights sort of blink, and Lady states "did they..." and the reply was yes. In the case of Lady and the Tramp it was to show what Tramp's fate would be with the dog catcher. This is done in future Disney animation, as in The Fox and the Hound. Todd's mother is shot at the beginning of the film and we see the skins of animals including foxes later in the film. This is unlike Bambi, where we didn't know Bambi's mother.
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Due to the fact that the story is told from a dog's perspective, Darling and Jim's faces were rarely shown. Darling's face was shown more often than Jim's, but they were usually shown only for a brief second.
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Lady and the Tramp is stated at #75 of the 100 Greatest Cartoons poll from Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.
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- The real life Tramp lived in the Frontier Land section of Disneyland for the rest of "her" life as it was a homeless female dog that served as the model for the Tramp.
