What Becomes a Legend Least?

By Sidney Urquhart

The fur trade is bristling over TV ads for Disney's newly revived One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The 1961 classic portrays the fiendish CRUELLA DE VIL as a Leona Helmsley-esque character obsessed with luxury furs. The ads create "a gruesome picture in ((children's)) minds, making them understandably upset the next time they see their mother put on a fur coat," complains Fur Age Weekly editor Lisa Marcinek. Joining the fray, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals exhorts parents to expose their children to the film's "playful, yet solid antifur message." And so they are. Dalmatians has pulled in $42 million in a month.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS