Cruella's Cronies

Cruella's Cronies is the friendship between Cruella de Vil, Jasper Badun and Horace Badun from the 101 Dalmatians fandom.

101 Dalmatians (1961)
Jasper and Horace were hired as goons by the eccentric and rich, but amoral Cruella de Vil. Cruella had an eye on the dalmatian puppies birthed by the dalmatians of her friend Anita and refused to accept Roger's firm "no" at her offer of buying them, so she sent Jasper and Horace their way. Under Cruella, the two of them disguised themselves as repairmen/deliverymen to fool their housekeeper Nanny Cook to let them in. When they managed to make it in against her best efforts to kick them out, they hide the puppies in Horace's bag and make a run for it. They then transport the puppies to Cruella's manor, the "Hell Hall". When the story of their dognapping makes the news, Jasper and Horace realize the consequences should their part in it be discovered, thus their first impulse is to call Cruella and ask them for their pay. Cruella refuses to pay them until she sees results. When Horace interrupts Jasper's phone call, the latter yells at him to be quiet. Since he was still talking to Cruella at that moment, she feels addressed and takes offense, angrily hanging up on them.

Regardless, she still allows the two of them to crash at Hell Hall, though mostly to give the puppies a place to be at when they finish their "job" with them. In addition to the 15 puppies they stole from Roger and Anita, the three of them went out of their way to purches 84 additional puppies legally, to avoid suspicion. But instead of doing their job, Jasper and Horace allow the puppies to watch TV with them while they plunder Cruella's snacks. When Cruella arrives at Hell Hall, she is furious at them for not beheading and skinning the puppies right away, reminding them that she wants the job done tonight, since the police are looking for the puppies everywhere. Jasper points out to her that they should probably wait for the puppies to grow bigger to get the best results, but Cruella dismisses this, implying that she chose puppies because it wouldn't arouse much suspicion. When the two of them beg her to at least allow them to watch their show to the end, she grabs a bottle Horace was drinking from and threw it into the fire. Then she slapped both of them and threatened to call the police on them if the job isn't done by morning. Though the puppies are snuck out of the room beneath their noses, Jasper and Horace do take Cruella's request seriously and argue who should do the killing and who the skinning. After being attacked by Pongo and Perdita, Jasper and Horace try to save their own skins by trying to track the puppies down.

Later, they meet Cruella again who has already realized that the puppies have escaped. She asks them if they have found them yet, but Jasper denies it. Horace complains about the freezing cold and pleads Cruella to give up the search, but Cruella refuses. She tells them that she won't give up if the search takes an entire year, but also tells them to mind the weather while driving, not wanting to get the attention from the police. Realizing that the dogs' footprints point to a nearby village called Dinsford, she tells the two of them to meet her there. After independently searching for the puppies, all three of them realize that they snuck onto a truck back to London. In two different cars, they give chase attempting to ram it off the road, colleteral damage be damned. However, due to Horace breaking the steering wheel of their car, they ram and completely destroy Cruella's car instead. All three of them survive, but Cruella has completely lost her mind and curses both of them while standing on the wreck of her car. Fed up with her, Jasper tells her to shut up, not even remotely caring about her sobbing while mourning her coat.

Cruella (2021)
In the 2021 original origin story of Cruella, who is born Estella while "Cruella" was simply a nickname for her curler side, the three have known each other since they were children. Jasper and Horace had been living on the streets with their dog Wink while stealing to survive after they lost their families. Estella was just orphaned when she woke up to find them hanging around the fountain she wanted to visit with her mother. Her monologue has her describing them as annoying, and being far better option than ending up in jail. Horace was hostile towards Estella after she pushed him away from her, while Jasper showed her some kindness from noticing that she doesn't have a family to return to. In order to convince Horace to let Estella stay with them, after she followed them back to their hideout, that having a girl in their gang will be helpful as a distraction. Like most people Horace was shocked by the style of her black-white hair color, while Jasper says that he likes her hair after she states that she needs to dye it.

Over the year the three have became family to one another. Jasper and Horace help Estella to become a master thief, while she uses her clothes making stills to create many disguises. Allowing them to blend in and disappear, without being recognised. With Horace being focused on the jobs they pull, he fails to notice what Jasper has whenever he catches Estella looking at adds and banners of Liberty.

Fanon
Though they always had some popularity, the Cruella movie helped making the idea of depicting them as friends a lot more palatable, due to her treatment of them in the original often being regarded as horrid. Just as other Disney villains, like Caption Hook and Gaston, have poorly treated their loyal henchmen.

Fandom
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