My Experience With.... Alice in Wonderland (Part 3) -- The Disney Version

This week has been crazy for me, but hopefully, you all are doing well.

• My Experience With... Alice in Wonderland (Rachael Peatross edition)
• My Experience With.... Alice in Wonderland (Part 1). It's not what you think!
• My Experience With.... Alice in Wonderland (Part 2) -- The Novels 
• My Experience With.... Alice in Wonderland (Part 3) -- The Disney Version
• My Experience With.... Alice in Wonderland (Part 4) -- ????
• ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Alright, we’re week 3 in our Alice series, and this next item I’m reviewing may seem a mite familiar.

If there were any movie adaptation perfect for re-telling the classic tale, it would be the 1980s version. But Disney definitely comes in at a close second. Well, at least the old version does.

I was not one of those kids who grew up watching a whole lot of Disney movies. That definitely came in when I hit my 20s. I watched them to one extent or another, but I wasn’t attached to a whole lot of them. I think my favorites might’ve been Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi. Bambi turned out to be way more dramatic and depressing than I remembered, Dumbo seemed more racist than I remembered (I’ll give it a pass, it was the 50s, and it’s no worse than some cartoons of that era), and Pinocchio – Daddy, I love you, but what were you thinking, letting me watch that? No wonder Mom made me stop watching it. How was I not scarred for life?

Anyway, Alice in Wonderland was definitely not on my Disney list until I was much older. As I grew up, I caught up with my Disney folklore from TV movies and the Library. I think I caught Alice in Wonderland on TV somewhere.

I think that Disney took this story to a very nutty extreme. This really shouldn’t be surprising, since classic Disney movies thrive on insane dynamics. I mean, look at Fantasia! It tells its stories through music and visuals the way an interpreter uses hand gestures and facial expressions. Things are often exaggerated to make a point come across.

By the way, that is not a knock on the deaf / hard-of-hearing community. I

am speaking from experience in watching ASL interpreters for local plays.

It’s fascinating to watch, really.

Even more fun than the actual show sometimes!

One thing I found fascinating about this Disney version of Alice in Wonderland was that they actually blended elements of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Where they didn’t have the mock turtle or the Gryphon (heck, the 1980s version even left him out!), they had the Tweedles, the talking flowers, the poem about the walrus and the chef, and even the Cheshire Cat (voiced by the Winnie-the-Pooh guy) sang the opening/closing of Jabberwocky. And what would a Disney movie be without it’s songs? I still sing the song from the flowerbed sometimes to this day! It’s gorgeous!

So… my opinion of the original Disney version? I love it. It’s a very calming, very zany, very colorful and fun interpretation of the original novel. Would the Queen of Hearts strike fear into a little youngster? Maybe. If that happens, just tell them she’s not real. Then make them act a similar role. Works almost every time.

Next week, you’ll see why I kept saying original Disney version…. ugh.

Plugging time! YouTube Page.

What’s your second-favorite obscure holiday?