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The Blog of the LCSNA

Now Available Again: Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland

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If you recall, Disney re-released their 1951 animated feature Alice in Wonderland on DVD last year in conjunction with their new Tim Burton version: a “2-Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition”. This is still available, and contains the following special features:

oReflections on Alice: Walt Disney labored for almost twenty years to get his vision of Alice in Wonderland on the screen. In this featurette, learn about how a exceptional group of talented individuals conquered the difficulties of translating Lewis Carroll’s beloved tale into a classic animated movie
oDeleted scene: Pig And Pepper: In the twenty years it was in development at the Walt Disney Studios, Alice In Wonderland went through many changes. This rare glimpse at a scene that was once considered for a 1939 version of Alice In Wonderland is narrated by the directors of The Princess And The Frog, and offers their informed perspective on how scenes come and go during the development of an animated movie
oRemastered and restored with an all-new transfer
oVirtual Wonderland Party activities including riddles, silly song & dance, Teapot orchestra, Mad Hatter Says, and other games and stories
o”Thru the Mirror” animated short with Mickey Mouse
o”I’m Odd” never before heard song
o2 Sing along songs
oSet-top game
o”One Hour in Wonderland” documentary (60 mins.)
o”An Alice Comedy: Alice’s Wonderland” featurette (8 mins.)
o”Operation Wonderland” featurette (11 mins.)
oExcerpt from “The Fred Warring Show” (30 mins.)
oDeleted Material Featurettes: “From Wonderland to Never Land,” “Song Demos,” Deleted Storyboard Concept: Alice Daydreams in the Park”
oOriginal Walt Disney TV introductions and trailers

Kathryn Beaumont with Walt Disney c. 1949

Now, on February 1st, Disney is issuing again their 1951 animated feature Alice in Wonderland, a “Two-Disc 60th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD Combo”. We look forward to 2012’s Special 61st Re-Un-Anniversary Edition. In the Knight Letter 85 (now available!), we mentioned that Kathryn Beaumont, “voice of both Disney’s Alice and Wendy from Peter Pan, appeared at the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco on May 22, 2010, to share her memories as a voice-over artist. The actress, who turned 72 [last] year, was recently heard in the video game ‘Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep’ as the voice of ‘Kairi’s Grandma.’ She will also be introducing the special feature ‘Through the Keyhole: A Companion’s Guide to Wonderland’ in the digital remastering of the 1951 film to be re-re-re-re-released in February 2011.” I do not know if this 2011 edition is significantly more remastered than the 2010 edition, but for shopping comparison, I’ll quote the full special features on the new one also:

o New BD Features
o Through the Keyhole: A Companion’s Guide to Wonderland – View the movie in this special mode and discover references to the original Lewis Carroll classic – introduced by the voice of Alice, Kathryn Beaumont.
o Disney View – Watch the movie in this expanded viewing experience with new Disney art in the wings of the screen
o Painting the Roses Red game – Help paint the roses red in the Queen’s garden. Careful, or someone could lose their head
o Walt Disney color TV introduction (1959) – A never-before-seen color TV intro by Walt
o Reference Footage: Alice and the Doorknob – Kathryn Beaumont provides an introduction to this newly discovered reference footage of Alice talking to the doorknob
o Pencil Test: Alice Shrinks – Kathryn Beaumont introduces a newly discovered pencil test of Alice shrinking
• PLUS, Classic DVD Features:
o Reflections on Alice
o Operation Wonderland (now in hi-def)
o “I’m Odd” newly discovered Cheshire Cat song and intro
o Thru the Mirror Mickey Mouse animated short (now in hi-def)
o One-hour in Wonderland
o An Alice Comedy: Alice’s Wonderland
o Original theatrical trailers (1951 & 1974)

So, lots of new stuff! But, for some reason, not all of the stuff from the 2010 release. If you want to read more about Beaumont’s appearance at the Disney Family Museum last year, there was an article about it on blog Disney Fan Insider here.

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Venus Williams tennis dress inspired by Alice in Wonderland

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Venus Williams – Getty Images
Venus Williams - Getty Images

It’s been described by England cricketer Graeme Swann as “the worst outfit ever seen on a tennis court,” but Venus Williams claims the dress was “inspired by Alice in Wonderland.” Members of the LCSNA, what’s your verdict? Off with her head? Or does she deserve an elegant thimble?

The yellow lattice top, print skirt, and flesh colored leggings don’t exactly ring any Wonderland bells for me, but in a post-match interview Williams offered the following explanation:

Yeah, don’t laugh. But it’s kind of about a surprise, because when Alice goes down the hole, the rabbit hole, she finds all these things that are so surprising.

This outfit is about having a surprise in tennis a dress, and kind of, you know, showing some skin and then just having a print. Prints don’t happen that often in tennis. So it’s called the Wonderland dress. It was fun.

You can see more pictures of the dress at the Style Bistro.

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The famous dodo painting and its modern translation

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“The modern interpretation of the dodo’s physique by palaeontologist Julian Hume. Photograph: Natural History Museum”
"Detail from the oil painting of the dodo by Roelandt Savery, which will be on display at the Natural History Museum." Image from The Guardian

The iconic painting of the dodo bird above, by Roelandt Savery circa 1626, will hang in the UK Natural History Museum starting January 21st, 2011, as part of the permanent exhibition Images of Nature. About Savery’s depiction of the dodo, Robin McKie wrote in the Guardian on Sunday: “The poor creature looks faintly absurd, which probably explains the inclusion of the image in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

For contrast, the paleontologist Julian Hume has painted a version to depict a more realistic image of what the dodo looked like. It will hang next to the original.

“Savery claimed he had painted the dodo from real life but there is a lot of evidence today to suggest he only saw preserved specimens,” says [Judith] Magee [the gallery’s new curator]. “These would not necessarily have represented the dodo in its proper original form. By examining the skeletons of dodos, we have produced this new image of the bird which depicts it in a different, and we believe more realistic way. The painting shows it having longer legs, a straighter neck, a less bulky body and a smaller head.”

"The modern interpretation of the dodo's physique by palaeontologist Julian Hume. Photograph: Natural History Museum"
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Naughty Alice Perfume

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From the Scented Salamander:

British designer Vivienne Westwood is paying homage to Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland this fall with a new perfume called Naughty Alice which will debut in late September 2010. We are told it “references magic and mischief.”

[…]

Naughty Alice is described as a comforting musky-floral featuring notes of black rose, carnal violet and ylang-ylang.

The bottle comes with a charm bracelet bearing the crown logo of Vivienne Westwood.

Prices: £35; £50; £60

Shopping address: hervia.com

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Lewis Carroll Apps for Android

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“Lewis Carroll Collection,” by Macrender, screen shot
"Lewis Carroll Collection," by Macrender, screen shot

Publish This, LLC, has a new app for the Android Market (Android is the operating system Google developed for non-iPhone smartphones) with the zingy title “Lewis Carroll Collection Books” ($0.99.)  It claims to have the text for AAIW, TTLG, Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, The Hunting of the Snark, and A Tangled Tale. I should have been warned by this app having the impossibly low rating of 1 Star (out of 5) – it appears to simply not work, and crashes every time I try to open a book. Never fear, though, Android users, if you need nothing more than to re-read one of Lewis Carroll’s books on your 4″ screen. There appears to be at least a dozen apps that offer the text of AAIW or TTLG, ranging from free to $4.99 (“Lewis Carroll Collection” by Macrender, which, judging from the screen shot to the right, has very little bling.)

I downloaded another free app called “Alice’s Adventures” by Popbook, which seems to simply be the text of AAIW in 76 screens without any way to jump ahead to a chapter. There’s not even any space between paragraphs. Marvin Huang has a free app called “Alice in Wonderland,” which at least has chapters and the ability to create bookmarks. Ditto for the $0.99 Double M Apps “Alice in Wonderland Ebook.” None of these have any illustrations. (Thank heavens they left in the conversations.) It fascinates me that some young readers’ first experience of Carroll’s masterpiece will be in this format. If anyone has any opinions about any of the other apps, or can compare them to the iPhone Carroll offerings, please comment on this post! Meanwhile, it seems the market is wide open for some creative talents to take on classic children’s books with fancy smartphoney illustrations.

Rovio's popular smartphone game "Angry Birds"

The Atomic Antelope digital pop-up version for the iPad we’ve reported on before has touch screen interactive illustrations, but those are based on the Tenniel. All we ask from our Android Alice in Wonderland apps is that, when the Rabbit sends in a little Bill, we can slingshot him like an angry bird.

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Sergey Tyukanov’s ornate “Alice in Wonderland”

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Sergey Tyukanov’s “Alice in Wonderland” (2009), Saatchi Gallery

Sergey Tyukanov's "Alice in Wonderland" (2009), Saatchi Gallery

London’s Saatchi Gallery has images online from Russian-American artist Sergey Tyukanov. His fabulous “Alice in Wonderland” is pictured above. At his website, we find the Sergey Tyukanov Museum of Art; stroll past the restrooms and discover a whole Alice in Wonderland gallery with 21 images! He has also created art inspired by Hieronymus Bosch and Russian folklore.

Sergey Tyukanov's "Alice in Wonderland 9"
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Cryptozoologist Dr Karl Shuker on the Cheshire Cat

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Dr Karl Shuker with a rare Phantom Cat
Dr Karl Shuker with a rare Phantom Cat

Cryptozoology, according to the Wikipedia, “refers to the search for animals which are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by the field of biology. ” Dr Karl Shuker, according to his own bio, is “one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world.” Wikipedia describes him as “full-time freelance zoological consultant, media consultant, and noted author specializing in cryptozoology.” He is author of dozens of books, such as 2010’s Karl Shuker’s Alien Zoo, and he is currently working on his second book on “mysterious and mythical cats,” (the first was the “seminal” Mystery Cats of the World from 1989, out of print), called I Thought I Saw The Strangest Cat… Phantom Cats (again according to Wikipedia) “are a common subject of cryptozoological interest, largely due to the relative likelihood of existence in comparison to fantastical cryptids lacking any evidence of existence, such as Mothman.”

Dr Shuker gave us a sneak peak of this forthcoming book on his blog ShukerNature last week, posting a lengthy excerpt about the Cheshire Cat! Read the whole thing here, and here are the first few paragraphs:

Ever since Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s book was first published in 1865, literary scholars, Carrollian biographers, and cat-lovers alike have debated the source of one of its most enigmatic characters – the famously evanescent Cheshire Cat, with its maniacal, detachable grin! What was Carroll’s inspiration for such a surreal creation?

To begin with: as there is no such breed as a Cheshire cat, where did its name originate? Unlike most of its history, however, this seems to be quite straightforward.

Born in 1832 at Daresbury in rural Cheshire, Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) spent much of his childhood there and later at Croft, a little further north. Consequently, he would have frequently encountered various of the local farm, pet, and stray cats – in other words, cats of Cheshire.

Moreover, as pointed out by Martin Gardner in The Annotated Alice (1960), there was a popular saying, current during Carroll’s time – “Grin like a Cheshire cat” – which must also, surely, have influenced his choice of a name for his fictitious feline.

Hardly surprisingly, that phrase has been mooted by several scholars as the origin of the Cheshire Cat’s synonymous smile too – but there are a number of other, equally compelling claimants for that particular honour. For example, it is well known that during the period when Carroll and his family lived in Cheshire, there were several inns whose signboards portrayed broadly-grinning lions; their incongruous visages would undoubtedly have attracted the attention of anyone so captivated by the allure of the ludicrous as Carroll.

Notwithstanding this, he needed to look no further than his home county’s celebrated cheeses for immediate inspiration. In her book Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1979), Anne Clark noted that a renowned medieval inhabitant of Chester, John Catheral, whose coat-of-arms from 1304 included a cat, always bared his teeth in a grin when angry – and died with a smile on his face, quite literally, while defending his beloved town. In honour of his valour, a longstanding tradition arose whereby Cheshire cheese-makers would mould their cheeses into the shape of a cat, and carve a wide grin upon its face. Once again, Carroll would certainly have seen such cheeses, and would have known the origin of their unusual form.

[…]

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Blog claims to have Lewis Carroll reading the Jabberwocky

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While not impossible (Dodgson didn’t die till after the advent of sound recording), I was skeptical when this blog 22 Words claimed to have a recording of “Lewis Carroll reading ‘Jabberwocky.’” But I see they updated it with the comment “Oops! Sorry…This isn’t Lewis Carroll reading. Not sure how I made that mistake…” I can guess how they made the mistake: they had embedded the sound only from this strange YouTube animation. Its creator, Jim Clark, explains himself thusly: “Here is a virtual movie of Lewis Carroll reading his much loved poem Jabberwocky. The poem is read superbly by Justin Brett.”

There’s no known voice recordings of Carroll are there?

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The Henry Altemus Company’s Alices

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“The covers are made from a number of different linen swaths. Some examples are below. For all possible pictures see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series57.htm “

The Henry Altemus Company published editions of AAIW and TTLG at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries. A website called www.henryaltemus.com has recently added a page about these Alices, with valuable historical information and lots of scanned images! I believe this is the humble work of scholar Cary Sternick, who wrote an article on the subject in the Knight Letter 80.

Henry Altemus published Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in separate volumes and combined books. Mistakes regarding editions and dates are commonplace. This section will review all of the Altemus Alice’s. For more detailed information click on the individual series links.

Of course, Altemus only published reprints of these titles. They were printed as combination books as well as single titles beginning in 1895. These titles appeared in 27 different series as well being published as non-series books. Within the series there are numerous formats and variants. I have seen one Alice in Wonderland book which I am sure is part of a series but which one is not clear. This book is discussed at the end of this article. […]

"The covers are made from a number of different linen swaths. Some examples are below. For all possible pictures see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series57.htm "
"This series of 40 books was published between 1899-1906. A similar format was used for Series #59 Boys and Girls Own Library, a 39 volume series published in 1909-1910. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series59.htm)"
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