Background Info

Below is a summary of the background info related to the film, Alice in Wonderland. It was typed by Charlotte, the original owner of the fanlisting, and is taken from her copy of 'The Disney Treasury'.


On a "golden afternoon" in 1862 - July 4th to be exact - Charles Ludwig Dodgson, an Oxford mathematics don, took three little sisters boating on the Isis. The middle sister, ten-year-old Alice Liddell asked for a story from the young man, one "with plenty of nonsense in it", to while away the time. Wishing to please the child he started with these words: "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister...." And thus one of the great classics in the English language was born. Eventually, the author hand-lettered the whole story, drew thirty-seven illustrations for it, and presented the charming manuscript book to Alice Lidell for Christmas in 1864. He titled it 'Alice's Adventures Underground'.


Revised and expanded, the book was published on July 4, 1865, the third anniversary of the boating party. John Tenniel drew the illustrations, some of them not unlike the author's; the title became 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'; and the author signed himself Lewis Carroll.


In 1949, Walt Disney chose Alice's fantastic adventures as an ideal vehicle for animation. For nearly two years he and a staff of 750 artists worked on the production, transposing Caroll's text and Tenniel's illustrations to their medium as faithfully as possible.


For the voices of the zany characters that Alice meets in Wonderland, a cast of highly idiosyncratic comedians was assembled: Ed Wynn's giddy giggle became the Mad Hatter's; Jerry Colonna's vocal eccentricities helped to delineate the March Hare; the Cheshire Cat's voice was Sterling Holloways'; Richard Haydn's superilious tones made the Caterpillar stand out. Verna Felton spoke commandingly for the terrible-tempered Queen of Hearts. J. Pat O'Malley, a man with many vocal talents, provided voices for Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Walrus, the Carpenter, and the Oysters. A British actress, Kathryn Beaumont, supplied Alice's girlish voice, as she was later to do for Wendy in 'Peter Pan'.