Alice in Fantasyland: How Lewis Carroll’s Alice Followed a Mouse to the Magic Kingdom
Through the course of her story, little Alice explored a dream-world of oddball characters and nonsense logic. However, Walt Disney wasn’t spouting nonsense when he said he wanted to adapt the Alice story or incorporate it into his parks. He was dead serious (and not because he was going to be executed by a Queen of Hearts).
150 years later, Alice has now adventured off to California and Florida, Tokyo and Paris, bringing a sense of the whimsical and a dash of tea with her wherever she goes. As for running into oddball characters and being surrounded by nonsense logic. . .well, perhaps the real world isn’t so different than her dream one after all!
But how exactly did our inquisitive young girl get from Carroll’s page to a Disney park in the first place?
I like to think it started when she saw a mouse named Mickey whistling as he walked, and she followed him to the Magic Kingdom. . .
Which Dreamed It?
But it actually started more like this. . .
Rather than Alice following a rabbit (or Mickey Mouse) to a world of fantasy, Walt Disney had followed Alice into her world when he was a boy. Walt said, “No story in English literature has intrigued me more than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It fascinated me the first time I read it as a schoolboy.”1
His appreciation for the Alice story continued into the 1930s when he acquired the movie rights to the original Alice illustrations – from both Alice in Wonderland and the sequel, Through the Looking Glass. The pictures had been done by English artist and political cartoonist Sir John Tenniel.2 In addition to picture rights, Walt “also registered the title Alice in Wonderland with the Motion Picture Association of America in 1938.”3
Although Walt loved Alice and her story, he knew you needed more than love to make a good movie – you needed logic – something which the tale was sorely lacking. Though the nonsense was fun in its literary format, changes would be required to make it work for the screen, but Walt was confident the story’s integrity could be maintained. In a 1939 meeting with his staff about a possible Alice movie, Walt said, “There is a spirit behind Carroll’s story, there. It’s fantasy, imagination, screwball logic. . .we can keep it very much Carroll – keep his spirit.”4
Subsequent changes were made, such as creating a clearer narrative and deleting or combining some of the 80 characters who appeared erratically in the Alice stories. The Doorknob was a pure Disney creation, introduced to avoid an overly convoluted exposition in the movie. Though intent on maintaining the “Carroll spirit,” there are those scholars of literature who, smiling, shake their heads and say, “but the eventual Disney Alice was certainly Walt’s creation.”5
Be that as it may, Walt was sure to point out that his changes were “not finding fault with the way Lewis Carroll told his immortal nonsense. If I hadn’t regarded it as one of the masterpieces of all time, for both adults and children, I would not have undertaken a film version. I undertook it with the greatest respect.”6
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Unfortunately, when Alice in Wonderland hit the big screen in 1951, it was not received with the greatest respect. Oh, the animation was praised – Mary Blair’s depiction of the Cheshire Cat “with pink and purple stripes [was] strikingly original, [and] added a further hallucinatory dimension to this mind-bending character.”7
The music, too, was relatively well-received.
A critic in the New Yorker panned it for lack of integrity, the thing Disney had fought so hard to maintain, writing, “In Mr. Disney’s Alice there is a blind incapacity to understand that a literary masterwork cannot be improved by the introduction of shiny little tunes, and touches more suited to a flea circus than to a major imaginative effort.”8
Surprisingly, though, the loudest, most frequent critique was that the Disney adaptation lacked heart.9 Such critiques centered on the main character, Alice, for being so spoiled and unresponsive to things around her that the audience couldn’t care less what happened to her. Mickey, it seemed, had made a better Alice in Walt’s 1936 short, Thru the Mirror.10 (Even I have to admit, Mickey is pretty darn cute playing skip-rope with that happy telephone – and he performed a pretty mean tap-dance routine!)
Nevertheless, it should also be noted that today, Disney’s Alice is “often regarded as some of the finest work in Disney studio history,”11 and that in 1951, even movie-reviewer Bob Thomas acknowledged it as “one of Walt Disney’s best efforts.”12 However, Walt himself aligned with his harsher critics, conceding the character of Alice was probably too passive in her role, and the film “was undoubtedly a disaster in [his] mind.”13
And yet, Walt was not done with Alice.
A Mad Tea-Party
Despite the box office disappointment, Walt still loved his childhood friend, and he wanted her story to be part of the world he was creating – both in California and later in Florida. He worked with Arrow Development to engineer, build, and install the first version of an Alice in Wonderland ride in Disneyland, California.14
The ride was based on the seventh chapter, A Mad Tea-Party, of Carroll’s book and the “Very Merry Un-Birthday” scene of the Disney movie. A giant teapot is the centerpiece of a turntable that acts as a tea tray for 18 equally giant teacups. The cups are arranged in groups of 6. The turntable turns, the three groups of 6 spin in their respective circles, and then each cup also spins! It’s certainly not a ride for the faint of heart – it’s just as dizzying as trying to recite Jabberwocky in one breath!
Although the cups were designed by Arrow Development rather than Disney, Mary Blair, a chief artist on the Alice movie, did help design the patterns on the cups. According to Bob Gurr, the Alice ride, along with the other rides developed by Arrow, saw limited success at first, rather like the Alice movie. Gurr recalled,
“Walt asked Ed [Morgan] and Karl [Bacon] ‘How did you boys come out on the rides.’ Since Ed and Karl had done the jobs on fixed bids, they lost money on every one. ‘I don’t want you to lose any money on my work, I’ll cover your costs. We couldn’t have done it without you boys. What else can I do for you?’ Ed replied ‘Nothing, it’s just been a pleasure to work with you.’ Thus spoke three of the most wise and wonderful men who ever lived.”15
Bob Gurr in DESIGN: Those Were The Times
However, much like the movie, popularity would smile on Alice’s ride, if with some delay. The “Mad Tea Party Ride,” or “The Tea Cup Ride,” as it is unofficially called, opened along with the rest of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, in 1971, making it part of the foundation of Walt Disney World. Located in Fantasyland, it was virtually unchanged from its Disneyland counterpart, complete with Dormouse occasionally peeping out from the giant teapot!
However, one change was adding a roof to the open-air ride, thereby keeping the ride operating even in the midst of Florida rain showers. The addition of the roof also called for the addition of beautiful paper lanterns to dangle above the ride, making it especially magical if you take a spin during the evening. (You might find yourself singing, “and at last I see the light,” even though it’s from the wrong movie!)
The teacups aren’t just in Florida, though – they are also in Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong! They are continuously popular, and long lines are common, despite their infamy for causing tummy troubles worse than the mysterious “drink me” bottle and “eat me” cake!16
Luckily, one can control the spin speed of their own cup with the turn of a wheel. . .or keep it slow by not turning it at all! (Downing a Dramamine along with that bottle of “drink me” might be a good idea if you’re going on this ride, as well as saving the “eat me” cake for afterward!!) Whether you ride during daylight or beneath the twinkle of lanterns, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped into Wonderland. . .perhaps even more so once you’ve stepped off the ride!
Eat Me, Drink Me, Meet Me!
The giant teacups will make you feel as if you’ve shrunk just like Alice, but the Wonderland effect doesn’t stop there! At Walt Disney World, you can really put yourself in Alice’s shoes by popping over to the Cheshire Café, where you can actually participate in “drink me” and “eat me!”
Also located in Fantasyland, look for the sign with the smiling cat, then step right up and order an iced coffee and the specialty Cheshire Cat Tail! The Cheshire Cat Tail is a baked good filled with chocolate chips and frosted with pink and purple stripes. You might find yourself grinning as wide as the Cheshire Cat himself because just one bite will leave you feline good! (Sorry, I know, I should leave the linguistic jokes to Lewis Carroll. . .)
But getting to be Alice for a day doesn’t end there! If you keep hanging out by the teacups, you’re bound to run into the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb. . .and Alice. Which might ruin the effect of you being Alice for the day – or, with true nonsense logic, you can conclude that one of you must be a looking-glass reflection.
If you’re fortunate, one of these characters will hop on the teacup ride with you! And if that isn’t enough, you can even book a tea party where you can decorate cupcakes, do crafts, and take pictures with Alice and the Mad Hatter!17 Fantasyland truly is the place where dreams come true.
Walt called Wonderland “the most fantastic of all the world’s of fantasy.”18 I believe he would have loved the way the Magic Kingdom has brought one of his favorite novels to life, and in a way, even he didn’t quite accomplish it; he made the foundation for something better.
How thrilled, then, would Walt be to “shrink” and ride a giant teacup with Alice herself before munching on a Cheshire Cat Tail? Even though Walt is no longer around to experience these things, he would be so pleased that he was part of creating a world where you and I can. After all, Disney World has done for Walt what Walt strove to do for Lewis Carroll – to “keep his spirit.”
Cover Image
Photo: perlster via Flickr
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Additional Resources in Print
Bye, Susan. 2018. “Imagination and Invention: ALICE IN WONDERLAND ON SCREEN.” Screen Education, no. 92 (December): 30–37.
Higdon, David Leon, and Phill Lehrman. “Huxley’s ‘Deep Jam’ and the Adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.” The Review of English Studies 43, no. 169 (1992): 57-74.
