Everyone has seen, and enjoyed, Walt Disney’s 1951 animated film “Alice in Wonderland” but did you know that it was not Disney’s first time visiting Wonderland? In fact, Disney first used Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” as source material nearly 30 years earlier!
Five years before Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney created a series of “Alice Comedies”. Alice Comedies were half animated, half live-action, short films based in reality and Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. The first of the comedies was titled “Alice’s Wonderland”, a twelve-minute film written and directed by Walt Disney himself. Disney even acts in the film playing the role of a cartoonist.
The series of comedies ran from 1923 to 1927 and produced fifty-seven animated adventures in that time. Four young women played the role of Alice throughout its history, the original being Virginia Davis.
In the series, Alice often explores alongside Julius the Cat (picture below) who looks strikingly similar to Felix the Cat, who was the star of his own extremely popular animated series at the time. This likeness was completely intentional. Disney and his distributors wanted to ride the wave of Felix the Cat’s success.
In the 1925 film “Alice Solves a Puzzle” we see the first appearance of the iconic Disney character Pete (or “Peg Leg Pete”) who still appears in cartoons today. What is your favorite cartoon or film with Pete?
Unfortunately for Alice, the “Alice Comedies” were not successful enough to survive past 1927 but in the same year, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was created and became quite popular. Soon after the end of the Alice Comedies, Disney created Mickey Mouse which gave his animation studio enough money to create animated feature films. Finally in 1951 Disney would once again return to Wonderland by creating “Alice in Wonderland” the animated film we all know and love today.
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DID YOU KNOW? Disney’s First “Alice in Wonderland” Was Created in 1923!#AliceinWonderland #Disney #WaltDisney #Alice #thisdayinfilmhsitory #filmhistory https://t.co/9W2jsXdYsg
— This Day in Film History (@ThisDayinFH) August 9, 2021
Jon Shai Van Sickle
Jon Shai Van Sickle is the owner and operator of This Day in Film History. He is a filmmaker as well as a film historian. He currently lives in Utah.
