When you think of the Disney company, you probably think of the films. And when you think of Disney films, what do you think of? Probably your favourite ones, maybe the most recent ones, or the ones that have achieved historical value like Snow White. Some Disney films get overlooked, some more than others. One that I believe is overlooked sometimes is Alice in Wonderland. Lots of people adore the movie and have different thoughts on it, but I’m not sure it gets the credit it deserves for really kickstarting the entire company. So, here I am, giving it its credit.

The Beginnings of Alice

Alice in Wonderland is not an original Disney story. The original story was written by Lewis Carroll, titled “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and released in 1865. It was followed by a sequel in 1871, titled “Through the Looking-Glass”. The inspiration for the novel came from a boat ride that Lewis (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was on on July 4th 1862. He was accompanied by Reverend Robinson Duckworth, and Henry Liddell’s 3 daughters: Lorina Charlotte Liddell, Alice Pleasance Liddell, and Edith Mary Liddell. This day is reflected in the poem “in the golden afternoon”, and it is where the 3 girls convinced them to write down the story of the curious Alice. He created the manuscript and published the book 3 years later, including 12 chapters, most of them being the stories of the familiar characters we know today.

Who is Alice Pleasance Liddell?

Alice is one of the daughters of Henry Liddell, a dean of a Christ Church in Oxford. The family moved to Oxford in 1856, where Alice met Lewis while he was photographing the cathedral. Lewis quickly became a family friend of theirs. The relationship between Lewis and Alice was always in question, as no one truly knew his intentions with her, but it was rumored that Lewis wanted to potentially marry the young girl at 11 years old. It also was never fully confirmed that he based the Alice character off of Alice Liddell, as they look nothing alike, but people believe the names aren’t a coincidence. Both Alice Liddell and the character have the same birthday, and there is an acrostic poem in the sequel that spells out her name. The family cut ties with Carroll in 1863, in which that is also unknown, because the pages of his diary during the time are missing.

Disney Grabs Hold Of It

In the 1920s, Walt and his right-hand man Ub Iwerks were running a studio in Kansas City called Laugh-o-gram Studios. They had had many ups and downs with trying to get their short films to screen in theatres, losing employees along the way due to shortage of money, and even went bankrupt eventually. But the most successful project that came from the studio was the Alice Comedies, a series of short films with both animation and live action actors. Walt had read the Alice in Wonderland books by Carroll during his time in school. He created them with his team, and a little girl named Virginia Davis who played Alice in the films. The very first one-reel short was called Alice’s Wonderland. They completed it, but by the time they did, they went bankrupt.

No Alice? No Mickey.

Walt picked up and left to Los Angeles with the rest of his savings and lived with his uncle Robert, and brought the film to Margaret Winkler and Charles Mintz of Winkler Studios. They needed a replacement for Felix the Cat and decided to screen the Alice Comedies for Walt. They created and released 57 short films about Alice, with 4 different actresses playing the title role. After the last short was released on August 22, 1927, Mintz wanted a new series and new character, thus Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was born. This was the catalyst to Walt leaving his contract with Winkler Studios after he realized all of his work would not be copyrighted under his name. This was the trigger to create Mickey Mouse.

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Walt had considered making this his first ever movie in the 1930s instead of Snow White, but Paramount had just released their version of Alice in Wonderland based on the books. He did want to make it similar to his old shorts, including animation and live-action throughout the film. In the end, they kept it as all animation to do justice to the books. The first sign of Walt integrating Alice into his work was a Mickey Mouse short in 1936, called “Thru the Mirror” to reflect “Through the Looking-Glass”. The studio was working on both Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella at the same time, and whichever progressed faster would be the first one to be released. Cinderella, of course, finished faster, and it was released just a year before Alice. It was not very successful upon release on July 26th 1951 in London, so when Walt came out with his “Disneyland” series in 1954, he screened it as an episode on November 3, 1954 to get the audience more excited about it.

Never Witnessed the Success

Walt passed away in December of 1966, and during the time from when the film was released to when he passed, it was never re-released to the theatres. It was however re-released in 1974, and did outstandingly better than it did the first time. It did so well that they released it again in the 1980s. Alice in Wonderland is a part of the Disney vault films, in which movies are released for home video for only a limited amount of time before it is put back into the vault. Alice in Wonderland was one of the first ever movies available for VHS rental.

A World Without Alice is A World Without Disney

Although the Alice Comedies and Alice in Wonderland were not the very first projects put out by Walt, they were the catalysts to many of his other successes. Without the Alice Comedies and bringing it to Hollywood with him, he would not have been able to work at Winkler Studios, there would be no Oswald, subsequently no Mickey, and the rest of Disney’s career may have looked much different. Alice in Wonderland had a different impact, as although it didn’t do very well in the box office, it provided the company with many talented voice actors to play other roles in future films. Almost all of the main voice cast of the movie have all been featured in other Disney projects, including Kathryn Beaumont (Alice’s voice) going on to do Wendy Darling’s voice, too. The fate of the company really lied in the hands of the Alice Comedies, so us as fans are all very, very lucky that they were successful and Walt made the right decisions.