Let me tell you what happened to me today! James was off at the IPMS contest and I was on my own. I mailed out my mom's birthday gift and another package, then went to the library, then drove down to Dragon 168 for some fried rice for lunch (and dinner).

On the way home, I stopped at a used CD/DVD place. One reason I love DVDs is because you can buy used ones for cheap without worrying about oxides fouling your tape heads. I was looking for a copy of Blazing Saddles and found one. I noticed they already had a used copy of Alice in Wonderland, which was released 1/27 and which I'd planned to buy at Sam's. Here it was $14.95, which I knew would be even cheaper than Sam's. So I picked it up.

Oh, said the guy at the counter, you can leave that there. I have another one behind the counter. He then produced another DVD from behind the counter, and slit open the wrapper and security seal to make sure both disks were in the set. I paid him without my jaw dropping. So what I got was a new copy for the price of a used one. Wow.

So I spent the later afternoon watching Alice and all the trimmings. I didn't go into the Virtual Tea Party or the other children's games, but I did watch the material on the second disk, which was a marvelous trip back in time. There were two theatrical trailers, Walt Disney's introductions from when Alice appeared on his television series, a little black and white short of writer James Melton visiting the Disney Studios and seeing how the movie is made, and Kathryn Beaumont, the voice of Alice introducing two little bits, the Cheshire Cat song that was never recorded and the story about Peter Pan's "Second Star to the Right." This, the most memorable song, from that animated Disney film, was originally written for Alice! It was re-used with different lyrics when it was decided to cut it from Alice.

This leaves the three most fascinating extras.

The first was "One Hour in Wonderland," originally telecast Christmas Day 1950 on ABC and sponsored by Coca-Cola. Like everyone in Hollywood, Walt Disney was eventually persuaded to join the television bandwagon. "Wonderland" is the first appearance of Disney on television. It's a wonderfully old-fashioned show that begins with Edgar Bergen and his "pals," puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, attending a party at Disney Studios and meeting Kathryn Beaumont, Bobby Driscoll (who was in the Disney films Treasure Island and So Dear to My Heart, among others), Walt himself, and the Magic Mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, voiced by Hans Conreid, who introduces two Disney cartoons, the critically acclaimed "Clock Cleaners" and another in which Pluto flees to a house of mirrors to hide his bone from a pursuing bulldog. Clips from Snow White and the recently much-maligned Song of the South are also shown, along with the Mad Tea Party sequence from Alice.

The second interesting extra is a 30-minute excerpt from The Fred Waring Program, in which Waring and his Pennsylvanians play the music from Alice. Kathryn Beaumont and Sterling Holloway, the voice of the Cheshire cat, appear, and scenes from Alice are presented on stage along to the music, inluding, interestingly enough, scenes that are in the book, but not in the movie! Poor Kathryn Beaumont sounded like she had a cold and could barely croak her way through her songs, but the young lady who was in the Dormouse outfit looked like she was having a great old time.

The third extra is the oldest and the most interesting. Disney started his Hollywood film career with a series of silent shorts called "The Alice Comedies," live-action paired with animation about inquisitive little Alice, played by Virginia Davis, who interacted with cartoon critters. Presented on the DVD is the very first "Alice Comedy," "Alice's Wonderland," which sold the series, from 1923. It's a wonderful print, although incomplete, and a marvelous curiosity.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:01:00 PM

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