As I mentioned yesterday, the Very Important Date of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (EW gives it a C) has me revisiting the 1985 TV Read the full post.
Mar 5
2010
02:17 PM ET
Off With Her Head: Sammy Davis Jr. is a caterpillar
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I remember watching this as a little girl because my mom was obsessed with Anthony Newley, and he played the Mad Hatter. The Jabberwocky scared me half to death at the time. Isn’t this the only version that prominently features the character? Anyway, I just rented it from Netflix last week….we watched it for old times sake, and promptly fell asleep once she made it past Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (Gorme and Lawrence? Ha!). It just felt so much longer than it used to!
When I moved out of my parents house for good I spent a good four hours going through all the VHS tapes they’d shoved in a giant box to take with me. I’ve only watched it twice since, but I wanted to be sure they didn’t get rid of it. This was of course my first exposure to Sammy Davis Jr, but hey, I was 5!
The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown/The lion beat the unicorn all around the town! Play! Oh, John Stamos.
We memorized this movie- it was the “Alice in the Orange Dress in Wonderland Movie.” So many weird/creepy/catchy songs:
“There’s no way home from this sad placeee.”
“Do you like nonsense? I’m not really sure, well sort-of.”
“Jam tomorrow, jaaam yesta-day, but neva eva jaam todaay”
and of course, as mentioned already:
“or I’ll kick ya downstairs.”
I struggle to approach every Alice redux on its own terms, remembering that the two Alice books were a stunningly radical critique of conventional wisdom, with a gnarly poke at Thomas Hobbes’ “nice knock-down argument,” woven into a lesson in semantics via a dialog between Alice and Humpty-Dumpty. Grace Slick may have been right in suggesting that eating the mushroom had a psychedelic meaning perhaps relating to hashish, which could induce Alice’s sensations. In the Hobbes vs. Rousseau argument over original sin vs. original blessing, Lewis Carroll was fervently on the side of Rousseau, as were Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Mark Twain. The popular retellings may be fun, but I’d love to see someone make a film as radical as the two Alice books.
As soon as I saw this was on DVD, I had to buy it. My family is known to randomly break into song – “Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today!”
I taped it off tv too when it aired and loved watching it over and over again.
My sister and I watched the 1985 version thousands of times. My mom used to get so mad because Alice’s hair was always perfect. And I remember being terrified of the Jabberwocky. Creepy.
Annie, you rock for posting about this movie! It was one of my favorites as a child… especially the part you posted. That and “jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never, ever jam today!” I can’t imagine Burton’s version topping this one.
“Pepper! Lots and lots of pepper!”
Haha. I always thought it was to terrible how the Dutchess treated that baby. Then it turned into a pig and ran away. Images like that do things to a five year old, I tell ya. But yeah, I definitely had this taped off the TV broadcast and would watch it when I was home sick. I bought it on DVD a couple of years ago and now my daughters are obsessed with it. I think the story of Alice in Wonderland has this odd darkness that is appealing to children, inexplicably. Or at least it was appealing to me.
This 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland is what my family considers “OUR MOVIE”. We quote it 25 years later. You can’t question wardrobe changes. You just have to appreciate the talent in this show. Watching it last week while Alice “We are Dancing” is dancing with the White Knight I had to pause to tell my girls she was dancing with the Big Lewbowski’s father. This a classic wonderful version of Alice and it should be show on a yearly basis. Anne, you must be my girl’s ages. They loved it. They still do and now I have a 2 1/2 yr old granddaughter that runs through the house calling out “Mr. Rabbit! Mr. Rabbit!”
I went and saw the new Tim Burton movie last night, and it was very good, but ever since, I for some reason have had one of the songs from the amazing 1985 version stuck in my head and am seriously thinking about watching it this morning. I watched it recorded off tv constantly when I was little, and was DEVASTATED when my mom accidently taped over the middle of it with an episode of “Another world”. I remember crying for hours. Luckily a couple years ago I found it on DVD on Amazon. I had completely forgotten about the flower garden, and the train part which had been taped over. I love this movie so much, especially Carol Channing. She’s amazing