Alice Comedies
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The "Alice Comedies" are a series of animated cartoons created by Walt Disney, in which a real little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape.
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[edit] History
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[edit] Alice's Wonderland
Disney, Ub Iwerks, and their staff made the first Alice Comedy, a one-reel (ten-minute) short subject titled Alice's Wonderland, while still heading the failing Laugh-O-Grams studio in Kansas City, Missouri. After completing the film, the studio went bankrupt and was forced to shut down, meaning the film was never released to the public. After raising money by working as a freelance photographer, Disney bought a one-way train ticket to Los Angeles, California to live with his uncle Robert and his brother Roy.
In California, Disney continued to send out proposals for the Alice series, in hopes of a distribution deal, which was finally arranged through Winkler Pictures, run by Margaret Winkler and her fianceé, Charles Mintz.
As for what Alice's Wonderland is about, it starts off with Alice entering a cartoon studio so she can watch cartoons being created. The cartoons come to life and play around, and Alice is amazed by what she sees. After heading to bed that night, Alice dreams that she is in the cartoon world, being welcomed by all the creations. Alice plays around with the cartoons until danger approaches: a group of lions break free from a cage and chase her.
This short helped set the stage for what was to come in the later Alice Comedies, as it established the world as a playful dream, and also introduced the elements which would soon define the series.
[edit] Trivia about the series
Julius bears a striking resemblance to Felix the Cat. This wasn't accidental: Charles Mintz, who distributed both the Felix series for Pat Sullivan and the Alice series for Walt Disney, had insisted on this in an attempt to emulate Felix's success.
Black Pete made his first appearance in "Alice Solves the Puzzle", released on February 15, 1925, and was a recurring antagonist in the series. Legend once had it that Clarabelle Cow made her first appearance in 1926's "Alice on the Farm", but this has since been disproven (the cow in the cartoon is white and looks nothing like Clarabelle).
The Alice Comedies lasted three years in theatres, from 1924 to 1927. The series ended with "Alice in the Big League", released on August 22, 1927.
Alice was played by four young actresses at various times during the series' run: Virginia Davis, Margie Gay, Dawn Evelyn Paris (later known with the stage names of Dawn O'Day and Anne Shirley), and Lois Hardwick.
[edit] Content
Although seen as cute and funny in their time, the Alice Comedies contain content which might be considered surprising and somewhat harsh today.
Although Alice is a little girl, she spends much of her time avoiding danger, and even getting kidnapped by the cartoon villains, threatened with such perils as being tied to a log in a sawmill. Although all of Alice's threats are cartoon drawings, some might find the imagery a bit disturbing due to the character's young age, and the fact that she is a real person, or they might find it simply light-hearted and fun, due to the portrayal.
One cartoon created in 1925 was called Alice's Egg plant, which was anti-union propaganda towards the IWW.
Furthermore, some illegal activities such as bootlegging are portrayed, with Alice herself in ownership of "home brew".
