Alice's Wonderland

"I would like to watch you draw some funnies!" The final film produced at the good old Laugh-O-Gram studios. Let's get this puppy out of the way!

Alice's Wonderland is slightly different from the usual cartoon- though not as different as Tommy Tucker Tooth Whatever -in that it incorporates elements of animation along with live action. Virginia Davis plays Alice, a character clearly based on Alice from Lewis Carroll's books 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through The Looking Glass.' But this story is a bit different. Alice who, like her literary counterpart, is "chuck full of curiosity" and visits an animation studio (presumably Laugh O Gram studios) to see how cartoons are made. The animators (including Walt Disney himself) gladly welcome the visit and show her a few things. They draw the usual -cats and dogs- and the characters spring to life and do various things. Alice is pretty enchanted by the whole thing and goes home pretty excited. That night her mother tucks her into bed and as she falls asleep she finds herself falling into a "Wonderland." Although there are no card-soldiers or red queens or hatters anywhere in sight I'm afraid (though there are some rabbits and at one point Alice falls down a rabbit hole). In fact, she starts her journey on a train and ends up in a town with a sign labeled "Cartoon Land." From here on out Alice is the only live-action character now wandering around in an animated world. The majority of the animal citizens of this world are really stoked at her arrival. They even throw a huge festival in her honor to welcome her. She dances, there's a parade. It's all good fun. And as if you didn't see this coming, the majority of the populace here seems to be cats and dogs that resemble the exact same cats and dogs in all previous cartoons. Anyway, after Alice does a pretty wacky little dance (perhaps the precursor to the Futterwacken dance appearing in Disney's 2010 take on Wonderland? Not quite as fun though...) the animals all cheer. Meanwhile in the distance, evil broods! There is a Lion in a nearby cage. It's either a zoo or a jail, we don't know because the sign above his cage is closed. The lion tries prying the bars apart but can't. He roars in rage, and then proceeds to just eat the iron bars. After doing so, he springs out of his prison and runs free. Only to be followed by countless other lions who were hanging out in the depths of the back of the enclosure. Lucky for Alice and the others, the cat notices the rampaging lions heading their way and warns everyone. The crowd scatters and mass panic ensues! Alice runs for her life, the lions in close pursuit, and their chase leads all over the land INCLUDING down the rabbit hole! While we are lead to believe that the Lions want to eat Alice (one of them even sharpens his teeth to the point that it can split the hairs of his own mane) but this apparently isn't their game. They chase Alice to a cliff side where she is left with the option to either fall to her death or be attacked. She opts to leap over the edge and the lions happily watch and laugh, their aim to kill Alice being now accomplished. Alice falls... and falls... and falls... and awakes back in bed. She is certainly relieved to be alive, but this will not be her last visit into Wonderland.

It's a pretty interesting little movie. Walt obviously knew the Laugh-O-Gram days were numbered, so he took the money he had made with Tucker Tooth Nonsense to make something that could carry him on later- Alice's Wonderland. In my opinion, this is where we really start seeing the beginning of Walt Disney as the man he became famous being. While this cartoon isn't the sickest (in the best way possible), it represents something we would see the Disney company doing again and again and again. Being original, and pushing the pre-established limits of imagination. While the studio died here, Walt ended up taking this film with him to Los Angeles in order to secure investors in his film making, and would eventually found Disney Brothers Studios with his brother Roy- a company that later grew into the Walt Disney Company as we know it today. It's not the funniest, most entertaining, most amazing story telling, or even most educational cartoon Laugh-O-Grams ever produced, but I feel it's significance lies in it's history and what it eventually did for Walt in his life.

Tommy Tucker's Tooth

As I mentioned in the last blog, Disney's Laugh-O-Gram Studios was not considered a grand success. In fact, it was nearly a complete failure. Animation was expensive, and Walt and his cohorts were fairly young and inexperienced. Debt mounted up and the studio eventually had to file bankruptcy after running for only just barely over a year. By the beginning on 1923, Walt was forced to actually live inside his office at the studio and reportedly visited the train station once a week to take a bath. Times were rough, and in one of the studio's darkest hours a glimmer of hope came in the form of a local Dentit. Thomas McCrum, the dentist, gave Disney roughly five hundred dollars to make a short film about dental hygiene. The end product is Tommy Tucker's Tooth.

The film largely comprises of live action footage rather than animation and depicts a mother telling the story of Tommy Tucker to her children. The two main characters of this tale are Tommy Tucker and Jimmy Jones. Tommy brushes his teeth and takes care of himself, while Jimmy does the exact opposite up until the end of the film when he turns his life around and converts to brushing his teeth. Atta boy, Jimmy! It's actually rather curious that this movie is called Tommy Tucker, when it actually spends far more time focusing on the far more interesting and far more entertaining Jimmy. Jimmy ends up suffering from toothache and cavities while Tommy does not. This is actually a pretty fun sequence because Disney animates the creation of toothache with characters known in the film as "Acid Demons." They're the only animated characters in the entire film, spawned from spoiled food left in Jimmy's unclean mouth. Pretty intense stuff. Then Jimmy becomes underweight while Tommy- who seems perhaps to be borderline obese -is praised for his health. And in the end they both apply for a job and Tommy gets it while Jimmy is openly admonished for his cruddy teeth. But Jimmy decides that The Dentist is his best friend and goes and gets his life put in order, gets a job, and then teaches us all how to brush our teeth. The film urges that we "never forget" this story. As it is, obviously, of vital importance.

I guess I personally don't have much to say about this little gem. It's not exactly meant to entertain or stretch the imagination or inspire anything other than tooth brushery. It's an educational film. And by 1923 standards, I'd say I'm pretty amazing at tooth care which is nice. Lifted my spirits. And since I've treated this post as a bit of a history lesson as well, I'll continue with a few interesting notes. This was the second to last film that Laugh-O-Grams would produce. Their final short would actually go on to find flourishing success in California under a new studio formed by Walt and his brother Roy. However, probably something far far more important ended up taking place in the confines of the Kansas City studio. In an interview years later Walt mentioned that he was inspired to draw Mickey Mouse by a pet mouse he kept on his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studios. "They used to fight for crumbs in my waste basket when I worked at night. I lifted them out and kept them in wire cages on my desk. I grew particularly fond of one brown house mouse. He was a timid little guy. By tapping him on the nose with my pencil, I trained him to run inside a black circle I drew on my drawing board. When I left Kansas to try my luck at Hollywood, I hated to leave him behind. So I carefully carried him to a backyard, making sure it was a nice neighborhood, and the tame little fellow scampered to freedom."

Cinderella 1922

The title cards for this cartoon is gold in and of itself. The opening lines introducing the story state, "Cinderella... whose only friend was a cat." The cat is back!

I won't really waste a lot of time going over the origins of the Cinderella story because Disney later produced a feature length version of this story that I will probably spend a lot more time going over when I get to it. And I must admit I am surprised because the basics were all in tact in this cartoon.

Obviously the opening scene is of the cat. She is washing dishes with Cinderella "who lives with her two lazy homely step sisters." The step sisters are just chillin on hammocks on the lawn while Cinderella cleans and so forth with her cat. Then the film shifts gears and goes to it's shockingly ONLY completely off topic sequence as we're introduced to The Prince "who was a wonderful fellow." This is actually pretty amazing. The Prince (who is the same dude as the main kid from Puss in Boots... and on that note his father, The King, is the same king from Puss In Boots, and Cinderella is the same girl as the princess from Puss in Boots, AKA Little Red Riding Hood) is riding on a horse, followed by his Dog (the same Dog as ALL the films so far). They are chasing a big goofy bear and shooting at him repeatedly. Their chase even takes them through a body of water and they all have to swim. It's really a funny sequence because we just barely read that the prince is a wonderful fellow, and now we see him chasing a bear around trying to kill it. And we're talking about some scary rabid bear. It's a cartoony bear that looks TERRIFIED. We're left to sincerely question the Prince's ethics... but it gets even more amusing. There is a family of bears nearby having some sort of jamboree! Playing music and dancing and having fun. And then the Prince shows up and chases them all into a cave. We don't SEE any of the violence, but we see the Prince emerge with a rope tied to the carcasses of his kills and we get to see an endless trail of dead bodies being dragged out of the cave by the "wonderful fellow." Don't get me wrong, I don't like bears in the least. I HATE them in fact. They're big, stupid, don't have tails, steal picnic baskets, eat boy scouts... horrible creatures. But when you see them drawn like cute little fuzzy buddies, it's sort of hard to watch them all get horribly massacred. I liken it to that scene in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin kills all the children in Jedi Temple. Or when he kills all the separatists who are begging for their lives on that lava planet. Kinda twisted. Anyways, moving on, after the massacre Prince goes home and sends out invites to all the land to a ball he'll be hosting. The dog then rides a scooter around town handing out the invites. Okay I guess I lied, the bear scene isn't the only weird one. This one is odd too. The dog accidentally goes flying down a hill and ends up really injured. Some other guy comes up and asks "Are you hurt?!" and the Dog smashes a crutch over the onlookers head knocking him out... weird. But Cinderella and her sisters got the invite, and as per expectation, the step sisters leave Cindy home with the cat while they go off to have fun at the ball. Almost as soon as they leave, a cackling witch apparates into the room with Cinderella and her cat! The witch explains that she's a fairy godmother but I'm not so sure... she's really creepy looking. Regardless, she helps out Cindy by turning her raggy clothing into a smokin' hot 1920's flapper outfit. Then she turns a nearby garbage can into a car and turns the cat into... a cat. The cat is the driver. Cinderella heads off to the ball in her new car with the warning from the witch that all these things will go away once the clock strikes midnight. And from here it's pretty straight forward. She goes, the cat dances with the dog, Cinderella meets the prince, they fall in love, hang out for way too long, she realizes it's almost midnight and then she takes off running and all her clothes vanish back into rags as she runs. But one of her shoes gets left behind by accident and the Prince takes off on her trail to find her. It's a bit odd though. If all her clothes and her car disappear, why didn't her shoe? She should have lost ALL of her nice items because then they would have apparently survived past midnight. Oh well. So in the morning the Prince is following what he thinks are Cinderella's footprints only to get to the end of the line and find that they're actually the footprints of a duck (or pelican? Hard to say) wearing shoes. This marks the first time I have actually vocally laughed while watching these Laugh-O-Grams. It is pretty amusing I must admit. Anyways, within a few seconds after that he stumbles upon Cindy's house, makes the stepsisters try on the shoe (because he's an idiot and can't remember what her face or body looked like???). It doesn't fit, but it DOES fit Cinderella. They're way happy. The cat and the dog make out and we're punished for watching the cartoon by being forced to see a close up of this. And then it ends in "happily ever after" fashion.

This is the best Laugh-O-Gram I've seen yet. For multiple reasons. The animation is getting pretty good. I especially a majority of the character designs here. From the bears to the cross eyes goose-like step sister. This is also one of the few Laugh-O-Grams to ACTUALLY follow it's source story. I also really enjoyed the lack of cat and dog in this cartoon. It was also nice to note that the few parts they WERE in were pretty funny (except the make outs... cats and dogs don't make out. Ever.) It was just good times! A princess movie before the genre even existed! Is it perfect? Hardly. But it pretty much sets the standard for these goofy cartoons in my mind. Unfortunately, it also marks the final fully animated cartoon to come out of Laugh O Gram Studios. After this point Walt would go on to try some half live action half animated ventures, but they never ended up taking off from his Kansas City headquarters. The studio eventually ended in bankruptcy- but I'll discuss all this more fully in a latter blog.

Puss In Boots

Puss In Boots isn't really the next Laugh O Gram in chronological order, but I skipped ahead for a few reasons. Firstly, I don't intend to slog through every Disney short ever made just right this moment. It'll be fun to get to the feature length motion pictures sooner rather than later. But secondly because the other Laugh O Grams are really difficult to find or get ahold of. So this will just have to suffice. So don't freak out!

So to be honest, I am not entirely super familiar with the story of Puss In Boots. I don't know if I'd ever really heard it before... but from my hours of deep research (a few minutes on the web) this is the gist as far as I can tell: There's a poor kid who inherits a cat from his dead father. The cat really wants a pair of boots and he ends up getting them, and in turn decides to turn his owner's fortune around. He gets the poor kid to remove his clothes and then goes before the king and explains that his owner is actually a duke or prince or lord or something and that his clothes were robbed. So the king robes the poor kid in some royal garb. In the meantime, the king's daughter falls for the kid. They all end up traveling along as the cat runs ahead and threatens all the villagers he runs across, telling them that they need to play along and recognize the kid as The Marquis or else the cat will slice n' dice em. Then the cat finds a castle inhabited by a giant or monster of some kind that can turn into any animal he chooses. The cat tricks him into turning into a mouse, eats him, and then presents the castle as belonging to his owner. The King is way impressed and gives his daughter to the kid to marry. And the cat enjoys a life of pleasure for the rest of ever. Not entirely sure what the moral is here... lying gets you ahead? Be a tricky ruffian? Don't believe what the cats tell you (I hope it's not this one. I recently gave my credit card number to a cat from Nigeria who claimed that they would in turn give me full access to millions of dollars in a bank account somewhere in Europe. Fingers crossed)?

While the Laugh-O-Gram film doesn't follow the exact plot, the basics are still in tact. Firstly, you probably guessed it, this cat appears to be the same one we've seen in the previous films. Only this time there is a twist. The cat is female (because he couldn't possibly have been a girl in the other ones... or could he? Oh wait, he probably was. He was in the kitchen making doughnuts, after all. As a woman should be!). Anyways, puss and the kid head to the castle where the kid goes into the courtyard to get hot n' heavy with the princess. Actually, they just seem kinda cute and flirty. In the meantime, Puss heads to the garage where she has a passionate make out session with the King's driver, who is the Dog we've also seen in previous cartoons (always stuck providing the transportation). It's kinda a weird scene cuz the cat gets all pressed up against the castle wall as she plays tonsil tennis with the dog.... you can't make this stuff up. Anyways, the King finds out and beats the living daylight out of the kid and literally throws him down the castle steps, followed by the cat. Puss hits the ground hard and as per tradition we get to view all her lives leaving her body, but her owner grabs one and stuffs it back in. An interesting note, the characters in this film have talk balloons that display what they're saying which is pretty neat. Makes things make a lot more sense than in the other movies where we've only been able to guess at what they're saying. Though, it's not exactly the sharpest dialogue. The kid explains, "King don't like me." The despaired duo head to a movie to pass the time, and we see Puss be even more skanky than before. She has a wild crush on the film's star, and then tries to get down with the sickness with her owner... it's kinda weird. The movie is about bull fighting though, and it's awesome. The protagonist literally grabs a charging bull by the horns and forces him down into the ground where it presumably dies of a dislocated brain, and then he goes and makes out with some girl. This gives Puss a plan to help her owner but she refuses to cough up the goods until he buys her some boots (which we learn she wants because she thinks the Dog will find them sexy and want to kiss her with his mouth parts and other body parts... really. I'm not making any of this up). With the kinky boots now in her possession Puss puts her plan into action. It's kinda complicated to stay with me- the kid will wear a mask and they'll put on a bull fighting show. The king will attend, be impressed, and offer his daughter to the boy. Puss will rig the fight by using an electric contraption to shock the bull into a limp lifeless jelly-bovine. Flawless. So everything goes as planned, and the king offers his daughter. But first he requests that the kid remove the mask. When he does so, the king is outraged to see his true identity (which kinda confirms the whole "King don't like me" thing... making the whole plan null and void. But hey, Puss got her kinky boots so it's all good). The boy grabs the princess, they dash into the kings car and puss and the dog jump in the front seat and drive off. The king follows angrily, but the dog puts the pedal to the metal and the car takes off. Two hearts dance around on the screen and everyone lives happily ever after.

I must admit a bit of disappointment at not seeing the shape shifting monster in this cartoon. Ogre's being eaten by cats in sleek rubber boots that cling to the flesh and outline every sensual curve of the leg is something that really appeals to the my inner lunatic. But we cannot always have what we want. My feelings here are probably similar to how I felt about the Musicians of Bremen. I don't get why it steps so far away from the source, I don't get why this cat dies to easily, and I don't get 21 year old Walt's sense of humor. But it's all sort of made up for just by how odd this all is, and again the over the top violence draws me back in when this thing gets boring. So I dunno. I also like the written dialogue this time around, as it really helps enhance the story. But I gotta say I'm getting tired of these dying cats and heroic dogs. The princess looked a lot like Little Red Riding Hood minus the Hood too... which actually might explain why the dog was still their in the garage... perhaps thy are one and the same? In which case, I wonder what became of the pilot she was kissing earlier??? Probably beheaded by the protective king. He like bull fighters! Not airmen! And I guess he doesn't like his wife either cuz the doughnut making mother lives in a tiny cabin with secret windows for old perverts to look through. Am I reading too much into all this?

The Four Musicians Of Bremen

"That Old Fairly Tale." The Laugh-O-Gram madness continues with Walt's next toon, The Four Musicians of Bremen. This cartoon is based on a story written by the famous Brothers Grimm (Brothers Grimm is a HORRIBLE movie by the way). The story is about a donkey, a rooster, a cat, and a dog who set out to leave behind their farm animal lives for the fast paced life of musicians. And who can blame em? Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll. The things that matter in life. The destination they choose to begin their new lives is the German town of Bremen. So they head out, and along the way find a house full of robbers. They try to earn some food from the robbers by performing music, but unfortunately they sound horrendous and the robbers run away. And then the 'musicians' end up living in the house, presumably happily ever after. Interesting that they never even go to Bremen...

Well similar to Walt's last attempt at retelling a classic fairy tale, his version of The Four Musicians of Bremen only loosely sticks to the source material. The film opens with a poem appearing on screen which gives us the background to these characters and their ill fated attempts at living the rock star life. We're then thrown into an explosive action scene (for the times anyways) as the four animals flee for their lives from a town (Bremen?) who didn't appreciate their music very much. The townsfolk hurl rocks and bricks and shoes at them. On a side note, one of the angry townies looks straight up like the man from the portrait in Little Red Riding Hood!!! That creepster... first he peeps on mothers making doughnuts and now he's abusing animals by throwing bricks at them. And he is successful as a few of bricks hit the cat in the head. Speaking of reappearing characters, both the cat AND the dog resemble the cat and dog from the last film as well. Anyways, the animals take off and hide by a body of water where the cat decides he's super hungry. So he rallies the group together and they begin playing tunes over the water. The fish are enchanted by the melody and begin dancing right up onto the shore where the cat then attempts to kill them by smacking them with a big piece of wood. The attempts however are unsuccessful and the cat ends up diving into the water after the escaping fish, and he runs into an unfriendly swordfish. Gore flashes across the screen as the swordfish hacks an innocent guppy into two separate flailing pieces (not enough of this in modern cartoons, if you ask me). The swordfish chases the cat onto land, and then chases the whole band of animals through the landscape, into a hollow tree, and eventually over a cliff side just like Gandalf and the Balrog. The animals smash into a house below which is filled to the brim with what I assume are robbers. The robbers run outside to their armory and begin firing cannons at the house where the musicians are holes up. Eventually the cat heads to the roof where he ends up mounting a flying cannon ball and, using his tail to direct it's flight path, attacks the robbers and chases them off. The ending is intense because the cat ends up falling out of the sky as he falls off the cannon ball, and despite the rest of his bands efforts to save him, he smashes into the ground. We are then confirmed that this is in fact a similar or the same cat from the last film because we see all nine of his lives fly out of his body when it impacts. But the heroic dog grabs one of the departing lives and shoves it back into the cat, saving it's life. The end!

Again, another wacky Laugh-Gram-Cartoon but I must say it's incredibly amusing. The ridiculous violence is probably the most captivating feature we're treated to here. I usually get pretty bored watching black n white cartoons with repetitious gag-reels, but this one keeps up pace which is pretty refreshing. The animation is also really above par, strongly resembling some of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons that Walt eventually went on to create. The backgrounds are also nicely painted, a change made since the previous film's creation. I'm not sure if it's just because I have a soft spot for the absurd and the over-the-top violence, but I actually really like this cartoon. In my opinion this is a far better cartoon in which to see Disney's beginnings. The drawings are decent, it's fast paced, it's good animation. I liked it. And I'm pretty interested to see how many of these reoccurring characters will show up in later cartoons. The cat really stole the show this time and it's clear Disney had a soft spot for the guy- after all, we were treated to a full thirteen hours (or so it felt) worth of watching that cat make doughnuts in Little Red Riding Hood. Perhaps he'll serve as a main character as these go on. I just pray we see no more of that creepy old portrait man... though I'd like to see more of the pervert wolf guy.

Little Red Riding Hood

I figured this would be the best place to start my adventure through "Disneyland." In the 1920's Walt Disney founded an animation studio known as Laugh-O-Grams in Kansas City. Disney himself had been around animation and the film industry for a while prior to this, but the Laugh-O-Gram studio is really a significant landmark in the journey that would eventually lead Walt to the world wide success he eventually achieved.

Little Red Riding Hood (1922) is an interesting little piece of work. I guess we'll start with the play by play. We're all fairly familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood. In the original French folktale the protagonist, 'Red', is confronted by a wolf on her way to her Grandmother's house. The wolf gets to the house before her, eats her grandma, and then eats her. And THEN a hunter kills the wolf, slices it open, and Red and her Granny come out of the body fairly unscathed (though some of you might know the story in a little less brutal fashion.... society these days). Pretty straight forward story. However, the Laugh-O-Gram version is almost nothing like that.

The film opens with Red's mother making doughnuts. To be honest, this is probably the most memorable part of the whole movie. The sequence almost seems to never end. The mother is rolling up dough and then tosses it over her shoulder into a frying pan across the room. As the dough flies through the air, her house cat uses a gun to shoot holes in the dough. And this goes on. And on. And on. And on. Then there's this picture hanging on the wall with an old bearded man in it who keeps leaning out, watching, and cackling. This is all beyond strange. It's never explained who this man is, or if it's really a picture or some kind of window built by a peeping tom... we never really know. But it's way weird. And the climax of this doughnut nonsense is actually pretty rewarding (in my opinion). The cat uses a fishing pole to retrieve a doughnut for himself, and he eats it. And it kills him. It not only kills him, but we get to watch a number-ticker count down as all nine of his lives are depleted from the questionable treat. This whole opening literally takes up a whole third OR MORE of the film and I really found myself wondering if I'd accidentally started the wrong movie. But no, it soon starts to attempt some sort of semblance to it's source material. Mommy puts all the treats into a nifty little bundle and tells Red to take them to her Grandmother's house. Red accepts and embarks on her mission. But this version of Red won't be seen hoofing it on foot through the woods. She has a car! Red takes off to the garage and gets in her car which doesn't run on gasoline but is actually pulled and/or pushed by a small Dog. So Red and the Dog take off and shortly get a flat tire. Luckily, while the doughnuts may or may not be healthy for consumption (they did kill the cat nine times over... why are they feeding these to Granny?!) they DO make excellent spare tires. A little while further and the story picks up as they are confronted by the wolf! Except it's not a "wolf" exactly. The "Wolf" is a filthy man who passes Red and asks her where she's is headed. It's a pretty interesting take on the story. I remember once hearing that the original story was actually intended to illustrate to young girls the dangers of lusting men with sexual appetites like a wolf... it's sort of odd to see that Disney took this route with his Laugh-O-Gram. Anyway, the naive Red tells him and then goes along her merry way- while Wolfy speeds off to get to Granny's first. When he arrives he finds a note left by the old buzzard saying she's out for the moment, and so he sneaks on in and waits. And then this weird take on the classic tale takes a turn for the grittier, because Red shows up and goes inside and... well we're not exactly sure what happens. There's clearly a scuffle and Red screaming for help, but we see all this from outside the house as the Dog freaks out in worry. He scampers off and finds a nearby pilot. They get in his plane and head off to save Red by lowering a giant hook from the aircraft and using it to rip the house aside, revealing the dark shadow of the man doing... something... to Red. The man-wolf-predator jumps in his car and hurries away while Red climbs aboard and proceeds so make out with the pilot while the Dog covers his eyes in embarrassment... and then it ends!

To be honest with you, even though I made this thing sound more strange than a rollerskating serpent, there are some good qualities here. Firstly, it's good just for the mere fact that it was Walt Disney's first major step into his career. And it's pretty impressive that a kid in his early 20's was able to put this thing together (this was before the days of the macromedia flash player, mind you!). Not only is it fairly decent animation for a film of its stature, but it takes a major step in the fact that it tells a story. In the early days of animation- and even the early days of Laugh-O-Gram studios -cartoons largely did NOT tell a story. They consisted of short jokes and gags or speed-drawings commenting on the current events. But this cartoon- despite being heavily loaded down with weird "funny" sequences that have nothing to do with the plot at hand -chooses to stay closer to the plot-driven side of the equation.

So all in all, is Little Red Riding Hood a good film? I can't honestly say it is. It's strange and downright creepy at times. I could have done without the whole opening scene with the cat and the doughnuts and the dying. And even though I dig the creepy stalker "men are wolves" idea here, it would have been nice to see an ACTUAL wolf (because Wolves are awesome). And I will probably always now look at paintings and wonder if the creepy men who reside in them are real or not... However, for what it is- Walt's first real step into 'the biz' -it's actually pretty amazing. If you can appreciate it for it's historical significance, I'd say it's quite a decent piece of work. So I guess it all depends on how you look at it. And at it's worst, at least you can get a couple of chuckles from how absurd it really is.

About Us

Well Hello Internet World! My name is Anthony and this is my new blog venture: Alice in Disneyland! It is my intention to use this blog as a venue for me to explore the wonderful world of Disney and all things pertaining to it. Reviewing the movies, the tv shows, the rides, video games, everything. And, I guess I'm vain enough to assume that others might want to follow along on this too, so I'm putting it on here for all to read.



To be completely honest, I've never been very good at introducing myself but oh well here we go- To start off, I am male. The main things in my life worth telling are: I like to write. It is perhaps my most favorite pass-time. Poems, short stories, novels, plays whatever. It is my dream to become a screenwriter someday, however I'd really be happy with just about anything that involves writing. I like music. Rock, country, indie, punk, techno, film soundtracks, opera... the whole deal. I'm almost always listening to music. I also LIVE for movies! Renting them, going to them, making them with a home video camera, reading about them (I've probably read the synopsis for more movies than I've actually watched). If I'm addicted to anything, it is definitely films. I dig video games as well, but it is a rare occasion lately that I'll actually play them. I used to have a pet alligator named Nero but it died. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and served as a full time missionary for 24 months in the greater Seattle area recently. I'm a huge fan of all sorts of nerdy things, particularly Godzilla and Batman. And, if it wasn't obvious just from the nature of this blog, I am a fanatic for all things Disney. Whether it's the movies, the theme parks, whatever. I have loved it all for the majority of my life.



I hope that's enough information to get us started! If you have any questions or suggestions or feedback, I love comments! So feel free to hit me up in the comment section whenever you please.



Well that's about all there is to say for now. Stay tuned as I continue to update this sucker with all my many insights. It'll be an EPIC read, I assure you.