TV Today March 18th, 1951 - Fred Waring Television Preview

Today is the 58th anniversary of the preview appearance of Alice in Wonderland on the Fred Waring television show March 18th, 1951. Below is a copy of TV Today from the week of March 17th, featuring a blurb on the preview show.

The Fred Waring show was pretty amazing, it devoted the final 30 minutes of their 1 hour broadcast to a fully staged Alice musical vignette, complete with sets designed by Mary Blair! Kathy Beaumont and Sterling Holloway were live and in person acting out their various parts, all to the music from the film as performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. That score was later released on Decca records as a two record set with illustrated sleeve (stay tuned for that).

But what was most amazing to me as I again watched this segment today (available in the supplemental material on the most recent DVD)

was the filmed introduction by Walt Disney. My cel makes another guest appearance - almost. The still from my earlier post was actually taken during the filming of this segment, and Walt is frames away from showing my cel on live national television! Stupid editor, would it have killed you to let Walt show all three cel setups he was holding?