Tweedle Rough Animation Drawing

The last of the drawings in this series, a nice animator's key drawing of a Tweedle as he says the word 'the' at a truly gravity-defying angle.

From the prelude to the Walrus and Carpenter sequence.

Garden of Live Flowers 'Pansies' Rough Animation Drawing

This is a very cool rough animation drawing of the pansies from the Garden of Live Flowers sequence.  Drawings of the flowers are very uncommon.

This images is from the scene where the pansies are shoving Alice out of the garden.  "We don't want weeds in our bed."

Dinah Drawing by Eric Larson

This is a great rough animation drawing of Alice's kitten Dinah, as she spots the White Rabbit for the first time.  Notice the additional roughs of a paw near the right edge of the drawing.

This particular drawing is attributed to Eric Larson, and a previous owner or perhaps a studio employee has written his name in the lower right hand corner.

Mad Hatter Color Guide Drawing

Last of the color guides is this of the Mat Hatter.  This drawing is a little more polished than the previous once, although someone apparently needed to clean their brush.

I actually like drawings that have things like this on them, it shows that they were truly working drawings, and these additional 'defects' I find quite charming.

King of Hearts Color Guide Drawing

Next up is a color guide drawing of the King of Hearts.  This is nice because it includes his heart scepter.  I must admit I love the King of Hearts, he was my totem at my wedding, I wore a small pin of him on my lapel (hooray!).

This is a little unusual in that he was rendered sideways on the animation paper, something that you don't see too often.  Not unheard of, but not common.

Dodo Color Guide Drawing

The next few drawings in this series are what I call 'color guides'.  Not exactly color model drawings, since those are usually clean-up drawings with the words 'Color Model' in giant printed letters, but rather perhaps an early draft of such, rougher and with not quite as much detail in the color call-outs.  First up is the Dodo, being his pompous self to the extreme.

Alice Character Study Sketch

Cute little character study of Alice, great emotion in her eyes and eyebrows.

Bill the Lizard Storyboard Sketch

Fantastic story drawing of one of my favorite characters, Bill the Lizard.

Great emotion conveyed here, most likely his reaction to the Dodo telling him to pull that monster out the chimney.

Garden of Live Flowers Concept Layout Sketch

This one is a little tough to see in the scan with all the blue pencil, but it is a concept or rough layout sketch of the garden of live flowers.

It is interesting to see how the scenes evolved over time, and how much stayed the same.  I especially like the rows of bell-shaped flowers in the upper right that in the film get rung like the bells they resemble.

Ferdinand Horvath Character Concept Drawing - Tiger Bird

Another from the pencil of Ferdinand Horvath, this time a cute little bird whose parents were obviously quite adventurous.

A Tiger Bird, that apparently lays striped eggs and crows like a rooster!

Ferdinand Horvath Character Concept Drawing - Horned Creature

Let's continue on with some more original art, shall we?  This is a great character drawing of a Tulgey Wood critter by Ferdinand Horvath from the 1930s, whom I've previously posted about here.

This is a bizarre little creature with big curly horns and a tufted tail. I wonder how many creatures he drew?  I have personally seen four...

Alice Comedies Drawing - Alice's Circus Daze

For the first time on the Vintage Disney Alice blog I'm going back to the silent days of Walt's involvement with Alice in Wonderland to the very first cartoons produced at Walt Disney Studios.  While the association with Alice in Wonderland was tenuous at best even in the first cartoon Alice's Wonderland, nevertheless it remains a part of vintage Disney Alice in my mind.  Here we have a drawing from an Alice Comedy called Alice's Circus Daze.  How cool is this?

There is a notation on the back that says "Alice's Circus Daze - Rubber Man SC", so off I merrily ran to YouTube!

While the video quality is pretty crappy, you can make out the various different figures in the audience from the above drawing.  You can also see that the drawing was reversed to create the left side of the audience.  Pretty tricky for 1927.

You can  watch Alice's Circus Daze in it's entirety on YouTube.

Vintage Autographed Photo of Kathryn Beaumont 850-8032

This is something I have not seen very often, a vintage autographed photo of Kathryn Beaumont from her Alice in Wonderland days.  And what a great photo it is, possibly my favorite photo of her in her Alice costume.

This is a 4x5 photo, and I assume that this would have been sent to fans who wrote to the studio asking for Alice's autograph.  It is possible that it was done in person as Kathy did make many guest appearances during her promotional tour for the film, but odds are it was mailed.  The signature on this photo is nice too, although it has faded slightly over the years.  This photo is number 850-8032, meaning it was taken in August of 1950, almost a full year before the film was released.

Small Fry Shoulder Bag by Salient

Years ago I acquired this cute little girl's shoulder bag that featured art of Alice and the White Rabbit with a Rocking Horse Fly (you don't see that every day).  For years I did not know who the manufacturer was, but I suspected it was a company called Salient Inc. of East Longmeadow, MA, who (according to Tomart and the CMD) had a license to produce children's purses and wallets for the years 1951-1952.  Salient is listed in the CMD, but there is no merchandise page in the CMD.

Flash forward a few years, probably around 1998, and I was at the Atlantique show in Atlantic City NJ (now sadly departed) when I came across this brown cardboard box.  The dealer had one of these handbags sitting on the top of it.

I opened the lid and saw this:

Holy crap!  A full box with original built-in store display for the Alice shoulder bag (throw in a few Donald Duck and Pluto for good measure).  While it is difficult to read, the lid has a stenciled 'Small Fry Shoulder Bag' on the top, and a smudge that was probably the item count.  This box held 18, I don't know if that is correct as it is really, really full.  My guess would be that it originally held a dozen.  And how clever is it to create a built-in store display in the shipping box itself?  I love it.  Here is a cleaned-up scan of the inside lid/counter display.  Shoulder bags for little ladies indeed!

There must have been a small find on this bag back in the 1990s, as they turn up every once in a while in mint condition - I have a few extra as well in the Wonderland Bazaar if you'd care to have one.  But this is the only full box with all three styles I've come across.

Jingle Ball by Vanguard

This is something I can't believe actually survived.  It is called a Jingle Ball, and is a rubber ball with a bell inside of it.  It must have been meant for very small children and the fact that this has survived all these years essentially untouched is amazing.

It has deflated somewhat (you would too after 65+ years), but is still bright and colorful, and the rubber is not degrading at all (yet).  The back of the ball is a solid red color.

Believe it or not, I have actually seen another example of the Jingle Ball, with a blue back.

The Jingle Ball was manufactured by Vanguard, and according to the original campaign book it retailed for a whopping 29¢.

Italian Ferrero Premium Cards

Italian chocolatier Ferrero, best known in this country for those yummy balls of chocolate hazelnut goodness wrapped in gold foil, created a set of premium cards in the 1950s featuring LOTS of Disney characters.  Here we see three Alice characters:  Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare.

Given the numbers on the back, one can assume that there were at least 3 more Alice characters in the set, probably more.  I do know that number 38 is Flower from Bambi, so there probably aren't any more Alice characters earlier in the series, but the next number I know for sure is 48 (Bongo).

And, of course, there are variations.  Sigh.

Greek Chocolate Trading Cards

Knock me over with a feather, I recently acquired this partial set of trading cards from Greece.  Premiums from a chocolate company called Melo (or more properly Μὲλο) these remind me of Sugar Daddy trading cards, only larger.

These have been removed from an album, presumably an album of Disney cards as I doubt there would have been an album in the 1970s featuring 70+ cards of just Alice, but I could be wrong (geez, I'd hate to try and track down that full set).  I've seen Melo albums on other topics, and they are pretty cool, usually the cards fit flush to one another on the page to make a larger picture, it could be the case here as well, if you notice that the backgrounds could merge together to form a larger tableau.  Let's hope a full set in album surfaces one day.

There may have been a couple of different variations, as I have also seen this variant of the Dodo card

UPDATE: I love the Internet. Just two days after posting this I received an email from a reader who shared more images, and information. The set was Disney, many characters, and at least 150 cards. The different sizes came about when the company changed the size of the chocolate bars in the mid 1970s.

Alice #62

Tweedledee and Tweedledum #67

Mad Hatter #63

Queen of Hearts #66

So now we know the following list:

• 62 - Alice (probably the first card in the set)
• 63 - Mad Hatter
• 66 - Queen of Hearts
• 67 - Tweedles
• 68 - Dodo
• 69 - King of Hearts
• 71 - Carpenter

I would speculate at a minimum the following:

• 64 - March Hare
• 65 - White Rabbit
• 70 - Walrus

1951 Studio Letterhead - Redux

Way back in 2008, in the 23rd post on this blog, I showed a piece of Walt Disney Productions studio letterhead for the original 1951 release of Alice in Wonderland.  What I didn't know at that time, or in reality didn't notice 'cause sometimes I miss little details like this (shiny!), is that there are TWO variations of this letterhead.  Whoa. (cue Keanu Reeves).

The first is the same as originally posted, a Disney studio letterhead, with the beautifully rendered art on Strathmore Bond with the studio address at the bottom.

What I didn't realize at the time (even though I had an example of it as a piece of correspondence), is that there is also an RKO version of the letterhead, with the same art, on Blackstone Bond with the RKO headquarters address in Cleveland, OH across the bottom.

I only recently noticed this as I came across the above blank sheet, and was no longer distracted by the contents of the correspondence in my pre-existing example (that will show up in a future post).  Will wonders never cease?

For those of you who'd like a piece of this blank RKO letterhead, you can find one in the Wonderland Bazaar.

David Hall Story Art Stills - All Cards Lead Away from the Castle

Our journey is finally at its end, this is the last of the stills of David Hall story art.  Here we see Alice on a path of cards looking at a castle in the distance.  The supporting structure of the castle appears to be disintegrating, one assumes this is from the sequence where Alice is beginning to wake up.  This watercolor is unfortunately not reproduced in the David Hall book, nor have I been able to locate it anywhere else in color.  Labeled 'VIII'

So that's it, 114 stills later, we've come to the end of our story.  I hope you've enjoyed this journey through Disney's Alice in Wonderland of 1939 as seen through the eyes of David Hall.  I know I have.  It is hard to imagine what a film based on these concepts would have looked like, but it sure would have been fun to see.

David Hall Story Art Stills - Off With Her Head

Looks like things didn't go too well at Alice's trial.  This watercolor shows the Queen's gallows in all their glory.   Labeled 'VII'

This watercolor is reproduced in the David Hall book as a double page spread, so you can really look closely at all the detail.

The first detail focuses on the blade itself and the assorted assistant headsmen working on it.  Gotta make sure nothing goes wrong after all... Labeled 'VII A'

 Next is an extreme closeup of the assistant headsman at the very top of the gallows, straddling the blade.  I certainly wouldn't want to be him.  Labeled 'VII B'

 And finally we see Alice being led up the stairs to meet her fate.  Labeled 'VII C'

I think you'll all agree with me that this is perhaps the most macabre of all the story art we've seen so far.  Can you imagine if they actually filmed this?  

Happy New Year 2013 - LE Disneyland New Year Cheshire Cat Flip Pin

Happy New Year to all my faithful readers!  Here's hoping your 2013 is filled with fun, prosperity, and lots of Alice.