Happy Thanksgiving!

 To everyone in the US, a very happy Thanksgiving, and may your turkey be more appetizing than this one!

Sunday News September 9, 1951

This is truly spectacular.  This is a copy of the Sunday News, the Sunday supplement of the New York Daily News from September 9, 1951.  That in and of itself is not that spectacular, even though it does have a very nice cover featuring Anne Francis of Forbidden Planet and Honey West fame.

No, the spectacular part is on the very next page, the inside front cover to be exact, which sports - in glorious full-color rotogravure - an amazing photo of Kathryn Beaumont speaking animatedly to her Wonderland friends in doll form.  I do find it amusing that whoever wrote the caption got the two rabbits mixed up.

These dolls have appeared before in several black and white photos, and while it is never clear what exactly they are, it now seems UN-likely that they are Lars of Italy (thanks to the keen eye of uber collector Mel Birkrant).  They could be custom made just for the studio or even by the studio, but regardless, this is just an amazing image.  And a rare full color image from the time.

Happy Easter! Pictorial Review - March 25, 1951

Happy Easter!  In celebration I give you this very colorful cover to the March 25, 1951 issue of Pictorial Review, a Sunday supplement magazine.  No article inside, but really, who needs more than the cover anyway?

David Lesjak from Toons At War recently posted the original line drawing for this cover on the Disney History Institute facebook page, go check it out!  And look for his forthcoming biography of Hank Porter, the artist on this and many other covers.

Happy Halloween!

This is a repost from the first year of the blog, but is one of my favorite things of all time because it combines my birthday and Alice. 

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The first time I saw this I just about died. This piece of Alice ephemera has me written all over it. You see, my birthday is today, Halloween, and what better gift for me than an obscure piece of vintage Alice paper with a Halloween theme.

What this is, is a newspaper supplement from 1950 (nearly a full year before the film's release) called Pictorial Review, dated October 29th, 1950. Pictorial review is one of several newspaper supplements of the time that appeared in (usually) the Sunday paper. These kind of supplements still exist today, but I don't think this particular one does.

I'd love to find the original art on this...perhaps for my birthday next year.

The American Weekly Sunday Supplement - August 11, 1946

Quite possibly the earliest published article on Disney's Alice is this from August 1946 in The American Weekly, a newspaper Sunday supplement that ran for decades, and frequently featured articles and covers dedicated to Walt Disney and his various projects.

This issue contains an article written by Walt Disney (or so they would have us believe) that essentially summarizes the history and story of the Alice books, and their universal appeal.  Accompanying this article are some very interesting drawings from the studio, noted as 'modern' in the various captions.  It would be very interesting to know who did these, and when, by this time I would have assumed that Mary Blair would have been driving the look and feel of the picture, with dialog recording just around the corner in 1947.

This Week Magazine - January 14th, 1951

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday.  To start the new year off right I'm posting one of my all time favorite items, a copy of This Week Magazine with a full color photo of Kathy on the cover. 

This Week was one of several Sunday newspaper supplements of the day, that had lots of little fluffy articles on current events and such.  This particular copy came from the Detroit News.  The cover on this is great, featuring Kathy in her Alice garb meandering through the mockup of the Tulgey Wood on her way to the Mad Tea Party.

Inside is a very typical marketing piece on the upcoming film, titled Alice in Movie Land.  It sports a few more animation reference photos with side-by-side comparisons to the final film, although they do make a couple of mistakes.

I remember the first time I saw one of these supplements, it was at this giant used bookstore in Burbank called Book World (which is no longer there I believe), and it had a pretty amazing price tag on it too.  But time passed and I managed to find a copy that didn't cost me my rent money for the month.  I do think this is the largest full color image of Kathy in costume published domestically, and certainly the most striking. 

Disneyland Full Page Ad - June 17th 1958

In honor of Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland attraction's 52nd anniversary, I present to you this full page newspaper ad from June 17th, 1958 (a few days early) featuring the new attractions unveiled, including Alice, the Columbia, and the Grand Canyon diorama.

I like the minimalist art on this, and there are lots of little details around the edge. I especially like the silhouette art at the bottom and of course the Date Nite inset.

Skylark Brand Bread End Seal Label Comic Advertisement and Picture

Imagine my surprise when I came across this newspaper comic ad for the exact same bread label promotion as the NBC one, this time not only with the fill-in picture included in the ad, but for yet another different brand of bread!

Skylark was apparently the Safeway store brand of bread. This now makes a total of three bakeries that carried this promotion that I am aware of. I wonder how many other regional bakeries participated? I'll probably never know for sure.

But most importantly, this ad has something that the previous ad does not: a comic strip on the back. Why is this important you may ask? Because comic strips are all dated.

The back contains the full Sunday strip for a Red Ryder comic strip. And it does indeed have a date. Sunday, March 2nd. That would place this ad in 1952. Wow.

That is VERY late for an Alice promotion. At least for a successful one. Perhaps this is why the labels are so hard to find? By spring of 1952 Alice was pretty much gone from the theaters, and was considered a "less than successful Disney release" (ahem). Any promotion occurring so late in the game was most likely doomed to failure.

NBC Bread End Seal Label Fill-In Picture Comic Advertisement

The primary goal of any promotional campaign is to sell more stuff. When you are targeting children, what better place to advertise than in the Sunday comics?

This is an advertisement for the Alice series of end seals on NBC bread, as printed in the comics pages. I never knew that Nabisco also baked bread. When I first got this I was hoping there was a comic strip or something other than another ad on the back side of this, so I could date it. But alas, such was not the case, no date to be had.

Libby's Wonderland of Values Newspaper Ads - October 1951

In addition to the in-store display items previously posted here, and the Life magazine double-page ad referenced here, Libby's ran a series of newspaper ads in the month of October 1951 . Each ad features one character promoting either peas or corn. To date I've found ads for peas and corn with Alice


Mad Hatter


and White Rabbit


but only an ad for corn with the Walrus; I can only assume that there is a corresponding ad for peas that I've not seen yet.


If the remaining ad follows the above pattern, the peas ad will have a black banner across the bottom saying "Try Libby's Peas...'Sweet in Summer'".

UPDATE:  The Walrus Peas ad has been located, and it does conform to the pattern.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pictorial Review 11-19-1950

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers out there. For those of you outside North America, this is the day we celebrate the joys of the large roasted fowl, as our friends Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Caterpillar seem to be doing in this image.

This is a newspaper supplement from November 19th, 1950, a full 8 months before Alice in Wonderland was released in theaters. This image is just wrong in so many ways it is hard to count. Either that is one big caterpillar, or one tiny turkey. And the turkey looks like something right out of Regrettable Food.

As was standard with the newspaper supplements, there is no story inside about Alice, just a pretty picture on the cover (well, sort of). But the idea was to get people excited about the upcoming feature. And how could you be anything but excited once you saw this large insect larva serving up turkey.

Happy Halloween Alice! - Pictorial Review Oct. 29, 1950

The first time I saw this I just about died. This piece of Alice ephemera has me written all over it. You see, my birthday is today, Halloween, and what better gift for me than an obscure piece of vintage Alice paper with a Halloween theme.

What this is, is a newspaper supplement from 1950 (nearly a full year before the film's release) called Pictorial Review, dated October 29th, 1950. Pictorial review is one of several newspaper supplements of the time that appeared in (usually) the Sunday paper. These kind of supplements still exist today, but I don't think this particular one does.

I'd love to find the original art on this...perhaps for my birthday next year.

Sunday Comic Section Advertisement - August 1951

A very nice full color ad from the comic section from the Jacksonville Times-Union newspaper, promoting the film at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. Alice opened at the Florida Theater on August 11th, 1951, so this ad is very likely from August 12th since it mentions that it is currently showing. And look, red striped stockings, my favorite!

The Florida Theater is still in existance today, one of the few remaining movie palaces originally built in the 1920s. If you are interested in the history of that theater, look here.