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.
Some pretty fabulous Alice art is in this auction later this week. If anyone is looking for Father's Day gift ideas for me, I would not so no to lot 362.
I acquired these from Howard Lowery's auction site, I highly recommend it.
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.
This is what one looks like not filled in. But the best part is on the back.
I have never read anything quite so horrifying as the ad copy on the back of this thing. It reads like some sort of gruesome fairy tale. "Hey kids, here's our anthropomorphic whole grain friend about to be crushed to death and baked in a commercial oven. Zingo!"
Just last week I discovered a variant of this fill-in picture, for the Schmidt's Blue Ribbon brand. Schmidt's is a regional bakery out of Baltimore, MD that is still in business today. In fact, according to their (very outdated) website, they are the largest independent bakery in the mid-Atlantic. I am particularly fond of their potato-based hamburger buns (yum!).
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.
We've seen this pose before, although here we don't have the cool striped stockings.
The White Rabbit is clearly taken from the Shaw White Rabbit as seen here, but the Alice is a true mystery. She is like no other figure I've seen so far. I've come across a couple of these sets over the years, but as always, unmarked. I believe these to be unlicensed too.
I believe these to be unlicensed, and again no markings of any kind.
This is not exactly vintage, but VDT's post reminded me of these, so there it is. This is a dream machine ticket from Disneyland's 35th anniversary, featuring Alice and the White Rabbit. I must say that the rendering on Alice is ... off model (is that polite enough?).
This guy is full of great details, like the curly toed shoes, his hand poised to grasp the Hooka, and the look on his face just says "Who R U?"
Little Italy continues to expand.
This sitting version of the Cheshire Cat is obviously different from the previous version I blogged about here, since he is sitting (thank you Capt. Obvious). While it is not unheard of for Zaccagnini to have made different figures of the same character, it is unusual. Here's hoping that they weren't like Goebel, I'd hate to find out there were 67 different figures made for Alice like Goebel did for Bambi!
These are apparently from England, as all the ones I have seen and acquired have come from there. I'm not exactly sure of the date on these, but I'm guessing late 1960s or early 1970s since the White Rabbit figure is a copy of the first version of the Disneyland figure.
There are no markings on these of any kind. The bank (or money box as they say in merry 'ol England) consists of the bookend part of the piece, not the figure. The slot is in the top, and there is a rubber stopper in the bottom. I have also seen these in brown.
Generally the book is found without the jacket, but the cover has essentially the same art, albeit more colorful. Note that this is the same cover art as the BGB from Spain seen here.
This book is listed in the Hachette Christmas supplement seen in this post. This book lists Belgium as its origin, and I will admit that I've gotten most of my various copies of this book over the years from Belgium. But I have to imagine that it was also available in France.
There are several differences in this book from most of the other editions of the BGB. First, it is soft cover rather than hard cover. Next, it is approximately half the size of the standard BGB. Third, it uses new and different cover art. And finally, the pages are not in correct story order. I originally thought that it might have been assembled incorrectly, but in fact not, as the pages are printed out of order.
Again, no markings of any kind on this figure. It has a similar look to the Walrus from yesterday, although I suppose it could be a Weetman as I've never seen one, or it could be a knock off. As always, any information is greatly appreciated.
This Walrus is a complete mystery to me. At one time I wondered if he could be Wally Walrus, but now I don't think so. He is holding a cane and a cigar in his hands, just like the Walrus from Alice, and he doesn't appear to have visible tusks, again like the Walrus from Disney. There are no markings on this whatsoever. I don't think it is a Weetman figure either, because I have a Weetman Walrus with the original label, as shown here, so unless they made two different figures, it's not Weetman. Of course, I can't ignore the fact that it could be an unlicensed figure. I would greatly appreciate any information on this figure from anyone out there.
The above is the more common puzzle back, but there is also a blue back as seen below.
As with the King, his name is incised on the back, Gato de los Deseos, which seems to translate to 'cat of desires'...sounds pretty kinky to me.
If anyone out there has information on this set or manufacturer, I would love to hear from you!
He's about 5 inches tall, and has his name incised on the back - Rey de Corazones.
When I first saw a picture of this I assumed it was a knock-off, but when I actually got one I discovered that it has a Disney copyright on the bottom. I am most curious to know more about this company and what all they produced. 'Productions' copyright puts this prior to 1986, but I'm guessing 1970s, probably coinciding with the '74 re-release.
UPDATE: This company has now been identified as Palés, and they are from 1969-1984.
