Original Alice in Wonderland Ride

[Clover Bailey]

I've actually been familiar with that photo of the cop raising his arm for nearly a decade now, and when I was thirteen years old I even featured it on a terrible blog post about the original Toad which was riddled with incorrect observations and assumptions. I really should have posted it here, but the thought never even crossed my mind somehow. The motorcycle cop looks hilariously awful in that photo, by the way, although I'm sure he looked considerably better in real life. (As a side note, reverse-searching this photo impressively comes up with "motorcycling".) Do you happen to know when any of these pictures are from, and can you provide their sources?

Like you, I'm still trying to decipher WHAT IN GOD'S NAME is going on with the Witch's """""face""""" in that photo. This is actually a cursed image, not even just in the meme sense. It looks as if her hair is obscuring most of her face but somehow not hanging down outside of her hood, rather tucked inside of it. And then what tiny sliver of her face/neck is still visible is totally incomprehensible.

Here's the video where I found the images from. I went through their channel uploads and didn't find anything else of interest, but I'll keep checking and keep you notified.

 

[Okee68]

At this point, I'm sure we can all agree that this thread is officially an inquiry for all the pre-1983 Fantasyland dark rides, not just Alice. Anyway, I have this huge, annotated image featuring every photo of pre-1983 Toad, if anyone is interested in seeing it. It's so large that I quite literally can't even post it here, so here's a link to it: https://jumpshare.com/b/gtxcJCv0gCPwXTBYNIgR

 

[Clover Bailey]

Ugh, last night I had a dream where I discovered a rare photo of a bizarre animatronic Cheshire Cat added to the Tulgey Wood scene in the late 70s refurb, but then I woke up and realised it was just a dream. How amazing would that discovery be in real life...

 

[Okee68]

Ugh, last night I had a dream where I discovered a rare photo of a bizarre animatronic Cheshire Cat added to the Tulgey Wood scene in the late 70s refurb, but then I woke up and realised it was just a dream. How amazing would that discovery be in real life...

Might throw a rock in the whole thing, to be honest. Just imagine it, an animatronic Cheshire Cat that only lasted for four or five years, that nobody has ever acknowledged before, and that was totally inconsistent with everything else in the ride. World-shattering information; a revelation of the ages. It would definitely be interesting, though.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

That looks better to me than that weird dancing version.

 

[fantasmicsyd]

View attachment 532570

This has always spooked me lol. She’s pretty creepy looking to begin with here, and the fact that nobody remembers her being there/her existence..

 

[Okee68]

This has always spooked me lol. She’s pretty creepy looking to begin with here, and the fact that nobody remembers her being there/her existence..

Judging by the huge, fully exposed black light in the photo, it's more than likely that the Snow White figure was largely obscured from riders' visage, similar to the pre-2014 Alice figure. Guests probably had to deliberately look behind their vehicles to see it.

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Judging by the huge, fully exposed black light in the photo, it's more than likely that the Snow White figure was largely obscured from riders' visage, similar to the pre-2014 Alice figure. Guests probably had to deliberately look behind their vehicles to see it.

It looks like the picture was taken slightly after the ride vehicle has passed her. There nothing in front of her and she has bright colors in a drab setting, most likely before you went into the Queen's castle rather than the haunted forest scene. She's also not looking at the ride vehicle, but rather just ahead of you where you will be. There's no reason to believe guests didn't see her or had to look behind them to catch a glimpse.

 

[Okee68]

My new most accurate hypothesis:

 

[VicariousCorpse]

My new most accurate hypothesis:View attachment 532721

Beautiful. Looks straight out of the movie. I concur with this hypothesis. Here's my best guess of location given all we know.

 

[disneyC97]

Was she a MM Revue figure like Alice was?

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Was she a MM Revue figure like Alice was?

That seems most likely as they have the same identical pose. The revue figure seems to have better clothes and hair though.

The ride figure showed up in Disneyland about 6 months after Magic Kingdom and MM Revue opened. Alice duplicates were installed over a full decade later in the Fantasyland makeover in 1984.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

So they just slapped in a mannequin at some point in the 70s? If that happened today, Disney Parks Blog and YouTube would be going gaga over it with Kim Irvine in a hardhat blabbing about how great they are. The Vloggers would have a million multi-angle videos.

 

[Okee68]

Beautiful. Looks straight out of the movie. I concur with this hypothesis. Here's my best guess of location given all we know.View attachment 532770

That's where I've always assumed the figure to be as well. Aside from the scary forest, "The Glade and Animal Friends" was the only scene in the ride that would have made sense for Snow White to be in, and what little scenery you get a glimpse of in the photo is much too pleasant-looking to be anywhere in the scary forest.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

That's where I've always assumed the figure to be as well. Aside from the scary forest, "The Glade and Animal Friends" was the only scene in the ride that would have made sense for Snow White to be in, and what little scenery you get a glimpse of in the photo is much too pleasant-looking to be anywhere in the scary forest.

Plus the friendly bird on her finger, which would probably feel a little off-brand for the scary woods.

 

[Okee68]

Plus the friendly bird on her finger, which would probably feel a little off-brand for the scary woods.

O lort, I've never even noticed the bird before. Seeing as the Snow White figure was such a close replica of the Mickey Mouse Revue figure from WDW, I think it had to have been added pretty shortly before that early seventies photo was taken.

 

[Clover Bailey]

I doubt it's from the fifties, as the door is painted differently than it is in that black and white photo from 1955, and it's not very likely that such a random part of the set would have been given such a subtle redesign only four years in.

Something interesting I also noticed in the photo is that there is a brownish glow behind the Witch. It got me wondering, is this just the flash of the camera, or was there a time when the Witch in the Cottage scene actually had a lit interior? This image also prompts the question with the bright doorway and window, even though I always assumed the window was painted on:

 

[Clover Bailey]

New video on Snow White's Enchanted Wish that confirms that the Witch will still have some kind of role in the attraction:

 

[Okee68]

I've been meaning to post this, but somebody recently came across this sample of the 1958 Alice audio from DisneyChris's podcast, which features the Dormouse's, "Move down, move down," as well as the tea pot smash sound effect, both of which are absent from the Don Carson videos. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FsTgYPAGPlv71Pf0Q01EQDeaRNUURpYU DisneyChris is likely the source of the raw audio heard in Don Carson's videos, but for some reason he hasn't uploaded it to his website.