Alice in Wonderland - Lots of Famous People

One of the mainstays of my childhood was the 1985 tv-movie of Alice in Wonderland, which my father taped when it first aired, and my sisters and I watched for years afterwards.  However, it had been quite a while since I last saw it, and after noticing it show up a few times while browsing through the IMDB, I checked out the whole cast list and realized that there were a ton of people in it who I had had no clue who they were when I was young, but I did know now.  So I decided to watch it again, especially since it's on DVD, with the intent of taking screenshots and writing up who I knew and how I knew them (as there are a few people in it that I only know from doing this).

Well, that was my original plan, only, in the process of taking the screenshots, I got a new DVD player program, and unbeknownst to me, every time the program was opened and screenshots were taken, it saved them under the same numbers, deleting the shots taken previously.  And since I watched the tv-movie in chunks, the majority of the screenshots I took from the first half were deleted.  But I didn't realize this until I'd already sent the disc back.  Now, I might have re-rented the disc and taken the shots again, but I also realized just how boring the entry I originally planned would have been.  I mean, it would have basically just been a fairly dry (and long) list of roles.  So instead, I say to you, go to the IMDB page for the tv-movie and see who's who for yourself.  Then, if you feel so inclined, give it a watch.

One thing I will say about this version of Alice in Wonderland is that it is very faithful to the books -- in parts.  There was one part toward the end of the second part where I thought the plot dragged terribly, but then I went back and reread the book, and it was almost word-for-word.  But there are also parts that are strangely unfaithful as well.  For instance, when Alice meets the Mock Turtle (played by Ringo Starr), he does not sing a song based on the three(!) pieces he had in the book, but an anthem to nonsense.  Also, this is one of those specials that thinks that what makes a musical a musical is that every character introduced gets a song.  Not that the songs are bad (I particularly like the Queen of Hearts' song), but it does get to be a bit much.