Adventures in Wonderland
Adventures in Wonderland was a live action children's sitcom and a loose adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which ran on the Disney Channel from 1991 to 1995. In the series, Alice (played by Elisabeth Harnois), was portrayed as a teenage girl who can go to and from Wonderland simply by walking through her mirror (a reference to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass).
Usually the format consisted of Alice coming home from school and talking to Dinah (her cat) about a problem facing her that day, then going into Wonderland and finding the residents of that world facing a similar crisis, where she would learn An Aesop relating to her Real Life problems. Also of note is that each episode usually included around three musical numbers. At the end of each episode she would return to the real world with a solution to her problem, which were usually mundane everyday problems.
Unfortunately for fans of the series, no DVD set is even being planned.
Tropes used in Adventures in Wonderland include:
- Acid Trip Dimension: Alice steps through her mirror into one Once Per Episode on her way to Wonderland.
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Hare in the episode "Vanity Hare"
- Acting for Two: The actors tended to double as their character's relatives.
- Actor Allusion: Featured one within the same series: the host of Lifestyles of the Royal and Famous, Hugh B. Happy, is played by the same actor as the Caterpillar, who remarks while watching that he seems familiar.
- An Aesop: Each episode has its own moral. Some are Anvilicious, but still others are actually poignant.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: A variation, as Alice would end most episodes discussing the day's aesop with her cat Dinah, providing the lesson in a way that wasn't disconnected from the rest of the episode.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Duchess. Especially in "Take the Bunny and Run".
- Broken Treasure: the rabbit accidentally breaks a crystal vase belonging to the Queen, and has to take a second job in order to afford to replace it. It turns out the original vase was made of cheap glass.
- Butt Monkey: Rabbit. It's not easy working for the Queen.
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"What about me?! What about my needs?!" |
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- Carnivore Confusion: There never appears to be any conflict between the Dormouse and the Cheshire Cat. Then again, they were almost never shown onscreen together; possibly to avoid this.
- Catch Phrase: Mad Hatter's "How true that is."
- Christmas Episode: Apparently Christmas traditions in Wonderland include hanging fruits and vegetables as decorations, playing the 'Christmas kazoo', and bobbing for Christmas crabapples. And the citizens of Wonderland find the concept of a 'Christmas tree' to be extremely odd (which is understandable, if you think about it). Never mind the fact that it's odd a parallel world like Wonderland would even have a Christmas.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Both the Hare and the Hatter. The former usually moreso than the latter, oddly enough.
- Clown Car Base: Dormouse's teapot home.
- Composite Character: The Queen (of the Queen of Hearts and Red Queen.)
- Dark Is Evil: Three of the one-off villains are dressed head to toe in black.
- Disney Acid Sequence: The opening theme counts as a rare live action Disney Acid Sequence.
- Eccentric Townsfolk
- Fantastic Racism: The citizens of Wonderland have to learn tolerance when the Walrus moves into their neighborhood, with a bad reputation preceding "his kind".
- Furry Confusion: The anthropomorphic animal characters portrayed by actors in prosthetic noses and ears live alongside Talking Animals portrayed by puppets, and alongside normal, real animals.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Both the Hatter and the Hare have shown their fair share of wacky inventions; their most notable being a (supposed) time machine.
- Halloween Episode
- Heterosexual Life Partners: The Hatter and the Hare
- Hyperspace Arsenal: The Hare almost always has whatever prop is called for at the time stored in his jacket. Almost.
- In Medias Res
- Irony as She Is Cast: The nerdy March Hare speaks and sings in a high-pitched, nasal squawk. His actor, Reece Holland, is actually a powerful baritone who was playing roles like Marius in Les Misérables and Raoul in Phantom of the Opera at the time he was hired.
- Karma Houdini: In "The Rabbit Who Would Be King", Rabbit is never seen being punished for lying to his movie-star brother about being king while the Queen is away. Even after she returns in the middle of the charade.
- In "The Hatter Who Came to Dinner", the Hatter never gets any comeuppance for abusing the Queen and Rabbit's hospitality even after his back is better.
- The Hatter also gets away with opening the Hare's mail at the end of "For Hare Eyes Only."
- Keep Circulating the Tapes
- Lighter and Softer: Well at any rate, you won't be seeing the Queen order the beheading of any of the characters.
- Literal-Minded: Mainly the Hare's thing, but just about all of the Wonderland inhabitants were prone to this on occasion.
- Nerd Glasses: This incarnation of the March Hare sports them.
- Parental Bonus: Lots of literary allusion titles ("From Hare to Eternity," "What Makes Rabbit Run," "The Bunny Who Would Be King," "The Grape Juice of Wrath") and film/TV allusion titles ("Pie Noon," "Lady and the Camp," "Card 54, Where Are You?").
- Race Lift: The Queen, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are played by African Americans.
- Rhymes on a Dime: In one episode, the White Rabbit catches "rhymitis", which has this effect on his speech.
- Royal Brat / Spoiled Sweet: The Queen tends to zigzag between these two tropes.
- Setting Update: Alice obviously isn't living in the 1800s during the segments where she's in the real world. In fact it's extremely doubtful she's even from England.
- Shout-Out: Alice's sister's name? Kathryn.
- Slice of Life
- Species Surname
- The Storyteller: The Caterpillar tells a short story Once Per Episode, which is animated with Claymation and has An Aesop which relates to the moral of the rest of the episode.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The song the White Rabbit sings after he's cured of his "rhymitis" is built entirely out of these -- he's just overjoyed to finally be able to not rhyme.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: Frequently.
- Too Many Cooks: In "Her-story in the Making", Alice tries getting her Wonderland friends to write a story for her school assignment for her. They each write a passage and it comes out... less than comprehensible.
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: The Mad Hatter and his evil second cousin twice-removed, the Copy Catter Hatter. Just about any of the character's relatives count, actually. (See Acting for Two above.)
- Unfazed Everywoman: Alice.
- With Friends Like These...: The Queen and the Duchess, big time.