Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Max Fleischer
Short Synopsis
Betty is doing a jigsaw puzzle of Alice and the White Rabbit and falls asleep over it. The rabbit climbs out of the puzzle, and Betty, waking in her dream, follows him through the looking glass in her living room into a modernised Wonderland, where she puts on Alice's pinafore. She meets the cast of both Alice books in turn, the Mad Hatter and March Hare at their tea party, the Caterpillar, the Duchess, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Walrus, Humpty Dumpty and the rest, and sings "How Do You Do" to them to the tune of "Everyone Says I Love You". The Jabberwock, a scaly monster with a long neck, snatches her away, and the whole of Wonderland gives chase and rescues her. Betty wakes in her armchair in time to stop the White Rabbit from escaping her puzzle a second time.
Why It Matters
- The Fleischer Wonderland is Tenniel's drawings loosened into rubber, and the parade of characters is handled with real affection; the Jabberwock chase gives Roland Crandall, the studio's finest draughtsman, a monster to animate, and the Marx Brothers tune for the song places the film squarely in 1934.
- The cartoon is in the public domain in the United States and so has been one of the most-seen screen versions of Alice before Disney's; it was among the last Betty Boops made before the Production Code enforcement of July 1934 changed the character, and Bonnie Poe's Betty is the pre-Code flapper at the end of her run.
Notes and Trivia
- Crandall drew the whole of Snow-White the year before, single-handed.
- The title's "Blunderland" was a well-worn pun; a 1920s stage revue had used it.
- See also: Snow White (1933), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Betty Boop's Rise to Fame (1934).