Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

For years I had been asking people if they remembered a cartoon of Alice in Wonderland where Alice went through her TV set, fell down a "computerized" shaft on the other side, and met the white rabbit. They all politely told me I was nuts. Then, a couple of days ago, I happened to catch this on CN's Boomerang channel, and did a Snoopydance out of sheer vindication. I really *did* see this when I was a kid!

Admittedly, there's nothing that stands out about this typical Hanna-Barbara fare -- the most interesting bits (to a child of the time) would have been seeing Fred and Barney as the Caterpillar, and Alice having the same voice as Josie (of Pussycat fame). Still, the framework story is different: our Alice is assigned to read the book "Alice in Wonderland," then falls, hits her head, and dreams up this whole adventure through the TV set. In that sense, it's more like "The Wizard of Oz" than AIW.

Today's children would probably be bored by this show, since it hasn't aged particularly well, and runs for an entire hour. Also, the title song has a line about "watering down the beer" that wouldn't be used today. If you're in the mood for nostalgia, though, see if you can catch it on a Boomerang rerun.