CareBears Adventure in Wonderland: Part 2- The Evil Wizard, The Real Princess, and the Sympathetic Jabberwocky

In the Clutches of the Evil Wizard:

Once Alice is shoved through the doors of the Evil Wizard's tower, she is approached by a tall, eccentric man with pencil thin beard and pitch black hat that resembles his tower. And now my interns we get to hear the E.W.'s perspective on how Wonderland needs fixed during his diddy, "When I'm the King of Wonderland." He says that Wonderland needs placed under a metal dome so everyone could stay locked up at home . . . it's a rather fascist vision. Dim and Dum play ukulele giving it that sing-songy vibe except that this happiness is followed by the E.W.'s bizarre plans and ambient strange music interruptions. The song ends of course with a lightning crash that reveals the E.W.'s twisted awful teeth which could scare the devil out of kids. Maybe that's what they were going for? The E.W. then ascends into total darkness and minimal synthesizers fill the void with hypnotic frequencies. Alice, while observing her surroundings, is suddenly startled by the E.W.'s reappearing in which his shadow begins to mock Alice's shadow from a side view. This of course is concluded with maniacal laughter accompanied by intense music.

Running away with more low self-esteem, because the E.W. is a bully and because he told her that no one would believe her, Alice scuttles into Heart Palace's court room. She is completely surrounded by all the inhabitants of Wonderland. Alice gaining a sense of temporary confidence moves up to the Queen of Hearts' throne where she loses all confidence upon seeing the E.W. hover behind the Queen's back. Right as the E.W. gets ready to call out the imposture, the Queen embraces Alice with a hug and says "My daughter!" then all the citizens cheer. Unlike Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts, this character is loving and compassionate. And then there was the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit falls into the guards and yells, "The princess has returned . . . as you can plainly see." Great job, buddy. You almost screwed that up royally ha ha pun intended.

A Real Princess Could Do it:

If Alice wants to be a real princess she must learn to balance books on her head, dress properly, drink tea and drink tea whilst playing Croquet. Next we see a confident Alice go through a visual transition of stillness and complacency to a shaking (the two images flash simultaneously back and forth) Alice drinking tea on top of a flamingo hitting a Croquet balls at the same time. I know it looks crazy but it is Wonderland. Since Alice is kicking butt the E.W. decides to have Dim and Dum rig the course so that it's impossible to win. He says, " A Real Princess could do it." Together as a team the flamingo and Alice nail the last shot by launching the ball up in the air towards the huge heart-capped pole that lights up upon contact from said ball. Once this fails Dim and Dum sign a living will while the E.W. threatens them and demands most angrily that they capture Alice in her sleep. The camera once again has this strange fixation with the E.W. face, deep hollow eyes, and wicked teeth in which this scene once again is creepy. As a Doctor of Cartoon Analysis I have to say that recent Disney has really lost touch with terrifying kids into fearing their villains. It's like they are scared of Parental complaints. At least this Nelvana had some real balls and took some incredible gambles.

Hats, Thorns, Cages, and a Princess:

Meanwhile the other CareBears are still in search for the Real Princess. If you haven't picked up on it yet nobody really has a first name other than Alice. I kind of dig this feature and recommend you incorporate this into your future fantasy films. As the CareBears use the feat of hat possession to lead them in the right direction, they discover a cave entrance in the shape of a strange entity. Upon entering the cavern, the CareBears are surrounded by greenish rock and see a short silly man chasing a carrot attached to his hat by thin stick alone. They start conversing with each other and discover he is in fact the Mad Hatter. The Hatter then proceeds to explain through song that he's, "Mad About Hats." Hatter tells the gang that the Princess was brought to the Jabberwocky's cave and that he knows the way to the entrance. This lair isn't anything scary in fact it resembles a giant's living room which gives some indication of the creature's size. Braveheart Lion, a CareBear Cousin, accidentally launches Grumpy Bear into the air by tripping a mouse trap. 

As Grumpy flies past the Princess, he ends up stuck in the crack of a green couch. Before the Jabberwocky can sit on him he moves out of the way and ends up on top of the creature's belly. Since the dragon-like beast has allergies he sucks Grumpy into his nostrils and sneezes him out towards the cage where the Princess catches him. Grumpy unties the rope above and drops the cage onto the creature's head so the gang can make their great escape. The Jabberwocky slams his head into the lair's cave entrance in which the Carebears discover a unique thing: he has a thorn in his paw. The Mad Hatter quickly thinking puts on his doctor hat and has the rest of the gang pull out the thorn. Changing hats to sort of a Hudini-like turban, the Hatter forsees that the Princess will have to climb a mountain which comes up in Part 3. After the Jabberwocky tells them his name is Stan, cries a bunch out of shear gratitude, he then agrees to fly them back to Heart Palace. This sequence is great because it reminds me Falkor the luck dragon from Never-Ending Story and to this day I love Rpg video games that utilize riding on a winged creature such as Level 5's game Ni No Kuni, Wrath of the White Witch. This game was produced by Studio Ghibli which is the same animation studio that produced Spirited Away, a title that will show up in later posts.



Stay tune for Part 3 the exciting conclusion . . .