The foolish samurai warrior joins the mad tea party.
Alice in Wonderland is a story which has easily recognized surreal imagery the world over, such as painting roses, chasing white rabbits, falling Down the Rabbit Hole past floating furniture, drinking and eating things which change your size, giant toadstools, or mad tea parties. The tale gets regularly referenced in media that is otherwise entirely unrelated, even spawning an entire subtrope, Alice Allusion, for when paired with a character named Alice.References to the original novel:
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Anime and Manga
- In Episode 34 of Smile PreCure!, as part of a fairytale-themed fashion show, Nao dresses up as Alice.
Card Games
- Mystical Medleys: A Vintage Cartoon Tarot: The "Two of Swords" is an Ace of Hearts that looks like one of the playing cards in Alice in Wonderland.
Comic Books
- The Sandman (1989): In the first issue, a child's mother reads her the chapter about the Red King's dream.
- In Superman story arc "Brainiac Rebirth", Clark Kent's boss complains about his employee "pulling a Cheshire Cat on him", in reference to Clark's frequent disappearances.
- Wonder Woman (2006): Tom is reading Through the Looking Glass when Diana comes to visit him in the hospital.
Comic Strips
- Off the Mark: The Cheshire Dog.
- Mutts: One strip has Mooch reading the book as part of the Mutts Book Club. When he says that the book is about "adventures in a rabbit hole", one of the chipmunks he's reading it to is skeptical: "I've been in a rabbit hole - and believe me - that's no Wonderland!"
- Peanuts:
- Snoopy can duplicate the Cheshire Cat's ability to disappear except for his grin, calling it the "Cheshire Beagle" trick. A series of Sunday strips about this had title panels showing Wonderland characters (based on the Tenniel illustrations) interacting with Woodstock and Lucy.
- A more subtle reference in the storyline where Peppermint Patty writes her book report about a cereal box. The cereal is called Snicker Snax, which is the onomatopea of the vorpal sword beheading the Jabberwock.
Fan Works
- Twinkling in the Dark: In "Beautiful Dreamer", Mai Mishou has a nightmare about falling down a dangerous rabbit hole, where she can't find Saki.
Film — Animated
- In The Last Unicorn, Schmendrick admits to the unicorn that he distracted Rukh with a riddle to keep him away. Later, Rukh is seen wandering out of his carnival trailer, wanting to know the answer to how a raven is like a writing desk.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Among the items in Jack Horner's arsenal is a cookie labeled "Eat Me" and a bottle labeled "Drink Me". Jack uses the cookie to grow to a massive size for the final battle.
- At the start of Sing 2, the Moon Theatre is putting on a show based on Alice, with Meena as Alice, Rosita as the Cheshire Cat, Johnny as the Mad Hatter, Gunter as the Caterpillar, and three actual white rabbits.
Film — Live-Action
- In Bulworth, after the title character believes he's called off the "weekend research project" - the hit on himself - he gets in his limo and says, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important debate!"
- In The Matrix Neo has his first meeting with Trinity after a chatroom message suggests he follow a white rabbit (actually a client's girlfriend, who has a white rabbit tattoo). Later Morpheus muses that Neo must be feeling like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, then tells him that if the red pill is chosen, "you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
- In the film Phoebe In Wonderland, a mentally-disabled schoolgirl finds solace in a school play of Alice in Wonderland, while her male friend Jamie plays the role of the Red Queen. Copious references to quotes from Lewis Carroll, as well as Phoebe's imaginary friend, Alice herself, who is played by Tessa Albertson.
- In Riot on Sunset Strip, Liz-Ann calls Andy "Alice in Wonderland" when she learns that she's never tripped on acid before.
- In Nightworld: Lost Souls, Sheila reads Through the Looking-Glass to Meghan.
Literature
- Davy And The Goblin: Davy reads Alice In Wonderland in chapter 1.
- The Dresden Files: In Ghost Story Harry describes one of Lea's exits as her disappearing "Cheshire Cat-style".
- Barlowes Guide To Fantasy, by Wayne Barlowe, includes an entry on the Caterpillar.
- Emma from Because of the Rabbit once dressed as Alice for Halloween, and dressed her dogs as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
- Come, Tell Me How You Live, Agatha Christie's memoir of meeting her future husband Max Mallowan on an archeological expedition, is titled after a line in the White Knight's poem "A-Sitting on a Gate". It opens with a pastiche of said poem, in which the "aged man"' describing his unlikely professions is replaced by Mallowan describing archeology, and Christie takes the place of the Knight, distracted by murder plots rather than equally unlikely inventions.
- Eight Cousins: In chapter 10, the characters go out swimming, saying they look like the "famous dancing party in Alice's Adventures In Wonderland".
- In Julia's Kitchen, Marlee's mom has an Alice in Wonderland alarm clock. When time runs out, the White Rabbit pops out and says, "Six o'clock! I'm late! I'm late!"
- In Language Arts, Mrs. Braxton's fourth grade students draw pictures of themselves as fantasy characters. Dana makes an extremely sloppy drawing that Charles knows is meant to be the White Rabbit.
- In Hoshi and the Red City Circuit, the huge furniture in Capelli's Restaurant makes Hoshi feel like Alice in Wonderland after taking a drink.
- In The Light Jar, Nate's mum asks him, "You know that feeling when you think the ground is going to split in two and you could just fall and keep on falling forever? Like Alice does when she tumbles through that rabbit hole into Wonderland? But rather than floating down and landing at the bottom you just keep on going. Down and down and down."
- In Bat and the Waiting Game, Janie plays the Queen in her elementary school's production of Alice in Wonderland. She considered trying out for Alice but changed her mind because "She just wanders around whining about everything." Bat says she would have been perfect for that part.
- In Sanctuary, the oldest book Morgan owns is an illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland that was so beautiful they had to buy it.
Live-Action TV
- Farscape. Given that the human protagonist is thrown down a (worm)hole into a universe of strange and often psychotic creatures, there are plenty of thematic or actual references to Alice in Wonderland (along with The Wizard of Oz).
- During a Fever Dream Episode of Providence, Sydney repeatedly has hallucinations of the characters.
- Star Trek:
- The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Shore Leave" starts with McCoy comparing an alien planet to Alice in Wonderland—before running into a talking rabbit and a little blonde girl.
- In the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Context Is for Kings", Burnham quotes the passage down the rabbit hole to herself while crawling through an Air-Vent Passageway to escape the enraged tardigrade. She later tells her roommate Cadet Tilly that her foster mother Amanda Grayson used to read it to her and her brother Spock when they were kids.Burnham: That's how I learned that the real world doesn't always adhere to logic. Sometimes down is up. Sometimes up is down. Sometimes, when you're lost, you're found.
Music
- "White Rabbit" by Grace Slick uses Alice in Wonderland imagery to describe drugged hallucinations.
- The The Beatles song "I Am The Walrus" was inspired by "The Walrus and The Carpenter" from Through the Looking Glass.
- "Cheshire Kitten (We're All Mad Here)" by S. J. Tucker is a Perspective Flip song from the Cheshire Cat's POV.
Theatre
- Shrek: The Musical: White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are among the fairytale creatures that got banished to Shrek's swamp.
Video Games
- In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the Adventure Dress resembles Alice's dress, being a light blue dress with a white apron. The apron also has four playing card symbols embroidered at the bottom.
- Animal Restaurant: The White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat will show up as customers. There's also the "Alice's Storybook" letters, which reproduce some excerpts from the book with illustrations, and a line of Alice in Wonderland-themed facilities.
- In the Animaniacs Licensed Game for the SNES, the Fantasy Studio is largely based on Alice in Wonderland, as it begins with the Warner siblings chasing after the White Rabbit, and features Playing Card Guards as enemies, culminating in a boss battle against the Queen of Hearts.
- The first three chapters of Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales are called "Go Ask Alice!", "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer", and "Alice Doesn't Live Around Here Anymore.", which are decorated with tea tables and giant mushrooms, and feature the characters from Alice in Wonderland as enemies. The boss of the third chapter is the Mad Hatter in a teapot-shaped tank.
- In Bug Too!, the Caterpillar serves as the game's Final Boss, attacking Bug with his smoke rings.
- Dead by Daylight has a whole collection of cosmetic items which pull from the book. For survivors, Kate can dress as Alice, Ace as the Mad Hatter, and Nea has clothing which evokes the Cheshire Cat; for killers, the Huntress can dress as the Red Queen, and the Artist can become the Jabberwock.
- In Far Cry 3 lines from the book are used in a drugged sequence.
- Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass: One of the Nightmare Zones, known as Tower of the Mad Queen, directly references Alice in Wonderland. The entire area is card-themed, and the recurring NPCs are White Rabbit heads impaled on pikes (though they're still very much alive and capable of speech), and the Caterpillar who speaks in riddles, frequently calls himself impatient, and is the one who sentences Jimmy to imprisonment for getting his riddle wrong (despite the fact that riddle has no correct answer). The enemies of the location are themed after cards, such as the Jack of Clubs, King of Diamonds, Ace of Spades, the Joker, and yes, the Queen of Hearts. The boss of the location is the Mad Queen, a former Queen of Legato, visually very inspired by the Queen of Hearts, who became mad and started cutting off her subjects' skins under the mad belief that it will make them safe and clean, and intends on doing the same to Jimmy.
- Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift has a mushroom-themed quiz with this question:In the fairytale Alice in Wonderland, which character smokes a hookah on top of a mushroom?
A1. The Cheshire Cat
A2. The Caterpillar
A3. Alice's father - Shameless Clone: Some of the enemies in the Nyan World are based on the Cheshire Cat, being cats with wide grins that partially disappear every few seconds.
- The Slaughter: Act One: Sydney Emerson mutters “I’m constantly observing my declining behavior as if through a looking glass,” when in a room with a potion on a table and a small door near the floor as one of his surreal Alice referencing dreams.
- In Super Mario 64, MIPS the Rabbit is an Expy of the White Rabbit, as he repeatedly tells Mario he's late to a date.
- Alice Margatroid from Touhou Project. Her Ex stage theme in MS is even named after the book.
- On the Fantasy version of the Tamagotchi Meets (known in the States as the Tamagotchi On), the characters Yumemitchi and Kiraritchi have fantasy counterparts based on Alice in Wonderland characters:
- Yumemitchi's fantasy version is Yumemi Alice, who wears a blue dress and ribbon and has a couple of cards on either side of her (an ace of spades on her right/the viewer's left, and an ace of hearts on her left/the viewer's right).
- Kiraritchi's fantasy version is Kirari Hatter, who wears a purple outfit with a purple top hat and is holding a teapot.
- Trinity includes a bunch of literary references, includes ones to Through the Looking Glass, Moby-Dick, Emily Dickinson, Alexander Pope, Walt Whitman, and Peter Pan.
Web Animation
- In Mystery Skulls Animated Vivi, Arthur and Mystery tumble through a trap door to fall past floating furniture, books and even an odd mirror like Alice when falling down the rabbit hole.
- RWBY: During the events of Volume 9, Team RWBY, Jaune Arc and Neopolitan end up stuck in the Ever After, a world from the in-universe fairy tale "The Girl Who Fell Through The World" which itself alludes to the original story and meet many of its residents who allude to characters featured in the story as well.
Webcomics
- In this filler comic from Girl Genius Krosp can be seen dumping a sleepy dormouse out of a teapot and into his coffee mug.
- Hark! A Vagrant: In "Cheshire Cat" Alice gets ticked off with the cat's gaslighting ways.
- Poison Ivy Gulch: On 11/1/2021, Ace asks the riddle of why is a raven like a writing desk. Like a certain hatter, he admits he doesn't know the answer.
Western Animation
- In the Dennis the Menace episode, "Dennis in Wonderland", Dennis is read the story of Alice in Wonderland. When he finds out that Ruff has dug a hole in Mr. Wilson's rose garden, he falls down the hole and ends up in Wonderland, which is ruled by Margaret as the Queen of Hearts. He is rescued by Henry as the White Rabbit and meets up with PeeBee as the Mad Hatter and Joey as the March Hare.
- On Phineas and Ferb, Perry's entrance to his lair is Different in Every Episode. In "Troy Story" he takes the rabbit-hole entrance.
- A minor Running Gag is a mysterious talking zebra only Candace can see, who brings to mind the Cheshire Cat.
- In the "Cartoon Smokers" sketch from the Robot Chicken episode, "Triple Hot Dog Sandwich on Wheat", the Caterpillar is one of the cartoon characters being treated for lung cancer in a hospital. He spells out letters and numbers with his hookah in this exchange;Caterpillar: Welcome to the I.C.U.. I have Stage 4 Lung Cancer.
Sharon: Uh, should he be smoking in here?
Doctor: Should the giant talking caterpillar with cancer be smoking a hookah in a hospital? Take your break now, Sharon. - "Fuzzy Pink Time", the season 1 finale, of Summer Camp Island features the Jabberwock as an antagonist.
References to the Disney film adaptation:
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Fan Works
- A Game of Cat and Cat: A Mythology Gag to Persona 4 having Teddie crossdress in an Alice costume, and the Persona games' Alices being magic-wielding enemies:It was less inexplicable why Teddie had decided to dress up as Alice; he was reusing the costume from some crossdessing contest that he had won a few years ago. His idea of Alice's character, however, was even more bizarre than Louis Cypher's schoolgirl costume.
Right on cue, Teddie turned yet another one of his victims into a zombie, giggling happily as it bumbled into a Sudama who looked like it really wanted to be somewhere else, and promptly exploded.
Film — Animation
- In The Great Mouse Detective, Bill the Lizard appears as one of Professor Ratigan's henchmen.
- The Lion King 1 ½: At the end, The Mad Hatter and The March Hare are among the many Disney characters who enter the theater to see the titular movie after Timon's mother rewinds it.
Film — Live-Action
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Bill the Lizard can be spotted near the beginning, where he helps someone hold up a ladder.
Literature
- Every Shiny Thing: At the school's Halloween costume contest, a group of sixth-graders dress as Alice in Wonderland characters.
Puppet Shows
- Donkey Hodie: In the episode "Donkey Wonky Tea Party", Donkey Hodie dresses up as the White Hare from the Disney adaptation by wearing two white socks on her ears and a bowtie. The fact that she wears this at a tea party also references the tea party scene in the story.
Toys
- Alice in Lalaloopsyland's appearance is based on Disney's Alice.
Video Games
- In the Bonkers Licensed Game for the Sega Genesis, in Harry the Handbag's stage, there are busts of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare at the Toon Museum. Hitting the March Hare Bust enough times will destroy it, but hitting the Mad Hatter Bust enough times will cause it to jump out and try to attack you.
- The playing card guards appear as enemies in Mickey Mouse II for the Game Boy.
- In both the North American and Japanese versions of Mickey Mousecapade, the goal is to rescue Alice. However, the Japanese version of the game contains more references to the movie, as the bosses of the respective first, second, third, and fifth levels of that version are the Cheshire Cat, Pat the Dodo, the Caterpillar, and the Queen of Hearts.note
- Persona 4: During Yasogami High School's Crossdressing Beauty Pageant, while Kanji is dressed as a Drag Queen and Yosuke and Yu are dressed more conventionally pretty, Teddie is convincingly dressed as Disney's version of Alice, winning him the contest.
- In World of Illusion, the Caterpillar can be seen in the foreground of the first level. The beginning of the fifth level is pretty much dominated by references to the movie, from the level design and music to the playing card guards and the strange Mad Hatter chess pieces chasing you.
Western Animation
- Aladdin: The Series: Genie turns into the Cheshire Cat at one point in the episode "Moonlit Madness".
- The Mad Hatter and the March Hare appear in a couple episodes of Bonkers; The first episode, where they were thrown out of the studio along with Bonkers and his crew, and "In the Bag", where they request the services of Bonkers and Lucky to investigate the disappearances of their tea cups.
