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Alice's Adventures

Hunting in AfricaAlice on the set

After Walt's first effort to make a living in the cartoon business ended in bankruptcy, he moved to California and tried to get a job in the film industry, without much success. But he had an unfinished print of a film he had started in Kansas City, a combination of animation and a real-live little girl, called "Alice's Wonderland." He sold the idea of a series of such cartoons to a distributor named M. J. Winkler, on the basis of a letter that indicated that "I am establishing a studio in Los Angeles for the purpose of producing the new and novel series of cartoons I have previously written you about." Winkler had no way of knowing, of course, that the studio Walt described was actually a ramshackle garage that belonged to his Uncle Robert. "Alice's Day at Sea" was the first in the series completed on the West Coast. Unlike "Alice's Wonderland," which was animated with help of Kansas City staffers, this cartoon was animated entirely by Walt -- with some assistance from his brother Roy. It starred Virginia Davis, a cute little girl who had worked with him in Kansas City, and whom he lured to California to become a movie star.

Alice comedyAlice the Peacemaker

As Russell Merritt, a film historian and co-author with J. B. Kaufman of "Walt in Wonderland," writes "The Alices are in every way apprentice films, witty and frequently charming, providing Disney with a storehouse of gags, plot ideas, and secondary characters which he reintroduced and refined in his famous '30s shorts. In them, the young director stayed steadily within the confines of popular '20s cartoon and kid comedy formulas. The framing stories, for instance, were quickly refined to give Virginia a supporting cast of children patterned after the popular 'Our Gang' comedies of Hal Roach, the better to exploit Little Virginia's gifts as a comedian and dancer. In the animation sequences too, Disney soaked up the work of the best silent filmmakers of the time -- not only rival animators, but live-action directors as well." After about a year, Virginia Davis left (her mother insisted that Virginia be able to perform in other films, while Walt would accept only an exclusive contract with his star). She was replaced by Dawn O'Day for one film, and Walt then hired Margie Gay who appeared in some 31 Alice comedies through 1925 and 1926.

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