Alice Pop-Up Book shown on The Simpsons

The Simposons, Season 21, Episode 8, which premiered a few Sundays ago, featured Lisa reading an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland pop-up book to her baby sister Maggie. (It begins at 5:34 in the episode embedded above, available for a limited time from hulu.com.) I've got a half dozen AAIW pop-ups open in front of me to figure out which one the fabulous animation from The Simpsons was inspired from, but it seems to be their own creation using Simpsons-esque versions of the Tenniel illustrations. Is this right? (If you do not own any Alice pop-ups, I recommend the breathtaking version by Robert Sabuda, available here on amazon.com, & shown in the youtube below.)

Alice Miniseries on the Syfy Channel, December 6th-7th

If you haven't heard the hype, Syfy is rolling out a hot new four-hour miniseries inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books, this coming Sunday and Monday evenings starting at 9pm. (Syfy used to be called the Sci Fi Channel, and this rebranding is being boycotted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Slate as an "unsupportable offense against orthography.") This show should should be a wild take on the Alice "myth", with Carroll listed as only one of many influences including Doctor Who and other classic genre-benders. The adult Alice (Caterina Scorsone) can do karate. You may remember Harry Dean Stanton, who plays an insurgent Caterpillar "resisting" the Queen of Hearts, as a regular from David Lynch movies and the slithery Fundamentalist Mormon prophet in Big Love. And the Dodo, also an insurgent, is played by Tim Curry, who was of course once the sweet transvestite transsexual from Transylvania. The Syfy plot sounds too complicated to recap before seeing it, involving some sort of coveted ring of power, the Gem of Wonderland, but the production and acting all sound first rate. There's trailers and other promo material at www.syfy.com/alice, and Troy Patterson's review at Slate (which I was just paraphrasing) is here. Patterson coined a delicious Carrollian portmanteau "maluscious" (luscious and malicious) to describe Kathy Bates' Queen of Hearts.

Syfy's Alice

Announced at least a year ago, Syfy has finally started releasing pictures and press information for its four-hour miniseries Alice, slated for December of this year.

"...writer/director Nick Willing has created the modern-day story of Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone), a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of a deliciously devilish Queen (Kathy Bates) who's not very happy about Alice's arrival. ...Rounding out the stellar cast are Tim Curry as Dodo, Colm Meaney as the King of Hearts, Philip Winchester as Jack of Hearts, Matt Frewer as the White Knight, Andrew Lee Potts as Hatter, Alessandro Juliani as 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber as Carpenter, Alex Diakun as Ratcatcher, Zak Santiago as 10 of Clubs, and Eugene Lipinski as Doctors Dee and Dum."

Should be interesting, but wouldn't it be nice to have an adaptation where the Red Queen/Queen of Hearts isn't the bad guy?

Warehouse 13

Remember where the Ark of the Covenant is stashed at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? The new TV show Warehouse 13 runs with that idea, telling the story of two government agents assigned to find such mysterious and dangerous objects and to store them safely. One fun aspect of the show is seeing objects that are already at the warehouse, such as Pandora's Box and Houdini's wallet. In the second episode, "Resonance," one of the main characters uses Lewis Carroll's looking glass to play ping pong with himself!

"Resonance" is being shown again on July 17, 21, and 28 on Syfy, and is available for an indefinite time online at IMDB.

Fun stuff

According to The Muppet Newsflash blog, "The Sesame Street characters are set to appear in a retelling of a classic story in the all-new film "Abby in Wonderland". Giving Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" a Muppety twist, the new DVD will star everyone's favorite Fairy-in-training, Abby Cadabby in her very own film. The musical film is currently in post-production and aimed to reach audiences in just a few months. While Abby takes on the role of Alice, the rest of the Sesame gang joins in (such as Elmo in the role of the Rabbit, Grover as the Mad Hatter, Cookie Monster as the Cheshire Cat, and Bert and Ernie as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum). While the exact release date of this title has not been confirmed yet, I've been told that fans should expect to see Abby's first direct-to-DVD feature hitting stores in September 2008." www.muppetnewsflash.com/2008/03/sesame-street-dvds-coming-your-way.html

Among other new shows, the SciFi Channel announced on Tuesday that it has "commissioned a six-hour miniseries dubbed Alice, a modern day-retelling of Alice In Wonderland..." from the team that created last December's The Wizard of Oz tale Tin Man. www.multichannel.com/article/CA6542335.html

And on the "what were his parents' thinking" front: Lewis Carroll, age 16, made his field hockey debut in Dinnington, U.K., last week: www.dinningtontoday.co.uk/sport/Relegated-side-ready-for-break.3895510.jp