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When I was younger, "Alice in Wonderland" was to my toddler eyes a bright, visual feast for the eyes, full of ribald, engaging characters who got into all sorts of trouble and mayhem in the vivid and creative imagination of one little girl who believed that nonsense was essential to life. Now, having revisited Wonderland more than a decade since I last left it, I can honestly say that it hasn't changed a bit in terms of its effect on me appearance-wise. Much of the residual pleasures of watching the Cheshire Cat change form and function periodically throughout his songs, or seeing a deck of playing cards march with spears in anticipation of the cantankerous Queen's arrival, have remained intact, further heightened in their jovial nature by my adult understanding of the meaning of several of the film's jokes and zingers. "Can you stand on your head?" asks a decapitated Cheshire Cat of Alice. Absolutely priceless. ***

It is precisely (or exactically, if you please) this blend of maturity and silliness that lends to "Alice in Wonderland" a highly unique quality unlike much of the House of Mouse's usual tales of swords and sorcery and talking animals. Lewis Carroll's moral of sensibility being both a virtue and a burden has been given perhaps an unbeatable treatment through the imaginative minds of the creative team behind the movie, who have fashioned a world that is at once beautiful, startling, funny, and yes, even a little bit terrifying in some places. Who wouldn't want to come face-to-face with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? Then again, who in their right mind would think twice about taking advice from a caterpillar who smokes a Turkish waterpipe? The animation, although not as advanced, still remains as gorgeous and detailed as anything you're likely to see nowadays, and a collective voice cast brings the characters to life with outrageous hilarity.

Released previously on a bare-bones disc, "Alice in Wonderland" didn't receive a very worthy transfer then, but it has now. Disney has gone all out to make sure that this new edition gives us the movie in its most flawless form, and while the results are perfect, they are as close as they could be without being so. The source print has been nicely remastered to get rid of a great deal of film grain and blemishes, and there is very little, if any, fading evident. Colors are richly saturated and textures smooth for the most part, while edges are sharp and halos absent. Once again, Disney has given one of their best movies the best possible treatment. ***

The audio has also been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1, although this is not really a movie that that was made for the 5.1 mixer. But believe it or not, despite the overall monaural feel to the track even in the surrounds, there are some moments that manage to dazzle. "Alice and Wonderland" did make some effective use of sound effects, which along with the music have been branched out into the rear channels slightly but audibly. Dialogue sounds hollow but clean and free of noise, and the overall track is lacking in hiss, cracks, or pops. And while efforts like this usually don't pay off so well, comparisons between this and the mono track included will undoubtedly leave this the better of the two.

Okay, so I expected a little bit more from the new DVD edition of "Alice in Wonderland," dubbed "The Masterpiece Edition." Truth is, Disney does tend to go a little overboard when it comes to the kid-oriented material on their releases, save for their Platinum titles, which only come once a year. Here, there's more kid stuff than on any of their previous discs, and to be honest, it gets a little annoying after awhile. ***

Spread out across two discs, the supplements begin on Disc One with "Virtual Wonderland Party," which has to be one of the freakiest extras on a DVD I've ever seen. Think of it as Mike Myers in "Dr. Suess' The Cat in the Hat" shocking, and you get the general idea; in this piece, the young ones are invited to a fully-filmed party where the characters talk to the viewer, and invite them to participate in several activities. Adults will most likely skip this entirely, and even the kids might become bored with it after some time. There are also two sing-along songs, the trivia game "Adventures in Wonderland," a Mickey Mouse animated short, and a brief featurette that showcases the newly-discovered song "I'm Odd," sung by the Cheshire Cat and cut to scenes from the movie. ***

True fans of the movie will want to head right to Disc Two, where there's more material related to the production of the movie. We begin with "One Hour in Wonderland," a vintage television special that was used to promote the movie by taking us to Walt Disney Studios, where several of the participants in the creation of the movie, including Walt Disney and Kathryn Beaumont, the voice behind Alice, acted as though Alice and her world were entirely real. This is an okay piece, followed by "An Alice Comedy: Alice's Wonderland," the first in a series of short films made by Disney. There are two theatrical trailers and introductions to the "Disneyland" television show that feature "Alice in Wonderland" as their story, followed by the 1951 featurette "Operation Wonderland," which is incredible in that it gives us a very unique look at the making of the movie through behind-the-scenes footage. The excerpt from "The Fred Waring Show" also makes for interesting viewing, if only to hear Disney once again talk about his movie. ***

Then we move on to a gallery of deleted material, starting with "From Wonderland to Neverland: The Evolution of a Song," a featurette which illuminates that the song used in "Peter Pan" was originally conceived for the opening number in this movie. There is a storyboard presentation of the original opening moments, as well as original song demos recorded prior to production, and later cast aside. The disc closes out with a still gallery full of concept art images. --