Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Furry, er, Slurry White Rabbit


There’s a line in Disney’s animated feature Alice in Wonderland that we’ve been curious about.

It’s said by the White Rabbit… but the trouble is what in fact does he say?

Bart, quoting him when pressed for time one day, said, Oh my fearing whiskers...!
I had thought it to be Oh my ears and whiskers...!
To settle it, we put on the English subtitles on the DVD. Lo and behold, the subtitles are not entirely accurate. For instance, Alice (unmistakably) says a bit more than is actually shown in the text. And when it comes to the White Rabbit’s lines some are missing as well. (Horrors!) It just so happens, of course, that the misheard line is not included.
TO THE INTERNET!
Wouldn’t you know that there are yet more hearings of it?
Oh my fur and whiskers...!
Oh my furry whiskers...!
I’m willing to bet we can rule out that last one.

Can anyone verify the actual line?

P.S. - We saw Burton's Alice again... it's even better the second time. When a movie is able to bring you the same thrills (or more so!) at key scenes, that's an accomplishment! Also, Bart noticed a painting of the Griffin (fighting the Jabberwock[y]) in the Red Queen's castle, while I spied the Mock Turtle in another portrait. So at least those two are in fact represented... and it adds support to the guess of what happened to them.

4 comments:

Anon said...

I'm pretty sure it's "Oh my fur and whiskers!"

I agree with you, though, it was hard to make that out the first time I heard him.

Anonymous said...

Anon is right but forget Disney and let's get back to the original. Lewis Carroll says 'Oh my fur and whiskers!' (Chapter IV).

Peter Von Brown said...

Bravo, Anonymous!
Thank you for that reference.
Sadly, it didn't occur to me to check Carroll since I just assumed that Disney had rewritten it.
Yes, I'm aware that they do keep a good portion of the actual dialogues. Thanks again.
And please, don't post anonymously. I'm just amazed that people shun the chance to be creative.

Jason A. Quest said...

Given how much of Barrie's dialog Disney used, you can be forgiven for assuming that they weren't using Dodgson's.