All tagged Steve Allen

80’s TV Musical Alice in Wonderland Comes to 54 Below: You Aren’t Going to Want to Miss This!

80’s TV Musical Alice in Wonderland Comes to 54 Below: You Aren’t Going to Want to Miss This!

Mark Robinson
Tube Tied, Music That Makes Me Dance

If you had the pleasure of growing up in the 80s, then you know that things were big, colorful, and full of the “cheese” factor. This was a good thing. Anything worth doing was worth over-doing. Made-for-TV movies were often epic and star-studded events, offering a parade of popular performers (past and present) in sprawling entertainments that amazed and delighted. Among these was the deliciously campy and endlessly melodic two-part television musical of Alice in Wonderland (1985) produced by Irwin Allen. 

The Love Boat in Wonderland

The Love Boat in Wonderland

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

With the death of the dryly sarcastic and always funny Jayne Meadows yesterday, I cannot help but to think back on the 1985 TV movie musical Alice in Wonderland in which she appeared as The Queen of Hearts. For any of you who grew up with this inception of the Lewis Carroll classic, you understand the deep affection I have for this tuneful, completely cheesy, almost Vegas-inspired version. Packed to the hilt with B list celebrities of stage and screen (and the occasional game show panel member), this two-part TV movie event felt like The Love Boat had crashed into Wonderland, spilling its decade’s worth of guest stars onto the colorfully designed soundstage. For me, it was a little slice of gaudy heaven.