Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire Cat is a major character in the 1951 Disney animated feature film Alice in Wonderland. He is a mysterious, pink-and-purple-striped cat with a permanent grin. Mischievous and unpredictable in nature, the Cheshire Cat acts as a guide for Alice during her adventures in Wonderland, but also takes pleasure in causing her trouble.
==Background==
The Cheshire Cat has a permanent smile on his face and he can disappear at will. He is a very odd being who is able to reshape his body to either amuse or frighten his visitors. He's very mysterious, and in his own way, very dark. Like all members of Wonderland, he is mad, but unlike the others, he admits it with pride. All of Wonderland's inhabitants appear to hold fear over him, even the Queen of Hearts, most likely due to the fact that he is the maddest and craziest of them all, or it could be due to his unique abilities.
===Personality===
The Cheshire Cat's true nature in the film is highly questionable, but above all, he appears to be a completely neutral character. In many instances, he's the only being in Wonderland to show kindness and sympathy towards Alice, giving her advice on which path to take during her journey, practically acting as her guide to the point where she's overly joyous to see him once he returns. On the other hand, the cat has a cruel sense of humor, as seen during Alice's meeting with the Queen of Hearts; during which, he constantly caused mishaps to purposely have the Queen's dangerous temper target Alice. This behavior carries out up into the climax, though it can be slimly argued that he caused the Queen's temper to violently erupt for the last time to assist Alice in getting home, as the climactic chase throughout Wonderland eventually leads to her awakening and finding it was all just a dream.
===Physical appearance===
The Cheshire Cat is a bizarre, rather rotund cat with a perpetual grin. The cat's fur is striped purple and pink, a pattern that stops abruptly at his wrists and ankles. His mouth, hands, feet and the tip of his tail are all a very light pink color, while the fur on his head is ruffled at the top (obscuring his small ears) a solid red-violet. His eyebrows, which are always raised, are black, and his eyes are yellow. His nose is a dark rose color, and below it, are six grey whiskers, three on either side of the cat's upper lip, that are oddly off-center from the follicles. His hands and feet both seem to have opposable thumbs, along with three other fingers or toes.
Each of his digits sport short, black claws. The Cheshire Cat displays a high degree of balance and dexterity, usually standing on his hind legs and occasionally on his hands. Most notably, the Cheshire Cat is able to make parts of his body appear and disappear at will, remove his head from his shoulders and continue talking, occasionally balancing it on his feet during his handstands, or even balancing the rest of his body on the head itself.
==Appearances==
===Alice in Wonderland===
After a gamut of nonsensical events in pursuit of the White Rabbit, Alice enters the Tulgey Wood. There, the Cheshire Cat arrives offering her help with directions. She tries to receive practical answers, but he continues to goof off by asking random questions, and continually showcasing his abilities. After a while, he advises her to seek answers from the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. She, not wanting to associate with mad people, denies the advice, but he claims that everyone in Wonderland is mad, including himself. He then slowly fades away into thin air, laughing and singing in the process.
Later on, Alice finds the trail of the White Rabbit once again and begins to pursue him once more. She is lost again, but this time, all hope seems lost. She breaks down in tears, just when the Cheshire Cat arrives. Delighted to see him, she claims that she's no longer looking for rabbits, and wants to find her way home. However, he explains that in Wonderland, she has no way and that all ways there are the Queen's ways. Confused, she informs him that she knows nothing about the queen, so he reveals a secret passageway to her card-inhabited kingdom.
During a croquet game with the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat arrives and continuously gets Alice into trouble with the Queen. At one point, the Cheshire Cat causes the Queen to flip over, revealing her bloomers. Out of utter embarrassment, she puts Alice on trial. With the witnesses being the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and the Dormouse, the trial gets nowhere. Soon enough, the Queen sentences Alice to death by beheading, until she finds more mushrooms in her pocket, which causes her to grow to a gigantic size. She then takes advantage of the opportunity and insults the Queen, but she shrinks down to her normal size once again. The Cheshire Cat appears once more, repeating Alice's insults which causes the Queen to lose her temper, and this leads to the climactic chase.
===House of Mouse===
The Cheshire Cat has numerous non-speaking appearances in House of Mouse.
In "The Stolen Cartoons", when Donald Duck proved to be a terrible host, the Cheshire Cat vanished from the club.
In "Big Bad Wolf Daddy", he was blown away leaving only his grin behind during the wolf's performance.
In "Ask Von Drake", he was seen atop the Queen of Hearts' crown during "The Ludwig Von Drake Song".
In "Unplugged Club", when Pete took out the club's battery, only his eyes and grin showed in the darkness.
In "Super Goof", he could be seen atop the March Hare's chair with the Mad Hatter pouring tea on the Hare.
In various episodes such as "Mickey and Minnie's Big Vacation", he could be seen clapping in a crowd with other characters when a cartoon has ended.
He also appears in Mickey's House of Villains, and Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.
===Alice's Wonderland Bakery===
The Cheshire Cat appears as a recurring character in the series. While most of the show's primary characters are descendants of their original movie counterparts, the Cheshire Cat is the "timeless" original cat. His voice in the series is more similar to comedian Martin Short.
===Other appearances===
The Cheshire Cat can be briefly spotted during the final scene of the film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His tail and also half of his face and body can be briefly seen during the final shot.
In the animated short Electric Holiday, the Cheshire Cat was one of the many Disney character guests to attend Minnie Mouse's fashion show.
A bootleg version of the Cheshire Cat makes a brief cameo in the live-action Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers movie, where he can be seen escaping from a shipping container with the other victims that were in debt to the Valley Gang. In this instance, he had been given the body and skin color of Shere Khan from The Jungle Book. This is likely a reference to both characters originally being voiced by Sterling Holloway and currently being voiced by Jim Cummings, who voiced other characters in the movie.
Genie impersonated the Cheshire Cat in the Aladdin episode "Moonlight Madness".
The Cheshire Cat made a cameo appearance in The Wonderful Spring of Mickey Mouse, as well as The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse episode "Once Upon an Apple".
In Once Upon a Studio, the Cheshire Cat appears in front of Gaston's face in the men's room, ridiculing him while laughing at him. He later appeared in the group photo along with the rest of the Disney characters.
In Wish, the Cheshire Cat was among the Disney animated characters that appeared during the credits. In spirit of the character, his smile appears first, followed by his eyes before the rest of him forms.
==Live-action appearances==
===Adventures in Wonderland===
The Cheshire Cat was a supporting character in the 1995 series. He loves to play all manner of practical jokes on everyone, but even he occasionally performs some act of kindness.
==Video games==
===Disney's Villains' Revenge===
In the Alice in Wonderland stage, the Cheshire Cat's grin was among the obstacles that appear in the maze as the player seeks out Alice's missing head and back. Despite this, the Cheshire Cat's image was among the heroes on the door to the storybook, confirming that he is one of them.
===Kingdom Hearts series===
The Cheshire Cat appears in several games of the Kingdom Hearts series, although most of them are minor as they take place in Wonderland. However, in Kingdom Hearts, his intentions appear to be ambiguous as he appears as either an ally or an enemy; he helps Sora during his visit to Wonderland, but also summons a Trickmaster Heartless against the group, although it appears he simply wants to test Sora towards these obstacles. The manga adaptation reveals that the Cheshire Cat was offered a place on Maleficent's council of villains, but he rejected it.
Other appearances of the Cheshire Cat also occurred in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
In the HD re-release of Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, Cheshire Cat played his first speaking role, assisting Sora in recovering Alice's memories, which went missing due to the digital world of Wonderland becoming corrupt at the hands of a bug infection.
===Kinect: Disneyland Adventures===
The Cheshire Cat briefly appears during the Alice in Wonderland mini-game during the player's free-fall down the rabbit hole. If the player can match his poses correctly enough times, they will earn a collectable secret. His real life statue outside the attraction in Fantasyland is among the area's secrets that can be enchanted by the wand given by Cinderella. He is also mentioned by the Mad HatterMad Hatter: Oh has the Cheshire Cat got your tongue.
===Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion===
In the game, the Cheshire Cat is one of the many Disney characters kidnapped and taken to the Wasteland world of illusion, where an evil witch named Mizrabel plans to steal the essence of famous Disney characters to gain access to their world and dominating it. After Alice (who was also kidnapped) is rescued, she gives Mickey Mouse (the hero of the story) the quest to find the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat before they too are drained of their energy.
===Disney Heroes: Battle Mode===
The Cheshire cat appears in the game as one of the playable and unlockable characters, he can attack with his claws just by disappearing, make a smile in front of the enemies to do damage and also throw his head to damage and stun the enemies and even the ones that are invisible.
===Disney Sorcerer's Arena===
The Cheshire Cat is an unlockable Mythical Villain and Offense character added for the Peculiar Party event. The Cheshire Cat's Specials allow him to drive opponents (and teammates) Mad and cause mass confusion on the battlefield, as well as use his disappearing skills to avoid being targeted, evade enemy attacks, and even revive himself after defeat. The Cheshire Cat can be unlocked in the Alice in Wonderland side campaign, and is required to unlock Alice.
===Disney Dreamlight Valley===
The Cheshire Cat is scheduled to join the game in 2025.
==Disney Parks==
===Disneyland Resort===
A statue of the Cheshire Cat can be seen in a small hole in the rabbit hole building that encases the Alice in Wonderland attraction. The Cheshire Cat appears in audio-animatronic form in the dark ride as well, in the Tulgey Wood scene. He also appeared in the ride's finale as a giant head just before the Mad Tea Party scene but was removed from it during the ride's 2014 refurbishment.
The Cheshire Cat also appears during World of Color's finale. In the show, his animated face is seen in the water projectors, while the rest of his body is made completely of water.
===Walt Disney World===
The Cheshire Cat appears in the bubble montage in Fantasmic! at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
In Celebrate the Magic at the Magic Kingdom, the Cheshire Cat's form briefly took over Cinderella Castle at one point.
===Tokyo Disney Resort===
In Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: DreamLights, the Cheshire Cat appears with Alice on his back. During the parade, he demonstrates his powers by continuously disappearing leaving only his mouth, eyes, and nose in sight.
The Cheshire Cat also appeared during Alice's segment in the Once Upon a Time castle show in Tokyo Disneyland. He currently makes daily appearances during the Dreaming Up! parade.
===Disneyland Paris===
A statue of Cheshire Cat can be spotted in Alice's Curious Labyrinth. His grin is also featured in the attraction's garden.
In 2013, as part of the Disney Dreamers Everywhere! events, the Cheshire Cat returned as a meet-and-greet character, appearing at Disneyland Paris.
===Hong Kong Disneyland===
In the park, the Cheshire Cat appears briefly during Alice's segment of Disney in the Stars.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*The Cheshire Cat was used as inspiration for the character Chaos in the Aladdin TV series as well as the Talking Zebra in Phineas and Ferb.
*The Cheshire Cat is the third Disney character originally voiced by Sterling Holloway and taken over by Jim Cummings. The first two are Winnie the Pooh and Kaa.
*When Alice first hears the Cheshire Cat, he is singing the first and last stanza of the poem "Jabberwocky".
*Originally, the Cheshire Cat was supposed to sing a song called "I'm Odd" but it was later replaced with "Twas Brillig". For the Alice in Wonderland: Special Edition DVD, it was remastered and sung by Jim Cummings as the Cheshire Cat.
*In Epic Mickey, the Cheshire Cat was going to appear in the game at the level "Wonderland". But he and the level were scrapped in the final because Warren Spector didn't want to cause confusion with the Tim Burton retelling, which was scheduled to release at about the same time. A large figure of his face does appear in the Floatyard in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. 
*In Cinderella, Lucifer appears to share some similar physical properties with the Cheshire Cat: both are rather fat in appearance, have a rather large grin at most points, and have rather sharp claws. This may be because the two films were produced concurrently (1950 and 1951).
*The original Cheshire Cat was based on an actual cat breed, the British Shorthair. It may have provided some inspiration for Disney's Cheshire Cat.
*In the book, the Cheshire Cat is brown and tan colored.
*In Disney/Pixar's Inside Out, Bing Bong's tail looks similar to that of the Cheshire Cat.
*He makes a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, despite not appearing to the public four years after the film takes place.
*The few times the Cheshire Cat was shown not smiling was when he was gasping from his mad laughter in the original film and when he and the others denied Goofy's stew in the House of Mouse episode, Goofy's Menu Magic.
*In Disney Sorcerer's Arena, he is labeled as a Villain character despite being a neutral character in the movie.
*Keith David, who voices the Cheshire Cat in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, also voices Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog.
==See also==
*Chessur
*Cheshire Cat (Once Upon a Time in Wonderland)
==References==
==External links==
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ar:القط شرشر
es:El Gato Risón
fr:Chat du Cheshire
it:Stregatto
pl:Kot z Cheshire
pt-br:Gato Risonho
ru:Чеширский Кот
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