Flashback Friday: Broadway’s Carol Channing Kills It as Alice in Wonderland‘s The White Queen
In this YouTube clip, appropriately titled “Carol Channing Is Better Than You,” Tony and Golden Globe winner Channing (Hello, Dolly!) gives the made-for-TV performance of her lifetime. The movie is CBS’s 1985 two-part adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books, and Channing’s role is the jam-loving, impossible-believing White Queen.
The film also starred Broadway veterans Red Buttons (Buttons on Broadway), Anthony Newley (Stop the World – I Want to Get Off), Jayne Meadows (Once in a Lifetime), Roddy McDowall (Camelot), Ann Jillian (Sugar Babies), and Robert Morley (Edward, My Son).
The clip’s highlights include an impeccably choreographed song about jam beginning at about the 1:45 minute mark, and Carol Channing turning into a sheep.
And since the White Queen lives backward, we didn’t even miss her birthday yesterday! Take that, planning ahead. Happy birthday, Carol!