Work?! The time has come (Tweedledee: The Walrus said,) to talk of other things! Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, and cabbages and kings! And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. Kaloo kalay, no work today! We're cabbages and kings!
„
~ The Walrus after the Carpenter asks him about work.
The Walrus and the Carpenter are the antagonists of the poem/song sequence of the same name as told by Tweedledee and Tweedledum from Disney's 13th full-length animated feature film, Alice In Wonderland, based on the poem from Through the Looking Glass by the late Lewis Carroll.
They were voiced by the late J. Pat O'Malley.
Story
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
When Tweedledee and Tweedledum warn Alice that her curious nature could get her in trouble, they proceed to tell her the story of poor oysters who met their demise because of their curiosity.
The Walrus and the Carpenter were traveling through the beach when the Carpenter discovered a family of oysters. Despite the warning of their mother, the Walrus tricks them into coming with them on a walk, the oysters being unaware that the duo was planning to eat them. The Walrus used his clever lies to arouse the oysters' curiosity and, with a merry Pied Piper-like dance and flute solo, lures them to a restaurant built by the Carpenter in less than a few seconds. Once there, the Walrus tricks the Carpenter into preparing some food so he can eat all the oysters himself. When the Carpenter returns, the Walrus is seen crying after eating the oysters, possibly because he either felt sorry for them or because he had eaten them all so quickly. The Carpenter calls the little oysters and, when they do not respond, he looks for them and, behind the menu, he sees the empty oyster shells and realizes that the Walrus didn't leave any for him. He then proceeds to chase the Walrus with a hammer in anger, and the Walrus flees. Though, in the original, the Carpenter ate as well.
Though originally assumed that the duo were fictional fictional characters, they are later seen near the end of the film in the final chase sequence when Alice tries to escape from Wonderland. In the scene the Walrus and the Carpenter, along with the other characters in the film chase Alice through a vortex leading her back to the doorway home.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
Only the Carpenter, portrayed by John Prowse, appear in the show. Alice meet him when she finds herself inadvertently in a strange wood while she left on Cyrus's tracks, himself having released itself from the cage where he was prisoner by Jafar. However Alice becomes suddenly euphoric, insane and amnesic concerning her lover. Will Scarlett who joined her, discovers that the wood has a power hypnotizing on people which crosses it, putting them in a state close to hallucinogenic effects and transforms them literally into tree as it was the case for The Carpenter whose legs were replaced by a trunk.
Personality
The Walrus acts as the leader of the duo. He is in many ways like Honest John from the film Pinocchio: he is a manipulative and conniving character who resorts to trickery to get what he wants. He convinces a school of baby oysters to go on a "walk" with him, and takes them to a makeshift restaurant where the greedy Walrus succeeds in devouring the young oysters. While the Carpenter believes that finding employment will better improve their lives, work is the last thing on the Walrus's mind, regardless of his constant ramblings of "cabbages and kings" (his way of saying that their futures will soon enough be bright). He is also very greedy, conceited, acquisitive, and self-centered, not hesitating to eat all of the naive oysters (whom he deceptively convinced to follow him ashore and into a restaurant that Carpenter built out of salvaged remnants of a boat) by himself, much to the Carpenter's rage of being left out of the feast.
The Carpenter is more simple and dimwitted, though he also wants to feed on the oysters. He almost reveals their plans a few times before being silenced by the Walrus. He is easily tricked into working in the kitchen while the Walrus eats all of the oysters himself. However, when he finds out that he has been deceived, he becomes extremely wrathful, destructive, obstreperous, aggressive, and violent, so he chases the Walrus with his hammer, presumably trying to kill him.
Although only a villain in a story-within-a-story, the Walrus (and to a lesser extent the Carpenter) is known as one of the few Disney villains who succeeds in the task at hand (which in this case is technically mass infanticide).
Gallery
Images
The Walrus and the Carpenter as they appear in the original book.
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