This article is about the 1951 animated character. For the 2010 live-action character, see Absolem.
The Caterpillar is a character from Disney's 1951 animated feature film, Alice in Wonderland. He is a resident of Wonderland, known for smoking a hookah from which colorful smoke rises, forming letters, words, and even images that he refers to while speaking.
The Caterpillar often over-enunciates certain words such as 'exactly' and 'correctly'. He has a passion for recitation and grammar, and unlike most of the residents of Wonderland, he appears more calm and collected and was one of the few willing to give Alice useful advice. He also has a rather short temper, which can easily be set off, if his height is mocked or someone fails to understand his hints. He appears to have rather poor memory, as he did not recall who Alice was during their second meeting.
After leaving the Garden of Living Flowers, Alice comes across the Caterpillar singing and smoking. After a rather confusing conversation, Alice leaves in a huff out of annoyance, but the Caterpillar tells her to come back because he has something useful to say, and Alice returns. She tells the Caterpillar that she wants to be back to her normal size, whom he asks why. Alice replies that being three inches was an awful height, but the Caterpillar loses his temper and transforms into a butterfly. The Caterpillar tells Alice to take one part of a mushroom to grow larger and one part on the other side to grow smaller. The Caterpillar, in Butterfly form, later reappears when Alice is attempting to escape being beheaded by the Queen of Hearts, only for him to ask who she is and blow smoke that warps her to a surreal smoke tunnel leading back to the Doorknob.
The Caterpillar is one of the characters Jefferson and Regina encounter during their trip to Wonderland. He is reclining on a mushroom and smoking a hookah. He asks them, "Who are you?", like in the original book and the Disney adaption. After the encounter, Jefferson states that he hates Wonderland.
The Caterpillar appears in the spin-off once again. He represents in Alice's flashback memories before that she meets the genie Cyrus, stealing him a piece of the mushroom where he sits. He is later mentioned by Silvermist like the person in charge like the to have put Will Scarlett's head to capture. This latter, accompanied by Alice, visits him to find the Forget-Me-Knot, the year valuable enchanted piece of rope, in his mushroom which turns out to be a den for the criminals of Wonderland. The Caterpillar turns out to be a Lord of the Organized crime with characteristics similar to Jabba the Hutt. The Caterpillar informs both heroes that the object is actually possessed by Grendel, a dangerous ogre and agrees to stop pursuing Will if he gives the object. Will, after all, burns the rope, aware of the lack of morality from The Caterpillar. The Caterpillar is later visited by Jafar, investigating into Will.
While the Caterpillar himself doesn't truly appear in the game, a picture of him was among the ones in the rabbit hole room after The player and Jiminy Cricket leads Alice back to the door from Wonderland. Another reference to him includes several smoke images that are obstacles the player must click to avoid running into, including a white spade, a pink heart, and the golden crocodile that the Caterpillar formed in the poem he recited from the film.
The Caterpillar appears at the end of Chapter one. Due to disputes with smoking in children's media, his hookah is replaced with one that blows bubbles. He blows the player a bubble at the end of the chapter, which is used when the character is used as a croquet ball in Chapter two.
