Among Knightmare's myriad influences were the popular Lewis Carroll novels Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, published in 1865 and 1871 respectively. The programme contains a number of references and similarities to the Alice stories (which also involve a child exploring a strange fantasy land after tumbling down a well).
Rather like a dungeoneer, Alice begins her adventure in a room with many doors and some useful items upon a table: a key and a potion labelled 'DRINK ME'. After checking that the bottle isn't marked 'poison' (an example that Team 11 of Series 2 would have done well to follow!), she consumes the potion, shrinking herself in order to fit through a tiny door. She later changes her size several more times, using cakes, a fan and pieces of mushroom.
In Knightmare, various spells, substances and magical items were used to grow or shrink dungeoneers, including two in Series 4 who were, like Alice, too big for the exit. Dickon swallowed a pill labelled 'Downers' (followed by 'Uppers'), while Nicky used 'Small', whose effects were reversed by 'Grow-Me-Quick'.
The unusual creatures of Wonderland include a Cheshire cat which can vanish and re-appear at will. Sidriss has her own Cheshire cat, Bethsemane, who is also invisible for much of the time.
Team 12 of Series 2 were given the following riddle by Cedric:
"A maid, a mouse and a mad March Hare
All sat down to eat some fare.
Now tell me, little scummy friend,
Whose party did they all attend?"
Dungeoneer Steven recognised this as the Mad Hatter's tea-party (where Alice herself tries to guess the answer to a riddle).

An earlier team were given a question about the Wars of the Roses, in which "Red fought white, and white fought red; great houses fought while England bled". The gardeners in Alice's Adventures face execution when the Queen finds out they have mistakenly planted white roses instead of red; this scene is thought to be an allusion to said war.
Alice meets a pack of anthropomorphic playing cards in the first book, and living chess pieces in the second. Cards and chess are recurring themes in the dungeon too, forming the basis of numerous puzzles and riddles. Brother Mace likened the Greater Game to a chess match in which Sarah (Team 3 of Series 5) was a pawn, and Combat Chess saw dungeoneers advance across a chessboard using the knight's move. In Through The Looking-Glass, Alice plays the White Queen's pawn in a huge game of chess, with the whole country divided into squares.
During her first adventure, Alice attends the Knave of Hearts' trial for theft, as described in the nursery rhyme:
"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day;
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite away!"
This was also recited by Gretel when Team 4 of Series 2 met her in the kitchen; she had confused the tarts with toads, and was glad to be corrected. Folly later asked Team 9 of Series 2 who stole the tarts, as part of a clue for the Pick A Card game.

The nonsense poem 'Jabberwocky', partly (mis)quoted by the Oracle in Series 3, is from a book that Alice finds in Through The Looking-Glass.
In a wood, she meets two brothers who enact another famous nursery rhyme:
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel."
Motley quotes this rhyme in the Labyrinths of Fear gamebook whilst manipulating a pair of glove-puppets. He directs the player to a safe exit if they can figure out whether Tweedledum was telling the truth.
At one point in the second novel, Alice finds herself attempting to row a boat. Her passenger (a sheep) warns her about "catching a crab", but Alice doesn't understand the term and thinks it refers to a real crustacean. In Series 6, Sidriss was similarly confused while rowing January and Motley across the Dunswater. When she remarked "I think I just caught a lobster" and Motley tried to correct her ("Crab!"), she thought he was calling her names.

Mary Miller, who played Lillith and Mildread, provided the voices for more than half a dozen characters in a 1985 Anglia Television production of Alice In Wonderland.

Lawrence Werber (Cedric) runs a dental practice called The Looking-Glass, after the book: "When we were looking for a name for the practice that expressed our approach and reflected some of my interests, and that had a touch of lightness, Lewis Carroll's wonderful work and Tenniel's delightful illustrations seemed perfect."

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