Forest of Illusion 1 is the Ultimate 1-up grinding level. You need a cape, and just start stomping Wigglers as scroll them offscreen and come back. You will start getting 1-up then a 2-up, then a 3-up, then a 5-up, then the game kinda breaks and crazy stuff starts to happen
the Soda lake tip, you mention that you can swim under the platform at the end.. You can actually do that trick throughout the entire level to avoid torpedo Ted.