In my last blog, I called Babes in Toyland a "Christmas favorite cousin" of Oz. Well, turns out, if we're counting that, there's another one I missed.
In 1937, audiences of radio stations working with Transco (the Transcription Company of America) were treated to The Cinnamon Bear for the first time. Airing six days a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas, audiences enjoyed the adventures of Judy and Jimmy Barton, siblings who were preparing to decorate their family Christmas tree when they try to locate the silver star tree topper. Suddenly, they're assisted by Paddy O'Cinnamon, a ginger colored ornament shaped like a bear who informs them that the Crazy Quilt Dragon stole the star and absconded to the fantastic world of Maybeland. Paddy helps the siblings "de-grow" so they can ride in his airplane where their series of adventures begin.
Judy and Jimmy meet all sorts of characters in Maybeland, from talking animals to candy-loving pirates to the noble Queen Melissa to the nasty Wintergreen Witch to Santa Claus himself. Also, it's a musical.
In labeling this a "cousin" to Oz, there needs to be shared DNA with Oz. In a promotional record for the series, a producer on the show reveals the writer had been asked to come up with a Christmas-themed story in the vein of Alice in Wonderland and the Oz books. In 1937, film hadn't yet begun to roll on MGM's The Wizard of Oz so the Oz books and the original musical extravaganza were the dominant forms of Oz in the public's consciousness. In fact, the most recent Oz books were by Ruth Plumly Thompson, who had published sixteen or seventeen (depending on when in 1937 we're talking) books in the series.
The Cinnamon Bear certainly harkens back to many of Thompson's plot devices, with a long series of adventures that could easily be written out, but are enjoyable anyway. Queen Melissa feels like Ozma, as she's a ruler who has outlawed witchcraft in her domains (the Wintergreen Witch even remembers that before Melissa's rule, she could do as she pleased). In addition, she happily helps people who come to her for aid, or can send them to someone who can help. Even the Wintergreen Witch's fate feels like something Thompson would've come up with.
I'm actually surprised that it didn't get a cheap direct to video animated adaptation in the 80s or 90s as it's begging to become an animated version. However, it has received an update: this year, in fact. A new version debuted this year as one of Audible's original podcasts, available only to subscribers. As I write, it has wrapped. It updated the storytelling style, being tongue in cheek with a little bit of a cynical edge for the narrator and Judy and Jimmy.
The remake features an all-star cast, starring Alan Cumming as Scotty O'Cinnamon (the original Cinnamon Bear was Irish, Alan Cumming is Scottish and the character was renamed and given a tartan bow instead of his original green one) and Ryan Reynolds as Santa Claus. The story is largely the same, with the last several episodes featuring Santa Claus getting the biggest changes, trying for a more epic and dramatic conclusion.
So there's actually two versions to check out!
By the way, I need to thank fellow OzCon International attendee Tim Tucker for tipping me off to check it out.
People love the holidays, and people love Oz. So what if they met? Well, they have. Many ways, in fact. So, let's look at some examples. However, it has to be a notable connection between the two, or either their Oz connection or Christmas contribution has to be notable. Thanks to the many stage and film productions of Oz, and the insane glut of Christmas productions, if we were to talk about every person who's played an Oz role or covered an Oz song and also been in a Christmas production sometime, we'd be here forever.
L. Frank Baum and Santa Claus
L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its first several sequels, loved making a good Christmas for his sons. If he could make Christmas morning a production, he did. One of his sons recalled one year when he had set up four Christmas trees, one for each of them. And he loved incorporating Santa Claus into it.
Reportedly, when Christmas 1900 rolled around, Baum didn't have money to buy his family presents. As he'd published some new books that year—including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—he went to the publisher to ask for an advance on his royalties. Instead, they cut a check for royalties owed so far on Oz. The Baum family story (always of dubious authenticity, but a good story) says that he didn't look at the check before heading home. His wife, Maud, was ironing a shirt when he got home and handed her the check. She was surprised to find it was for $1,423.98 (in today's money, that's comparable to about $40,000) and burned a hole in the shirt.
I'm sure Baum had to have written some holiday themed items for his boyhood newspapers, The Roselawn Home Journal and The Empire.
However, I don't believe a complete record of these exists, and the
little of what remains hasn't been reprinted much. There were also
Christmas-themed entries of "Our Landlady" for The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer.
I've written extensively about Baum's works featuring Santa Claus over the years (I set up a tag for it), but I'll give you a sum up. Santa Claus, in Baum's fiction, first appeared in "Little Bun Rabbit," the last story in his first published children's book, Mother Goose in Prose. The same book also featured a story about "Little Jack Horner" and why he was so good that he remarked about it when he pulled a plum out of his Christmas pie.
Then 1902 brought The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, a novel-length biography about Santa Claus' life which would introduce the Forest of Burzee into his fairy tales, and offered the first time two of his works crossed over, as it's mentioned that Santa Claus gets the candy he delivers from Phunnyland, the setting of A New Wonderland, which would later be revised into The Magical Monarch of Mo. (In Outsiders from Oz, I reaffirmed that this is still the case with a nice little explanation.) Baum's Santa differs from the general lore that's sprung up since, as he lives in Laughing Valley, which is near Burzee. As Baum's fairy tales developed, this put him across the desert from the Land of Oz. His first reindeer did not share the names given in the classic "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" poem by Clement C. Moore. The book has been adapted for television, stage and audio many times.
Baum's Santa Claus would reappear in the short story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" and in one of the entries of Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz. Finally, he crossed over to Oz properly in The Road to Oz when he attends Ozma's birthday party with a company of ryls and knooks. Later, he helps the Wizard send all the guests return home in bubbles, including himself, as he knows where everyone lives.
Denslow, the original illustrator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and joint copyright owner, of course turned out holiday themed work in his illustration work. But there's a couple that directly crossed over with Oz. Denslow put out his own newspaper page, Denslow's Scarecrow and Tin-Man, which told adventures of the pair (and often the Cowardly Lionas well). The first entry was titled "Dorothy's Christmas Tree," telling of when Dorothy was stuck in Oz and it was Christmas time.
Later, in Denslow's The Night Before Christmas, his picture book edition of the famous poem, a toy Tin Woodman was seen peeking out of Santa's sack.
The Other Royal Historians
"Santa Claus is one of the most beautiful things that can come into a child's life." — Ruth Plumly Thompson
Scanned and provided by Marcus Mebes
While working for the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Thompson wrote many Christmas pieces for children. While working there, she established "The Santa Claus Club," which would help get toys to needy children.
While Santa Claus didn't cross over into Thompson's Oz books, she did write a poem in which Santa relaxes after his Christmas travels in the Emerald City and later an original poem in a 1966 Baum Bugle contained a Christmas Oz poem by her. References to Christmas appear in Jack Pumpkinhead in Oz, Captain Salt in Oz and Speedy in Oz. (Thanks, Nathan DeHoff!) She also wrote a book titled The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa in which a Santa who lives in the North Pole goes on a seabound voyage to discover new Christmas presents. The book was illustrated by John R. Neill, illustrator of over thirty of the Oz books and author of three of them, and published by Reilly & Lee, the official publishers of the Oz books after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Reilly & Britton, Baum's publishers (they changed the name to Reilly & Lee in 1919), issued many reprints of classic works in their early catalog and had John R. Neill illustrate them. Two little books Neill illustrated were The Night Before Christmas and an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. (Thanks, David Maxine, for reminding me of the first one.)
While it's hard to think of any more notable Christmas work by Neill, given his extensive work in illustration, I'm very sure he must have turned out many Christmas pieces over time. Jack Snow, however, wrote at least two Christmas stories, "The Magic Sled" and "The Animals Christmas Tree." Rachel Cosgrove Payes and Eloise Jarvis McGraw would occasionally used Christmas in their works, but don't seem to have written stories that were themed around Christmas. (If I'm wrong, I welcome correction, the comments are open.)
Oz has a Christmas favorite cousin.
Babes in Toyland might not have begun as a Christmas show, but it quickly became associated with the holiday in its many incarnations on stage, screen, print and eventually radio and audio. The thing is, its original stage incarnation was launched by Fred Hamlin and Julian Mitchell, looking for their next big hit after their famous stage adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that became the musical version until the MGM film adaptation. Just about every screen adaptation of Babes in Toyland would have some Oz connection, from Oz fans in the cast, or actors who'd played Oz characters before, such as Oliver Hardy and Ray Bolger, or, in the case of 1985's TV version, shamelessly stealing the "it was all a dream brought about by an accident" device of the MGM film, complete with cast members doubling as characters in the young female protagonist's everyday life and characters in Toyland.
Judy
Of course, MGM's choice for Dorothy Gale, Judy Garland, sang many Christmas songs over her career. In fact, it's said her first performance was none other than a performance of "Jingle Bells."
However, there's two I want to highlight right now. The first is the song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," which she introduced in 1943's Meet Me In St. Louis. In the scene, her character is trying to cheer up her little sister (played by Margaret O'Brien), who doesn't want to move away from their St. Louis home. Reportedly, Judy found a number of the song's lyrics depressing and with a co-star and director on her side, got the lyrics revised, notably changing "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last; next year we may all be living in the past" to "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light; next year all our troubles will be out of sight." Reportedly, Judy had said, "I'm not singing that to little Margaret O'Brien!" And that's how Judy Garland used her star power to make a song from a movie into a Christmas mainstay.
The other song is her cover of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with Bing Crosby. With additional lyrics and scatting, this version is more fun and livelier than most versions. And by the way, who wouldn't want to see Judy as Dorothy and Bing as perhaps the Wizard doing a music video for this?
In addition, in 1950, Judy appeared on Lux Radio Theater to star in their adaptation of MGM's The Wizard of Oz, the only time she revisited the role of Dorothy Gale. The air date? December 25, Christmas Day.
The Animated Special
Dorothy in the Land of Oz isn't exactly a Christmas special, but the last song in it is prompted when Dorothy tells the villainous Tyrone the Terrible Toy Tinkerer that he could spread happiness with his toys instead of being a villain, pointing out that Christmas is soon, and he also lives in Oz. "Toys? Christmas? Oz? I don't get the connection," he mutters, and Dorothy launches into the sweet little ditty "Christmas, Toys and Oz." During the song, a snowy take on Oz is seen as well as Oz children opening presents.
The special was written and produced by Romeo Muller, who had written many specials for Rankin-Bass, including their first two specials in 1964, Return to Oz and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The production was made under the seemingly short-lived Romeo Muller Productions. Rankin-Bass produced a stop-motion adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, but Jules Bass wrote the script for it under the pseudonym Julian P. Gardner.
Oz fans generally use the title Dorothy in the Land of Oz because it's available on DVD under that title, but over the years, the title was switched out for a variety of other titles and a few edits were made. A book adaptation was titled Dorothy and the Green Gobbler of Oz. The original version, which is the one on DVD, is more of a Thanksgiving special.
Santa Claus is Oz canon!
Oz fans haven't ignored that Santa Claus is Oz canon, and new Oz stories have had some connection to it, such as Robin Hess' Christmas in Oz, Richard Capwell's Santa Claus in Oz or Nathan DeHoff's "Jinnicky Saves Christmas," and Sarah Crowther reminded me that Santa Claus officiates the wedding of the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl in The Patchwork Bride of Oz by Gilbert M. Sprague. This is but just four examples with more short fiction and fan-written books having Christmas themes or using Santa Claus or lore from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.
So, are there Oz and Christmas connections I missed? Are there Oz memories from Christmas time you want to share? Sound off in the comments!
