The Baum Bugle is here!

By now, all members of IWOC have probably got their copies of the Spring 2006 Baum Bugle. Mine arrived Friday, but I couldn't blog until now, what with my grandmother's funeral and all.

Every issue of The Baum Bugle sports a great cover. This one is a sepia tone portrait of L. Frank Baum. Inside the front cover is a color photo from the OZ-MANIA event that I wish I could've gone to.

In the Oz and Ends section, they have an entry on Oz blogs. I'm not there, but that's OK.

The most interesting articles are about the Baum's Castorine company, comparing The Magic of Oz manuscript to the finished book, and there's an article about L. Frank Baum and the effect he had on the Baum family by Robert A. Baum. There was also an article about Baum's failed Flying Girl series, but it was written in an uninteresting style.

The Reviews were of newly-published Oz books. (I must read Melody Grandy's Forever in Oz!) There was also a review of the 3-disc edition of last year's re-relase of MGM Wizard of Oz, but I didn't feel like it did it justice. Needed some more specific information on the special features.

Not a member of the Oz Club? Join now!

I'll look forward to the next one, but then I'll need to renew!

"Rainbow Road to Oz" prelimary show coming to DVD

On December 19th, Disney will be releasing a DVD called "Your Host, Walt Disney." Among the features on the DVD will be the "Disneyland Fourth Anniversary" show. This is the famous (among Oz fans) show that had the "Rainbow Road to Oz" preliminary show on it. (For the sake of simplicity, I just call it a "preview.")

Most Oz fans haven't seen this, but the show has been broadcast on the Disney Channel, and some Oz fans have had their VCRs going. (Including one who made a copy of this clip and sent it to me. If you see this, you know who you are, thanks!)

I've researched this thing pretty well. The movie "The Rainbow Road to Oz" was planned to let the Mousketeers move to the big screen. However, eventually, only Annette Funicello became a film star, with a small role in the original "Shaggy Dog," and later movies like "Babes in Toyland," "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones," "The Monkey's Uncle," as well as the non-Disney "Beach Party" movies. Why did Disney shut down production before it began? No one knows for sure. Some think it was the budget, some think it was the Mouseketeers' TV presence would not translate well to the big screen. Others think it was the writing of the script or the songs. No one really knows, I guess.

Now, here's the kicker, do you want to buy a DVD just for a 15 minute segment? I am! Just because I want it for the "Oz" preview, I'm sure I can enjoy the rest of it! (And a lot of Oz fans bought the whole Shirley Temple Storybook set just to get her "Land of Oz" show.)

Buy the DVD from Amazon.com

The Tin Woodman of Oz, Emperor of the Winkies

This is a video showing the 3D model of Nick Chopper I made up yesterday. Note the ball joints. This video shows the model rotating so you can see it at various angles and how the model's design held up in all areas. (If I could have, I would've made it more detailed, but my resources are limited!)

Well, I gotta go. Got a busy day tomorrow, what with being a pallbearer for my grandpa's funeral and all that.

UPS Package on Thursday

Last Thursday I got a UPS package with three things in it.

The first trade paperback of DOROTHY.
The Special Edition DVD of "Journey Back to Oz."
"The OC: The Complete Third Season" for my sister. (Wal-Mart didn't have it!)

DOROTHY appears to be a modern, gothic take on THE WIZARD OF OZ. The trade paperback collects the first four issues of this comic book series. However, simply calling it a "gothic WIZARD OF OZ" does not do this justice. It is really a completely new story with the "Wizard of Oz" story as a framework. The graphics are part photo, part computer generated graphics. The only things that really keep it from being an "All-Ages" comic book is the violence, blood and gore (Dorothy's face is cut by a Winged Monkey and her arm is later bit by a dragon), and the language. And the first TPB doesn't cover all the story. So far, Dorothy's just been joined by the Scarecrow, who has told her his bloody and gory origin story. (Buy it at Amazon.com) The official website is www.dorothyofoz.net

"Journey Back to Oz" is the Oz movie that took over 10 years to make. The vocals for this animated movie were recorded back in the early 1960's, but, due to financial difficulties, the movie was not released until 1974. It features an all-star cast, the two most interesting being Liza Minelli (Judy Garland's daughter) as Dorothy, and Margaret Hamilton (most famous for saying "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!") as Aunt Em! I feel there are too many songs, and the appearances by Dorothy's old companions get repititous. Both the Tin Woodman and the Lion offer to help Dorothy, but are dissuaded when they hear the Emerald City is beseiged by magical green elephants. The animation is very Hanna-Barbera style.

The story goes like this: Dorothy and Toto are taken back to Oz by a cyclone (but it may have been a dream), meet Pumpkinhead (not Jack Pumpkinhead. This guy's body is made of vines, and his face grew on after being brought to life by Mombi.), discover Mombi's plot to conquer the Emerald City with the magic green elephants she's brewing up, meet Woodenhead the Horse (an ex-carousel horse), meet the Scarecrow, are driven out by Mombi and her army, the Scarecrow and Toto are taken prisoner, they go to ask the Tin Woodman for help, he gets scared, he sends them to the Lion, he gets scared and sends them to Glinda, she arrives and gives Dorothy a magic silver box. I'm going to stop now so I don't spoil it for you. Clearly inspired by The Marvelous Land of Oz.

Special Features? You bet! There are interviews, audio commentary, a sing-along, and Bill Cosby "wrap-around" segments. The "wrap-around" segements were created for TV broadcast and would introduce the movie, lead into commercial breaks, and come back from the breaks. Bill Cosby as the Wizard, his pet parrot (?), and two stowaway Munchkins watch the events of the movie via telescope from the Wizard's balloon. The DVD package and the menu also note DVD-ROM material, but upon putting it in my computer, I couldn't find anything...

But it's good to know it's on DVD. (Buy it at Amazon.com)

Ozzy mp3s

I prefer mp3 CD's and portable CD players with mp3 readers to mp3 players like I-Pod. Why? Because you can easily change your music selection by changing a disc. I have ten discs so far that I've dedicated to mp3's. One of my most recent discs was for Oz!

My first disc I filled with...

1. The Free & Easy Song by Tele-Kele 6. Not an Oz song, but the music video was, and I happened to like the song as well. LINKS: The song's lyrics in English, The Music Video.
2. The 2-disc soundtrack for the MGM movie. 'Nuff said. LINKS: Buy it at Amazon.com!
3. The Supplemental Material from the MGM movie's 2-disc soundtrack. See above.
4. Before the Rainbow: The Original Music of Oz. Selections from Oz/Oz related scores by Paul Tietjens, Fredic Chapin, Louis F. Gottschalk, and L. Frank Baum. LINKS: Buy it at Amazon.com! Buy it straight from Hungry Tiger Press! (Reccommended!)
5. The Soundtrack for RETURN TO OZ (1985). I'll admit it: it's pretty much a bootleg I found on the internet, but it was free... The site it was from is down now.
6. THE WIZ - Original Cast Recording. LINKS: Buy it at Amazon.com!
7. The Wizard of Oz: Vintage Recordings from 1902-1918, disc 1. Vintage Recordings of songs from the Oz 1902 extravaganza, and some related recordings. LINKS: Buy it at Amazon.com! Buy it straight from Hungry Tiger Press! (Reccommended!)
8. The Wizard of Oz: Vintage Recordings from 1902-1918, disc 2. See above.
9. Wicked-Original Cast Recording. Almost all of the songs (with a few bits of dialogue) from the Musical hit, sung by the Original Cast, featuring Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith. LINKS: Buy it from Amazon.com!

I already have four selections for CD 2. Mostly audio I ripped from DVDs.

1. The Wonderful Land of Oz. Overture and songs from the extremely low-budget kiddie matinee movie of 1969.
2. "Look to the Star." The only COMPLETELY original song from the 1990 DIC "Wizard of Oz" cartoon series. Sung by Dorothy.
3. Lion of Oz. Songs from the animated movie based on Roger S. Baum's Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage.
4. The Muppet's Wizard of Oz. All the songs from the "Best of the Muppets" album released with this TV movie. I rearranged the tracks so they're in the order they are heard in the movie.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and my review for Adventures in Oz is up at last!

Classics Illustrated Junior: The Wizard of Oz

Last week I got a comic book that I'd had to order four times: the reprint of "Classics Illustrated Junior: The Wizard of Oz."

What happened those four times? Let's see...

1. I ordered it via a used seller at Amazon.com, but they were out of stock.
2. I ordered it through Amazon.com, but then signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime, which means you can choose FREE two-day shipping, so I cancelled.
3. I ordered with Amazon Prime (at the same time I ordered "Oz: The Manga"), and when it took over a month for processing (supposedly), I recieved an e-mail asking me to approve a delay on it. I cancelled my order.
4. I tried another used seller. They had it and sent it to me.

The funny thing is, I used to have the original! Sadly, that was with my very first Oz collection, which my mom threw away. (Do you want to know how many kids have been cheated out of BIG money because their moms threw away their comic books?)
To my surprise, this was an EXACT reprint of the original, except some of the coloring was cleaned up, the lettering was new, and Baum's biography was updated and moved to the inside front cover.
The adaptation was startling!

1. There is no witch under Dorothy's house when it lands! Where are the Silver Shoes?
2. The Good Witch of the North does not identify herself, so, supposedly, she is a Munchkin in this one.
3. All the Munchkins (plus the Good Witch of the North, if that's what she is) vanish after telling Dorothy to go to the Emerald City.
4. The story goes through pretty quickly: Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion. The Tin Woodman steps on a beetle, the Lion has to carry them across a gap, and the Tin Woodman has to chop down a tree to bridge a larger gap. (No Kalidahs!)
5. Upon reaching the Emerald City, all four are shown to meet the Wizard, who is...
6. ... a man on a throne.
7. He tells them to kill the Wicked Witch of the West.
8. The Wicked Witch, seeing Dorothy & Co. with her telescopic eye, calls for the Winged Monkeys. (No Golden Cap, and it's shortened to "Zizzy, Zuzzy, Zik!")
9. Dorothy's friends are merely captured and imprisoned.
10. Toto tries to bite the Witch, who tries to hit him, but Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her, melting her, leaving behind...
11. ... the Silver Shoes...
12. They return to the Emerald City, where the Wizard assures Dorothy's friends that they have brains, heart, and courage. He also gives them physical representations of these. (Brains in Scarecrow's head, a heart pinned on the Tin Woodman, and the Lion drinks "courage.")
13. He tells Dorothy how to use the Silver Shoes to go home, which she does.

Following the story is an Aesop's fable, a page about Koala bears, and an Oz coloring page.
For die-hard Oz fans only. More casual fans might want to overlook this.

EDIT (8/25/2012): Sam Milazzo has also reviewed this comic.

Y'all can comment now!

Just wanted to let you know that I finally set the comment settings so non-Blogger users can comment on my blog now.

He's the Wizard!

Okay, so I recently got a copy of the Original Cast Recording of The Wiz on CD. My only previous exposure to these songs were in that gosh-awful 1978 movie.

The Wiz was first produced in 1974, and was an adaptation of Baum's original Oz book. It sticks very faithfully to the story, despite a few break-downs of scenes (Glinda arrives after the Wizard leaves, but she is summoned by Addaperle, the Good Witch of the North, this time, not appearing like someone to answer all of Dorothy's problems.), and a few touches for an African-American setting. The play won seven Tony awards. You can read the script for the play here.

When a film version was produced, the producers and the director decided to do a whole new adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, to avoid comparision to the 1939 movie. In my opinion, the end result looks much more like the Judy Garland musical than the play did. Most of the characters were miscast. In fact, on a documentary found on the DVD, it sounds like the casting went like this:

• Diana Ross calls and says she wants the part of Dorothy, thus Dorothy becomes an adult. (They state "the book never mentioned Dorothy's age," but in several places in the book, she is referred to as a "little girl.")
• They make a wish-list of who they want to play who, despite the actor/actress' adeptness. Somehow, they got them.

One touch was to take Dorothy's home from Kansas and put it in New York City. That would've been okay, but then Oz is a dressed-up version of NYC as well! Allen Eyles in his book The World of Oz says that they overdid it on that, as well as designing the sets without affection. Oz looks dark and uninteresting.

Making Dorothy an adult majorly hurt the story's themes. Especially when Aunt Em tells Dorothy she needs to find her own home, why would she want to go back home after she gets to Oz? I mean, I'm in the process of moving out from my parents' house, but if I got a chance to move to OZ (Baum's Oz), I'd take it! Leonard Maltin goes so far as to call the movie "confusing." You can read the dialogue for the movie here.

Usually, when songs are reproduced for a movie, they sound better. Such is not the case in the film version of The Wiz. Just compare DeeDee Bridgewater's version of If You Believe to Lena Horne's Believe In Yourself. Lena Horne was a good singer, but this song was not written for her talent, nor was it arranged for her to sing it.

All of the original cast songs sound more lively than the movie. Once again, the songs were not written for the film's cast.

Stephanie Mills sings all of her songs infinitely better than Diana Ross, and Hinton Battle's I Was Born On The Day Before Yesterday sure beats Micheal Jackson's You Can't Win. In a post on the IWOC message board, Eric Shanower stated that more "whining" was not what this movie needed.

Be good to yourself and order a copy of the Original Cast Recording.

(EDIT: Got some last names wrong. Sorry. Fixed them up.)

New direction for the blog...

Hey, I'm thinking of widening the scope of this blog. Yeah, I'll still talk about the screenplays and how they could be made into films, (blah, blah, blah, Bob Loblaw) but I don't really talk about my other interests in the Oz field. (For example: I've never mentioned my stories about the early history of Oz on this blog.) Maybe get some reviews up for Oz/Oz-related items I've bought, show some of my Oz artwork, and just really have a lot more fun with this blog than I have had in the past. (Just a little over 10 posts in almost a year? Not good!) Comment and tell me what you think. The blog may have a new name and theme soon!

EDIT: Test-run!

Anyhow, I'm putting this up here: it's a copy/paste and edit of a post I put up on the IWOC message board, so those of you who post there and also look here, this will seem familiar...

Making ROAD work...

Okay, for anyone who has kept up with this blog, I recently finished my screen adaptation of OZMA OF OZ, and have decided to take a break before leaping into DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ.

DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD contains some great dramatic moments, what with a city of heartless vegetable people who want to kill our heroes, a valley of invisible bears and people (imagine that dinner scene with all the food flying around...), the wooden gargoyles, baby dragons! The Wizard's story was already told in WONDERFUL WIZARD, basically, and not a lot else needs to be told, and I did some editing to absolve Oscar Zoraster Phadrig Issac Norman Henkle Emmanuel Ambroise Diggs from all blame for the kidnapping of Princess Ozma. (Mombi tricked him.) The trial of Eureka and the race between Jim & the Sawhorse I'm not sure about, they would make great scenes, but on the other hand, they're not very dramatic, though humorous. Still, it shouldn't be too hard to adapt.

Now, comes the harder one: THE ROAD TO OZ. Considered by many to be the weakest of the Oz books, though it is a favorite with many, it has the least really dramatic scenes. Pretty much all that's there that would look AWESOME in a movie is the Scoodlers and the Sandboat. Ideas for adapting... perhaps adapt insert plots from some of Baum's short Oz stories? Maybe change it to guests at Ozma's party telling stories? (Then we could have abbrievated versions of QUEEN ZIXI OF IX, JOHN DOUGH & THE CHERUB, etc.) Any ideas on how this story could work?

New video, Ozma's done, Adventures!

Hey! I got a new vid on YouTube! It doesn't have much to do with my Oz screenplays, but it's cool and Ozzy nonetheless.



Now, let me give some "Behind The Scenes" information: the Rainbow Road to Oz song was recorded directly from a video that a fellow Oz fan sent me. The TV I was using had a headphone jack, and I had a Sound Recorder that could record from a stereo cable, which can plug into a headphone jack and a microphone jack at the same time. The early clips were from clips on the Dorothy & Ozma Productions website, my own Oz website. There were also some I'd found online and simply had to convert to a usable format. However, the clips from Return to Oz and the 1939 Wizard of Oz were DVD rips I made especially for this video. I made all of the 3D-animations here.

Okay, so I finished L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz in the wee hours of last Saturday morning. There's a few revisions to do, yet, but I read through it and it looks like it could be a fun, fast paced film! I especially had fun with the character of Roquat, the Nome King. At the beginning, he's a nice, smooth-spoken guy, but as his enchantments are broken, he turns into a hate-filled monarch! In the scene where Dorothy and Evring are hearing the bell tolling that Billina is breaking the enchantments, Roquat raises his hand to hit Dorothy, saying "Shut up!" He is swiftly kicked in the stomach by the Sawhorse!

One character I altered was Kaliko, the Nome King's chief steward, who actually wasn't named until The Emerald City of Oz, but it doesn't hurt to give someone a name early. He's still a little haughty towards Roquat, but Baum's description of him doesn't sound a lot like the nome who will be Roquat's successor. (As revealed in Tik-Tok of Oz.) I altered his description to be a bit more elegant.

I originally decided that after Ozma, I would take a break from writing Oz screenplays, maybe work on getting more petitions for my first one. (Sebastian has already offered a way to get more.) However, I got a nice idea for the opening of L. Frank Baum's Dorothy & the Wizard in Oz, so I'll keep you posted on any developments.

I recently got my copy of Eric Shanower's Adventures in Oz. Perhaps you think this has nothing to do with my screenplays, but actually, Eric's "standardization" of Oz is really the same as what I've been going with on my screenplays! In an interview I did with Eric S., I even asked if he might be interested in doing conceptual art for a new Oz movie. I also sent a review of this book to Eric Gjovaag (click on his name to see his Oz blog, and don't confuse him with Mr. Shanower!) to put on his reviews page at his website. Whether or not Eric G. puts it up is completely up to him.