First Look at 'Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz' Animated Series

In my last post here, I mentioned something called Dorothy, Princess of Oz, an animated television series that's been in the works at Warner Bros. for a couple of years now that's expected to debut sometime this year. Well, we now have our first official (albeit brief) look at the show thanks to a video that surfaced online yesterday showcasing Boomerang's lineup for the year for European, Middle Eastern, and African markets. (Regular Capital, a Cartoon Network fan site, was the first to pick up on this.)

The show, produced by Warner Bros. Animation for Cartoon Network, has had a couple of different titles associated with it, but it looks like they've settled on simply Dorothy of Oz, which certainly has a better ring to it than Dorothy, Princess of Oz or Dorothy and the Wonders of Oz. We still don't have official word on exactly when or where the show will air, but it's exciting to know that it is happening, especially because I feel like Warner Bros. hasn't done enough with Oz in recent years (which I wrote about here).

While the show will build on the MGM film and will be an extension of sorts of that property, it looks like it will draw more from the original Oz books than something like the DIC cartoon, as Ozma, Billina, and the Nome King will all appear in some capacity. I appreciate that the character designs and animation style are unique and stylized, and I think it's interesting that Dorothy appears to be drawn as someone of color. The character also looks considerably younger than Judy Garland's Dorothy, which is certainly more in line with the Dorothy of the books.

I'll definitely continue to keep an eye out for this, and I'm curious to know what everyone thinks based on the little we know and have seen from the show. Check out the video below, and feel free to leave your first impressions of Dorothy of Oz in the comments!



Update: The video discussed above has been removed, but since then, Turner and Warner Bros. have announced the launch of a new streaming service that will be the exclusive home to the series, which is now called Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, a title that definitely aligns better with Turner's existing Wizard of Oz "brand." I'm personally disappointed that the show will be exclusive to a relatively small-scale streaming service rather than airing on TV, especially because I'm not thrilled about the idea of paying $5 every month just to watch this show, but we'll see. You can read more about it here, and you can sign up to be notified when the service launches (sometime in the spring) here.