Adventure in Oz

Last week if you'd asked me "What was the first Oz video or computer game?" I would have said the Windham Classics Wizard of Oz. But I happened to be looking through the Classic Adventure Solution Archive yesterday, and I randomly decided to search "Oz."

As one does.

And I happened to find an entry called "Adventure in Oz." To be honest, I wondered if it was a mis-listing of my own text adventure "My Adventure in Oz." But it was something different, a game from 1983, predating the Windham Classics game by a year.

So, knowing there's a huge subculture of emulating old computer games online, I hit Google to see if I could find more information on this game, or even, find how to download and play the game myself. By the time I went to bed, I found a blog entry from someone who had managed to emulate and play the game and three different downloads of the game, plus finding it in another format and finding an emulator to run it.

The platform for the game was the TI-99/4A, a short-lived early computer from Texas Instruments. How was the game packaged?

This isn't box art. It's cover art. "Same thing," some classic gamers might say, but wrong. This is a book. Instead of putting the games on disks, tapes or cartridges for sale, the code for the game was printed in the book and those wanting to play it had to enter it manually before they could. Well, you don't risk getting a corrupted file. Just have to make sure you do it right and not get a typo. The fun thing is, the book is available for free online viewing at Archive.org. This means that if you REALLY want to play it old school, you can type in all twelve pages of code into an emulator and create the files you'd need to play the game. Luckily for me, it was already done and available in three different places.

"Adventures in Oz" requires a number of expansions to play. In the emulator Win994a, I had to go to preferences, turn on the memory expansion option, turn it to the 16Bit Fast addressing, and the speech synthesizer. Furthermore, you have to load the TI Extended Basic cartridge, which the emulator comes supplied with an emulated version of. After loading the disk and the cartridge images into the emulator, it's time to get started. You press a key to begin the emulator, select the number for the Extended Basic prompt, and then enter the command—in all caps—RUN "DSK1.OZ" and press enter.

Alternately, you could enter RUN "DSK1.RAINBOW" and hear a computer system from 1983 synthesize "Over the Rainbow" in one minute...

Want to hear #OverTheRainbow from #TheWizardOfOz played by a TI-9/94? #Oz This is a side program found with the program "Adventure in Oz," released by Steve Davis Publishing in 1983, the first ever Oz digital game.

A post shared by OzCon International (@ozconinternational) on Jul 29, 2017 at 8:27pm PDT

Anyway, on to the actual game.

The game features fairly decent graphics by 1983 computer game standards, a few synthesized bars of "Off To See The Wizard," as well as some sound effects and the above mentioned version of "Over the Rainbow."

Pressing any key launches the opening text/cinematic that identifies the player as taking the role of Dorothy and gets the idea across that you're carried in your house by tornado to the Land of Oz.

You start randomly in a location in Oz, and yes, all you do is press keys, each location giving you some sort of message. If you're trying to play, pro-tip, keep the caps lock key on as entering commands in lower case does nothing.

What exactly does the Map key do?

It brings up a book-based map of Oz, which shows your location with an X, so it's possible to get an idea of where you are. Steve Davis (no relation, as far as I know) says it's based on the International Wizard of Oz Club's map, which is why the Munchkins are on the right side of the screen, rather than a design matching Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz endpaper map. Yes, the in-game screens are colored to match the region of Oz you're in.

So, the concept of the game is that you go to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, who promises to send you back if you complete one of four tasks he gives you: get the Woggle-Bug's magic powder, Glinda's ruby slippers, Ozma's magic belt, or the Wicked Witch's Golden Cap. After receiving your orders, you must head out into that section of Oz to find the item you're looking for and return to the Emerald City.

Matching the tone of Oz and pre-dating The Secret of Monkey Island, this is a game where you can't lose and can't die, so you're free to explore Oz as you wish, but the game asks you to play in as few turns as possible. Going to a blocked off area (bodies of water or the Deadly Desert) results in no progress and a turn wasted. Checking the map also uses a turn.

I completed my first game in 88 turns, where I was tasked to get the Golden Cap from the Wicked Witch. I headed west from Emerald City, crossed a river and finally found the Wicked Witch.

I was using the first version of the game that I'd found for this one, which the other guy's blog entry said had typographical errors, so I assume those graphic glitches are a result of that. (Also, "Muncchkin.")

I was a little stuck for what to do here until a little cinematic started. I watched in surprise as a mass of black pixels representing Toto moved across the screen and a yellow patch appeared under the Witch, who disappeared into it.

With that done, it was back tracking to the Emerald City, and the game was complete. With a full round of "Over The Rainbow," I was back at the command prompt.

So, surprisingly, this old game actually has replay value with a varying quest and over 700 locations, probably at least half of them I didn't see on this play-through. Also, the game can be completed in a rather short time.

It's also a concept I'd like to see in a new Oz video game, exploring the Land of Oz with varying quests and puzzles. With the leaps and bounds computer and video games have come in the last 34 years, it could be quite an interesting game.

I stopped my writing to do another playthrough with a different disk image I found. This time I was tasked to get the Woggle-Bug's magic powder (Powder of Life or... ???), ran into a couple "Wishway" locations that can randomly teleport you anywhere in Oz, and a road that takes you in the reverse direction that you want to go in. Also, there was a skywriting witch cinematic in the Emerald City, although if anything comes of this, I don't know. So, the game uses the Land of Oz from Baum's books with music and touches from the MGM film, and also some elements from Ruth Plumly Thompson's books.

If you want to play this game, here's the disk I just played on my Google Drive. If you use Win994a, put it in the "Disks" subfolder in the programs' installation folder.

Now to finish, here's some additional screenshots.

Short and Sweet: The Life and Times of the Lollipop Munchkin

When L. Frank Baum first described the people who live in Oz, specifically the Munchkins, he described them in this manner:

They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age...

But when MGM adapted Baum's story for their classic film, they hired Leo Singer to bring his troupe of midgets to depict these pint-sized people of Oz. Why? Perhaps they merged the idea of the Munchkins with the Dainty China Country. Perhaps they were inspired to channel the short and stocky look of W.W. Denslow's pictures of the people of Oz. Perhaps they decided to dial the whimsical nature of Oz up to an 11. Or perhaps having little people in film was a trend and MGM saw a chance to work it into their take on Oz.

Short and Sweet: The Life and Times of the Lollipop Munchkin is a memoir by Jerry Maren, who played one of the Munchkins, one who can clearly be seen in several shots in Munchkinland, and is finally revealed as a member of the Lollipop Guild, particularly the one who hands Dorothy the lollipop that quickly disappears from the film. Today, Jerry is the last surviving little person to play a Munchkin in the film.

Short and Sweet opens with a foreword by Sid Krofft who remembers how he came to meet Jerry. A bit more informative is the introduction by Steve Cox, who also has a bit of co-author credit. Cox informs of us of the terms "dwarf" and "midget," and how Jerry doesn't mind the latter term. He gives us a bit of information on how Hollywood used little people in their productions, setting up for Jerry's story.

Cox informs us that Jerry is of few words, but there will be plenty of pictures, which is true. I suspect that Cox's co-author role comes from collecting and possibly even transcribing Jerry's anecdotes on his life and career.

The book comes off as a very personal memoir. Maren rarely drops exact years and dates, which feels what someone trying to recall their life would do: you can remember generally when these happened, but rarely the specific dates.

Maren talks about his childhood, how he coped with being a pituitary midget, how his parents attempted treatments to make him grow taller, and how he got into show business. While the "Singer Midgets" were a troupe, for The Wizard of Oz—Maren's first role in Hollywood—a call went out for little people looking for work. He reveals his father refused to let him work on another film—The Terror of Tiny Town, an all-little people western that other Oz Munchkins worked on—because it wouldn't pay for getting Jerry to where the film would be shooting and the salary wouldn't make it up. But Oz would cover those costs, so Jerry was allowed to go and wound up becoming immortalized on celluloid.

Because so many people have asked Jerry about his work on The Wizard of Oz, he spends a good amount of time detailing that experience. He doesn't directly say it, but his career in show business basically began because Oz brought him to Hollywood and he never left, taking jobs in television and film that IMDb lists as recently as 2010. His work led him to meet many fascinating people, who he mentions briefly. It's very off the cuff.

He also recalls his work in promotions, as Buster Brown for Buster Brown, and one of the little people portraying Oscar Meyer's "Little Chef." He also talks about how he met and worked with Billy Barty, and supported him in found Little People of America. Late in the book, he talks about how he happily met his wife Elizabeth and how they've done many jobs together, including costume work for McDonald's commercials.

The final chapter is titled "Oz Revisited" and he talks about how he and other surviving Munchkin actors reunited and attended Oz events and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition, he tells of working on the film Under the Rainbow—a comedy inspired by urban legends about Munchkin actor shenanigans at MGM during the filming of Oz—and the television movie The Dreamer of Oz, where he played a Munchkin once again.

The book is an enjoyable read, not very long or detailed. I suppose someone researching further could create a longer and more detailed biography of Maren, but his own narrative is quite welcome. To anyone wanting to read more about MGM's The Wizard of Oz, I don't think you'll actually find a lot of information you wouldn't find in books like The Making of the Wizard of Oz and the trio of books by Bill Stillman and Jay Scarfone, but you do get to read it from the perspective of someone who was actually there. It's also very interesting to see what else people who have been involved with Oz have also worked with.

So, I recommend this one. And thanks, Sam, for getting it for me sometime back!

The Royal Podcast of Oz: Lion of Oz audio commentary

Jay and Sam meet up in their hotel room at Oz Con International 2017 and watch Lion of Oz, the animated adaptation of Roger S. Baum's Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage, and give you their live comments and criticisms of the movie.

(A standard review episode will be recorded and released soon.)

You can listen, download and subscribe at the podcast site, or use the players and links below. The Royal Podcast of Oz is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player.FM, Google Play Music and other podcast services and aggregators that mirror these.



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The Land of Stories concluded

A couple years ago, I reviewed the first four books of a non-Oz fantasy series on the blog because the fourth book had a little visit to Oz: Chris Colfer's The Land of Stories. In that review, I happened to say this:

There also seems to be an overarching plot in the series, but to discuss that further might drop too many spoilers. It might be coming to a head at the end of Beyond the Kingdoms, or else we might be in for a huge twist.

Turns out I was right as the series has released its sixth and final book, Worlds Collide. There are spin-off books already, from a diary of Colfer's take on Mother Goose, to a treasury book of classic fairy tales that play into The Land of Stories, to a couple of picture books. With the series concluded, a film adaptation of the series is set to begin pre-production, and the author has teased he has ideas for more spin-offs.

Well, for the sake of being complete and the thin excuse that the Tin Woodman reappears in the fifth and sixth books, as well as the Wicked Witch of the West also popping up in the final book, let's take a look at those two books.

An Author's Odyssey winds up being the bridging chapter between Beyond the Kingdoms and Worlds Collide, and I felt was the weakest book in the series. Not that it was bad, but while it introduces many great new characters and has some exciting twists and plot developments, it doesn't really stand on its own.

Using the Portal Potion, Conner and Alex dive into Conner's own short stories to recruit the heroes of his own tales to assist in the fight against the Masked Man and the witches who he's won to his side. There's pirates, space cyborgs, mummies, superheroes, and even a "rosary chicken" who resulted from a misspelling of "rosemary." Meanwhile, things are not developing well in the Land of Stories as the witches prepare for their assault on "the Otherworld." Also, where are all the realized fictional characters going to stay?

This brings us to the last book, Worlds Collide. It opens with an 80 year old Conner at an event celebrating his books, when a fan asks him a question he can't recall the answer to: what happened to his twin sister Alex?

And then picking up where An Author's Odyssey left off, we cycle through a number of plots, leading to a big showdown that goes from the Land of Stories to New York City, starting at The New York Public Library and leading into the streets as the attacking witches have cursed Alex to do their bidding. It's an exciting ending that sees all of the characters come back to make a united front against wicked magic, but will it be enough? And will all of our friends make it out alive?

There is, surprisingly, a scene where a character writes a short story about J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum coming back to life so they can use the Portal Potion to consult with the authors on how to defeat the villains they created. Unfortunately, this visit is not described and the character only reports on what they learned. When they talk about consulting with Baum, they briefly mention "it's nice to know the movie depicted something correctly."

Overall, I was glad with how the series ended and would still recommend it to other Oz fans interested in other fantasy series. Colfer keeps his characterizations strong and his gift of giving the characters delightful dialogue is still very much at play. And—as said—there's a few Oz Easter eggs in the series for fans.

Sigh. Well, what do I read now? Hmm, what's this from Christmas last year?

Uh oh.

Jay binged Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz

Well, I think the title told you what I did this morning...

Animation and Oz seem well suited to each other, as both seem to be limited only by imagination. There's only been a handful of Oz animated series, though, with Tales of the Wizard of Oz in the early 1960s, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz anime series in 1986-87, the DIC animated series based on the MGM movie in 1991, The Oz Kids and The Galaxy Adventures of Oz in the mid-90s, and nothing since. Well, this summer, it turned out we're getting not one but two animated series that would be exclusive to video streaming services, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz for the new Boomerang service out now, and Lost in Oz on Amazon Prime coming in August.

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz takes the familiarity of MGM's The Wizard of Oz as its springboard. However, Dorothy is depicted as an actual little girl instead of trying to actively copy Judy Garland. She has the brown hair in pigtails, white blouse and blue gingham pinafore with Ruby Slippers, but otherwise, they let this Dorothy (Kari Wahlgren) be herself instead of copying Judy's voice or mannerisms. I appreciated that her skin tone is darker than other human (or human-appearing) characters such as Ozma. Whether this Dorothy is supposed to be a person of color or we presume she has tanned skin from being a farmgirl, that's up for debate.

The series regularly features the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion (Bill Fagerbakke, JP Karliak and Jess Harnell), who are cartoon versions of their MGM counterparts and the voice actors channel Bolger, Hayley and Lahr well enough while not being overbearing. Also regularly featured are Ozma (also Kari Wahlgren), identified as the Queen of Oz, who wears a green gown, carries her Oz scepter, and wears a circlet with the Oz logo as in John R. Neill's illustrations, just without the poppies. Wilhelmina (Jessica DiCicco) also regularly appears and is the niece of the Wicked Witch of the West, who appears in a crystal ball, egging her niece on to get the Ruby Slippers. She's assisted by a comical pair of Winged Monkeys, Frank and Lyman (Steven Blum and Jess Harnell).

The premise of the series is that Dorothy and Toto live in Oz, Dorothy being made a princess by Ozma, and with friends old and new, Dorothy and Toto have adventures. Many of these are original, though quite a few are inspired by and based on episodes and elements from the Baum books. The episode you can watch without a subscription or free trial, "Beware the Woozy," features Ozma accidentally being turned to stone by a magic potion, as happens to Unc Nunkie and Margolotte in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, although the circumstances are highly altered. Dorothy and her friends hurry to get together ingredients for an antidote, the major one being three hairs from a Woozy's tail. The Woozy is sadly not the blocky creature described in Patchwork Girl, but can still shoot fire when provoked and is otherwise an agreeable character. The Nome King notices the problems this creates for Oz and uses it to step in as the new ruler.

Many other characters from the Oz series turn up in new incarnations as well, such as Billina, Dr. Pipt, the Wheelers, Ojo, the Hungry Tiger, the Woggle-Bug, the Patchwork Girl, the Orks, and there's even a purple dragon. Whether or not he's inspired by the one in The Magical Monarch of Mo is up for anyone to guess, but when a character later mentions the Valley of the Clowns from Dot and Tot of Merryland, perhaps the writers really read up on their Baum.

There's certainly a big disconnect here between the series and MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Why is Dorothy living in Oz? Where are Aunt Em and Uncle Henry? Dorothy mentions Zeke, one of the farmhands from the classic movie. How did Ozma become Queen of Oz in this version? The opening of the DIC series basically gave you a sum-up of what had happened between the movie and the events of the episodes you'd see. This one starts with Dorothy using the Ruby Slippers to leave Kansas with Toto, then a cavalcade of Oz characters, but I doubt we're supposed to see this as a narrative. I'm not knocking the show, I just want to know what happened in this version. Perhaps if this does well enough, Warner Brothers might even do a direct to video spinoff linking the series' narrative to the classic film a bit more.

The show is clearly meant for children, but I found it to be highly entertaining. I'm glad they're using elements from the books as children might turn to the books after watching the show. The animation is nothing to write home about, but it's rather pleasing.

There are currently 13 11 minute and 18 second stories on Boomerang.com. Here's a list with a brief description of each plot:

• "Beware the Woozy" - When Ozma becomes petrified, Dorothy and her friend search for the ingredients of an antidote.
• "Magical Mandolin" - Wilhelmina sets her eyes on a mandolin Dorothy gets her hands on that has magic properties.
• "Toto Unleashed" - Wilhelmina tries to claim Toto for her own after Dorothy neglects him.
• "Official Ozian Exam" - Dorothy is informed that if she doesn't take an exam about Oz, she will have to leave. Just she can't help but take care of Indigo City's problem with a purple dragon first...
• "Locket Locket In My Pocket" - Wilhelmina uses a magic locket to disguise herself as Dorothy to ruin the princess' reputation.
• "Mixed-Up Mixer" - When Dorothy tries to teach Ozma to cook without using magic, a mixer becomes enchanted and begins mixing up everything it comes across.
• "Ojo the Unlucky" - Noting an unfortunate Munchkin boy, Dorothy and her friends try to help him change his fate.
• "The Lion's Share" - The Cowardly Lion is off to a feast with his friends to celebrate his ruling of the forest. Just they have to get through the dark, dark forest first...
• "Rules of Attraction" - When Dorothy is given the Love Magnet, everyone can't help but do whatever she wants.
• "Brain Power of Love" - The Scarecrow meets the Patchwork Girl and becomes smitten. Wilhelmina isn't convinced that the Patchwork Girl is simply what she appears to be.
• "Jinxed" - Dorothy and Ozma become mute when they pull off a jinx and Dorothy and her friends scramble to find a way to break the jinx.
• "Rise of the Nome King" - When the Nome King gets a hold of a magic magnifying glass Dorothy was using to help people, he makes himself grow giant size (not quite Kabumpo in Oz-scale, however).
• "One-Winged Wally" - Dorothy and her friends try to help a young flying monkey with only one wing get another one.

 The series is also being aired on television in other countries with ten half hour timeslot episodes that use two of these stories each. Wikipedia lists the presumed remaining 7 stories of Season 1, which it's presumed Boomerang will release on their website at a later date, and reportedly, Season 2 is already underway.

• "Wand-erful"
• "No Sleep Sleepover"
• "Lion Catches a Bug"
• "Tik Tok and Tin Man"
• "If I Only Had Some Brawn"
• "The Beast Royales"
• "Time After Time"

A DVD of presumably the first 13 stories will be released in November, and likely somewhere around that time, the series will be available for digital sale as well. At the moment, in the US, it can only be seen on Boomerang, making it one of the exclusives you'll have to sign up for their service to see.

And that brings me to my biggest negative. The site could use some fixing up. I tried to use Chrome to stream the episodes (and also cast them to my TV), but sometimes the stream wouldn't start, or else it would severely lag. Surprisingly, I had better luck in Firefox, even though sometimes the video would freeze for some seconds while the audio played. My big frustration is that it's not like DRM protected video streaming is some arcane technology. It works flawlessly on YouTube on most browsers as well as other sites like Vudu and Netflix.

It seems the mobile version of Boomerang allows for Chromecast support, but for me, my phone is outdated and can't install the app, which I guess isn't their fault. For anyone else hoping to use a Roku, Apple TV, PS4, etc. to watch the show on their TV, check the website's FAQ first.

So, with everything I said in mind, I'd recommend Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, just before you sign up for a subscription, use their offer of a free to watch episode to figure out the best way for you to watch it.

The Royal Podcast of Oz: Oz Con International 2017 Recap

Jay and Sam meet up at Oz Con 2017 in Portland, Oregon and talk about what happened during the convention each day.

You can listen, download and subscribe at the podcast site, or use the players and links below. The Royal Podcast of Oz is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player.FM, Google Play Music and other podcast services that mirror these.



Download this episode (right click and save)