Wizzin' On Down The Road

This week, the 30th Anniversary DVD edition of the film version of "The Wiz" was released. In both honor and snub of that, and as people have asked me how different the play is from the movie, I am presenting six videos from YouTube of different productions of the play:



First up is a series of video clips of the recent Dutch revival of "The Wiz." Hey... this isn't an all-black cast! That's kind of cool!

Next up is a song that was done quite differently in the film: Aunt Em's solo "The Feeling We Once Had." This Aunt Em isn't too bad!

Next up is one of my favorites from the set: Dorothy encourages the Cowardly Lion to "Be A Lion."

The next three videos are all songs in the play that were NOT in the film.

- UNLIKE the movie, the Wiz leaves Oz, but not without encouraging the people to be independent in the lively number "Y'all Got It!"

- Glinda's entrance in the film is different, too. Addaperle (the Good Witch of the North, not Miss One, as she is in the movie) introduces Glinda, who sings the soothing number "A Rested Body." (Good, because we need a bit of relaxing before we get into the two closing numbers...)

- And lastly, "You Can't Win" WAS originally in the play, but it wasn't for the Scarecrow to sing. It was going to be a song some Winkies sing to Dorothy telling her how hopeless service to the Wicked Witch of the West is. However, it was cut before the play ever opened. (I guess they decided Micheal Jackson needed a more upbeat albeit whiny anthem...) Here is "I Was Born On The Day Before Yesterday," the original and more confident song the Scarecrow sang.

Guess Which One Of Your Favorite Superheroes Is An Oz Fan?

In Spectacular Spider-Man #56 (volume 1), Spider-Man's first encounter with villain Jack O'Lantern is recounted. When Spidey first sees him, paramedics are carrying the villain on a stretcher. Look at this dialogue:

Image Copyright of Marvel Comics

Yeah... in case you couldn't read that, Spidey thinks to himself, "Of course a fella who dresses up like a human spider shouldn't talk about looking weird . . . but this guy really takes the cake! I mean . . . a pumpkin-head? What's he supposed to be, a refugee from Oz?"

Meanwhile the lead paramedic says "Let's hustle, boys! The word came down to get this Jack O'Lantern guy into the prison ward on the double!"

Anyhoo... A man with a pumpkin for a head makes Spidey think of Jack Pumpkinhead from the Land of Oz. Apparently, Peter Parker has read the Oz books...

The comic book is dated 1981, four years before "Return to Oz," and remembering Jack's incarnations from the adaptation of The Land of Oz on The Shirley Temple Show in 1961, Barry Mahon's The Wonderful Land of Oz, and Filmation's Journey Back to Oz is unlikely.

Or maybe he picked up Marvel's 1978 comic book adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz that they tried to sell off remaining copies of for a few years...

Most watched Wonder...

It has recently come to my attention that the second episode of "The Wonders of Oz" has had over 3000 views, while all the others have only had a few hundred or so. (Episode 1 has only about 1290 by now.)

I found it curious. To be sure, Matt Bloom made his first appearance as the voice of L. Frank Baum on it, but him attracting that many views is unlikely. Then I remembered something.

The end credits song is by a very popular a capella group called Chapter 6. Likely, people doing searches for them turned it up. Maybe their interest was piqued and they watched it, probably expecting to hear a part of Chapter 6's "Wizard of Oz" abridgement. However, they found a trimmed excerpt of "I'll Be There" from the group's first album A Capella 101: The College Years.

Now, it seems, the video may get more views, as I listed the group members from 1999 in the video description. One of them, Luke Menard, has made it to the top 24 of this year's American Idol competition. (I've seen Chapter 6 live about a dozen times or so, and I've met them all. Luke is a very friendly fellow. His wife, Lara, is very fortunate!)

Yeah, so this year's American Idol may get that video more views...

Music Video

Here's another music video I've whipped up. I've had this idea in mind for a long time, probably ever since I first heard the song. So, there you are.

I'm going to try to keep up on fun videos until I get everything for Wonders 8 ready. Sam and I have lots of ideas, so stay posted, or, if you have a YouTube account, subscribe to my channel.

And hey, I'm assuredly not the only Oz fan with a YouTube! Why not send me a friend request or post a message somewhere, so I can find you. Maybe I'll even subscribe to you!

Little Announcement

Hey, all. I just need to let you know that I have disabled anonymous comments. In order to post a comment, you need a Google or Blogger account.

Why?

Because I was dealing with a lot of pretty rude comments, some of them about me, but, even worse, most of these negative comments were directed at my friends. Frankly, I'm not impressed when you say negative stuff about other people, then don't have the nerve to let me know who you are.

I want my Oz projects to be all-inclusive, but when you can't say something nice about someone, and then say it in a not-so-nice way, I frankly don't want to hear it!

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm ranting, or saying negative things about these people who've been posting these comments, but there is no other way for me to explain it this quickly.

I have the right to approve and reject comments here, and when I do, I don't want to deal with comments that I have to get rid of. I know not everyone sees eye-to-eye with me on everything, but there are better ways to communicate your opinions.

The Amazing Ozmatron

My good friend Jericho Matt Bloom has been working on a little online Oz project on the side of his upcoming book, Nonestica: Rise of the Witches. This project is an online search engine of all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books and (soon) related public domain works. He calls it... The Ozmatron!

Right now, all 14 of Baum's Oz novels are available and searchable. In addition, you can read each book chapter by chapter, thus making this already a great database of the Oz texts.

Upcoming features...

• Oz-related texts indexed and added (The Little Wizard Stories, Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, Queen Zixi of Ix, etc.)

• Complete sets of illustrations included in the texts with image searching available (The complete illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Ozma of Oz are already available for viewing at Bloom's mainsite Nonestica.com, under the "Classic Oz" tab)

• There will be links to download the books in PDF files hosted by Archive.org

With this being said, get ready to add one of the great new Oz reference sites to your bookmarks or favorites!

Great O.Z. Videos!

Hey, it's been awhile since I've done an entry in "Great Oz Videos," so here's a new one. This time, these are fan-made music videos using clips from the Sci Fi Channel's Tin Man mini-series, which premiered last month (lots of people either taped it, or got ahold of video files through file sharing...), and will be released on DVD March 11.

Oh, and I'm trying this little thing out... Now you can navigate to which video you want to see in one embedded player. I'm putting in a list below.



We kick off with two fan-made music videos for Breaking Benjamin's "Home," which is a great song! (Nice videos, too.)

Then, everyone thinks there should have been a romantic subplot with DG and one of her human companions. First off, we have a music video dedicated to DG and Glitch, set to Imogen Heap's "Breathe In." Then, there's one for DG and Tin Man Wyatt Cain, set to "Saving Me" by Nickelback.

Finally, we have two more humorous videos. One is a video set to the famous "Numa Numa" song, made famous by some chubby guy named Gary doing a lip-synch. Then, we have a video that gets really funny: "Popular" from Wicked, except instead of female characters singing it, we have Glitch instead of Galinda, and Wyatt Cain instead of Elphaba... I was laughing...

My Take On Thompson

Out of the Famous Forty Oz books, I've only read Baum's fourteen and two of Thompson's. I have nothing against the other authors, I've either not gotten around to reading them, or the author has struck me the wrong way.

In the case of Ruth Plumly Thompson, I have been unable to really enjoy her Oz books. Let me shed some light on her background history...

Thompson was a writer for magazines and newspapers, churning out many short stories and poems for children. After L. Frank Baum's death in 1919, she was selected by Reilly & Lee, the publishers of the Oz books, to continue the Oz books. The choice was also approved by Maud Baum, L. Frank Baum's widow. She took the job, mainly to support herself and her invalid sister.

Thompson turned out 19 Oz books between 1921 and 1939, when she eventually ran out of ideas. However, she wrote a few new Oz books later, now published by The International Wizard of Oz Club.

Thompson's books have been both loved and scorned by Oz fans. There are are several reasons why.

Baum's original vision was not shared by Thompson. Baum envsioned a truly American fairyland, with few resemblances to the traditional European fairy tale. Thompson swerved more to the more traditional tale. Her Oz is full of miniature kingdoms with traditional princes, princess, witches, sorcerors, and boy heroes.

Thompson's writing style is more fitted to her fantasy work for the magazines and newspapers. Baum, on the other hand, could write in a variety of tones and styles.

Thompson was writing about something she'd read about. Baum created Oz.

With that being said, I think Thompson deserves less flack than her work has gotten recently. I do not consider her a hack, just not the best choice to continue the Oz books.

After all, you have to admit, others have done worse.

The Wonders of Oz Episode 7

At last! I got it up! Yay! You'll notice that I didn't mention that there are alterations in Volkov. If people are interested, let them look up the information on Volkov themselves and discover it, so they have the enjoyment of discovering it on their own... You can't expect a YouTube video limited to 10 minutes to cover it all...

A few announcements

Okay, haven't blogged in awhile. Been busy. I've been doing more screenwriting, working on Wonders 7, and set up an Oz fan fiction forum.

The screenwriting, I can't talk too much about. But if this movie gets made, you'll be in for a treat.

Wonders 7 has progessed slowly. TOO slowly. You see, when you see a video that I ripped from a DVD in an episode of "Wonders," I ripped it to an AVI video file encoded with DivX. I use Windows Movie Maker (2.1, if you're interested) to edit the videos and well... Windows Movie Maker hates DivX! Supposedly my computer lacks proper memory to use DivX videos in Movie Maker, and the project file was taking 1 to 2 hours to load, and then the program would crash in five minutes! I have found a semi-solution, and hopefully I can get it done soon. However, when we get to Wonders 8, chances are, I may be using some new, more DivX-friendly software...

Tuesday, I had the idea of setting up an Oz fan fiction site, and eventually decided it'd be easiest if I set up a forum. I mentioned this to Matt Bloom, who I contact frequently, and he had a domain and server I could use! He installed the forum software to the site, and gave me the login info so I could start administering on the forum. Due to the already set-in-stone domain name, I had to name the Forum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Fan Fiction Forum. Here is the link:

www.wonderfulwizardofoz.net

There's a section for every type of Oz fan fic you could think of, and all are welcome! Plus, there's now a forum just for chit-chat. It's awesome!

So, go and register and have fun! (Just read the Terms of Use before posting. They're not too restrictive, but I'd appreciate it.)