The Royal Podcast of Oz: Melody Grandy and Return to Oz

The Royal Podcast of Oz begins 2014 in a new monthly format! Jay interviews Melody Grandy, author of The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz, and then Movies of Oz continues with Jay and Sam discussing Disney's Return to Oz.

As always, you can listen and download at the podcast site or use the player below.

Current Oz Writings

Well, I'm working on a few Oz stories. Thought you might like to know about them...

First up is A Signal From Oz. This is the follow up to Outsiders from Oz. Xander Philly works one of the dullest jobs ever: filing patents in the Evna Patent Office. But one day, a strange newcomer arrives to register a backlog of patents, which soon turns into whirling away into adventure!

Then there's The Guardians of Oz. A prequel to L. Frank Baum's Oz books gives us a peek at a tumultuous time of Oz history, including how Glinda became the Good Witch of the South and how the Good Witch of the North defeated the Wicked Witch of the North. This might not be book-length, so I'm considering publishing it in a book with "The Way of A Lion" and possibly other short stories telling pre-Dorothy tales of Oz. Sam's already been developing some great artwork for this one.

However, I'm mainly working on a couple short stories right now. First up is a rewrite of my short story "Roselawn," which catches up with the titular characters of Dot and Tot of Merryland in 1919. While the plot is the same, this version is longer, making use of a couple more characters and fleshing out the story a bit more.

Then there's a story for an anthology I was invited  to write for. The working title is "A Royal Family of Oz." Ozma reveals a few things about her past, thanks to the arrival of Tommy Kwikstep in the Emerald City. (And oh, how I've brought him back.)

Once an Ozma, Never a Dorothy

This morning, we awoke to the news that Shirley Temple Black had died at the age of 85.

Shirley Temple is best known as a child star, featuring in many films for 20th Century Fox. She began training at Meglin's Dance School in 1931 at the age of three. (Meglin also worked with Judy Garland, and the Meglin Kiddies Troupe starred in the rare 1932 film The Land of Oz. Members of the troupe were in MGM's The Wizard of Oz as Munchkins.) Within a year, she was already featuring in a series of short films and was soon doing bit parts in feature films. In 1934, she was promoted to star for Fox Films, turning out four to three films a years until 1939, when she only turned out two. She released two more films with Fox in 1940—The Blue Bird and Young People—which both flopped, terminating her contract.

After a brief stint at MGM, a film with United Artists, and a few years working for David O. Selznik, Temple retired from films in 1950. She had already married in 1945, divorced in 1949, and was married again at the end of the year.

Temple went to TV in 1958 with Shirley Temple's Storybook, a TV show retelling fairy tales with live action. The show was relaunched in 1960 in color as The Shirley Temple Show, offering a wider variety of shows.

Temple became active in politics, losing some local elections in 1967 and 1969, and then became the U.S. Representative to the U.N. for the last quarter of 1969. She became one of the first major voices for breast cancer in 1973, revealing that she had had a tumor removed the previous year. Temple was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana by President Gerald R. Ford, serving through December, 1974 to July, 1976. From July 1976 to January, 1977, she was the first female Chief of Protocol of the United States tending to Jimmy Carter's inauguration. Finally, she served as the United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from August, 1989 to July, 1992.

What was Temple's connection to Oz, though? Aside from her Meglin connection, like many children of the early 20th century, Temple enjoyed the Oz books. A promotional picture of the young star at her desk revealed all the titles up to The Giant Horse of Oz on her shelf.

Many people believed Temple would be a fine choice to play Dorothy in an Oz film, and it's not hard to see why her childish charm and blonde curls made people think of her as a match to the girl suddenly transported to a fairyland. Oz scribe Ruth Plumly Thompson even thought Temple would be a good choice, saying that if Shirley was cast in an Oz film, photos of her with the Oz books could help promote the series.

But it was not to be. When MGM finally got the rights to Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, producer Mervyn LeRoy decided that the role of Dorothy should be a star-making role for Judy Garland. Listening to popular demand, he briefly thought of seeing if Shirley could be loaned to MGM, but he soon decided that Shirley was not the Dorothy they wanted for their film. (It has become urban legend that Judy was second choice to Shirley Temple, but that's ridiculous when you consider how different their ages were.) Temple was popular for depicting wholesome childish innocence, MGM's Dorothy has her moments of running away from home and defying Miss Gulch, and if the Flying Monkeys carrying Judy away frightened children, imagine how much moreso it would be to see a much younger girl in their grip!

Temple did work with some of the cast of the MGM film: Terry the terrier played Rags in Shirley's first big movie, Bright Eyes. Jack Haley's character pretends that Shirley Temple is his daughter in The Poor Little Rich Girl. Frank Morgan played her grandfather in Dimples. Finally, Buddy Ebsen, MGM's first Tin Man, appeared in Captain January (a film that made me think that perhaps Shirley should actually have played Trot).

In many ways, Fox's The Blue Bird was their response to Oz. The property was a famous stage show featuring a quest with child protagonists, strange settings and characters, and a message that happiness can be found at home. It had been previously adapted for silent film twice (in my opinion, the existing film from 1918 is unsurpassed by any subsequent film version) and would now become a Technicolor fantasy spectacular with a black and white opening.

Temple played Mytyl, who became a discontented little girl living with her poor parents and brother Tytyl. One night, Mytyl and Tytyl are tasked by the Fairy Berylune to find the Blue Bird of Happiness, and led by the spirit of Light and accompanied by their Dog and Cat (who take human form, the villainous cat being played by MGM's almost Wicked Witch Gale Sondergaard), they travel through many lands before realizing the Blue Bird was at home all along. The Oz similarities in the treatment of Mytyl's character and the plot are quite blatant.

During her brief stint at MGM, the idea of a sequel to The Wizard of Oz was thrown around, and Noel Langely even wrote a treatment for The Marvelous Land of Oz that would make Oz a delirium again, but this time for a girl named Tippie who had run away from an orphanage. It was suggested that Shirley take the lead role, but the film never happened.

Among the stories in one of the books released to tie in with Shirley Temple's TV show was an excerpt from The Scarecrow of Oz. But the TV show soon produced another Oz connection with its first color episode: an adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, in which Shirley played Princess Ozma.

The adaptation, though loose and low-budget, was quite well-done, setting up Oz lore in a manner that didn't require viewers to be familiar with the Oz books. The transformation of Ozma to Tip was shown at the beginning, depicting Ozma already on the throne. Jinjur was replaced with Lord Nikidik, and it's not hard to imagine Jonathan Winter's portrayal (and in fact, the entire production) being reinterpreted in color artwork by Dick Martin. You can see the episode for free on Hulu.

Thus, join me in remembering one of our screen Ozmas as she crosses the Shifting Sands.

The Characters of Oz — Aunt Em and Uncle Henry

I've written about Aunt Em and Uncle Henry before in 2009. As that blog still works quite well, I'll take a different approach to this one.

A gentle knock was heard on the door of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's room in the palace.

"I wonder who that could be?" asked Em, who was comfortably dressed in a night dress and robe.

Henry, dressed in slippers and pajamas (he would have to ask Jellia about getting a night shirt the next day), got up from the love seat and answered the door to find the Wizard of Oz and the Shaggy Man standing in the hall.

"Pardon me," said the Wizard, "but I thought you might like to get a little more acquainted on your first night in Oz."

"Well, come on in," replied Henry.

The two men entered the room and sat down on a couple of chairs. The Shaggy Man had brought a bottle of Gillikin wine and poured a few glasses.

"We didn't get much company in Kansas," admitted Em after a sip. "The last visitor we had was that man from the bank, and it wasn't such a happy visit."

"You're from America, right?" Henry asked the Wizard.

"That's right," the Wizard replied. "Omaha born and bred, until I ran off with the circus. By the way, you can call me Oscar. It's my real name, after all. I could go on with my whole name, but it's late."

"I just go by Shaggy," added the Shaggy Man.

"Well," said Uncle Henry, "my name is Henry Carpenter, and my sister Matilda was Dorothy's mother."

"I'm sure she was a delightful sister," commented Oscar.

"Oh, she was such a dear," said Em. "A little wistful, I'd say, but very much a dear."

"She was a dreamer," Henry replied. "I thought Dorothy was, with all her tales about the Land of Oz, but now I see she really wasn't."

"It certainly is a delightful place," the Shaggy Man said. "I'm sure you'll grow to love it."

"I hope so," Em said.

"How did you two meet?" asked Oscar.

"Oh, dear," chuckled Em. "My family had just moved in near Henry's family's farm, and he came home from the war between the states, and decided to pay his new neighbors a visit."

"What's so funny about it?" the Shaggy Man wondered.

"Well," Henry grinned, sipping from his glass, "Emily was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I thought she was their maid!"

"We started courting and then we got engaged," Em added. "Then we got married and spent our honeymoon at the Topeka Hotel!"

"Yes," Henry added. "I'd come down with scarlet fever, and she would come by and check on me every day. After the doctor said I'd recovered, I offered to make her go from Emily Marie Stanton—"

"—to Emily Marie Carpenter!" finished Em. "After the honeymoon, we stayed with our folks until the Spring when we loaded up a wagon and built our little house on the Kansas prairie to start our farm."

"Did you have any children?" asked the Shaggy Man. "I heard Dorothy had a cousin."

"I think you mean Zeb, her second cousin," commented Henry. "No, we never had any children. We almost did, though."

Em suddenly looked a little sad and uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," said Oscar. "We didn't mean to pry."

"I was pregnant once," explained Em, "but I lost the baby."

"Well," interjected the Shaggy Man, attempting to change the subject, "how did Dorothy come to live with you?"

"Matilda married almost thirteen years after Em and I did!" explained Uncle Henry. "She was my sister. Married a fine chap named Charles Gale. About a year later, Dorothy was born."

"Charles was a military man," Em added. "He and Matilda and Dorothy lived in town, but when he had to be away for awhile, Matilda and Dorothy would often come out to the farm and live with us."

"What happened to Charles?" asked Oscar, curiously.

"He died while in service," Henry answered. "Quite honorably, I must say."

"That was how Dorothy lost her father," Em replied. "We tried to help Matilda stay strong, and she tried, but before long, she'd gone too."

There was a moment of sad silence in the room.

"There was no question about who should take in Dorothy," Henry continued. "She'd already learned to love us, and even though she'd lost her parents, she was still such a merry thing. Quite a wonder."

"No," interrupted Em. "Dorothy was very sad for quite some time after Matilda died. Lucky for us, a friend gave her a puppy to play with."

"Toto?" asked Oscar.

Em nodded.

"It gave me such a start to hear her laugh when she first got him," Em remembered. "And that's really most of our story. A few years later, the cyclone blew away our old house with Dorothy and Toto inside."

"That was when I realized how much Dorothy meant to me," remarked Henry. "I stayed quiet and somber for years, feeling much worse over Dorothy's losses than she was herself. But it took losing her and getting her back again to make me realize how much we really cared for each other."

"And then your health broke down," Em said. "That was when we had to get another mortgage so we could send you and Dorothy to Australia so you could get better again."

"And as we know now," Oscar commented, "Dorothy visited Oz twice during that trip."

"And then she disappeared again during last August!" Em exclaimed. "That girl has had such a knack for slipping away and then coming back with the most outlandish tales. But as outlandish as they might have been, they were true!"

"So they were," commented the Shaggy Man, standing and collecting the bottle and the now empty glasses.

"Well, you're part of the Land of Oz now," said Oscar, likewise standing. "And you're among friends. I'm very glad Ozma brought you to live with us."

"I'm glad as well, though we're still getting used to things," admitted Henry. "Still, in a land like this, I'm sure our best years are yet to come!"

The Characters of Oz — Ozma's guests

So Dorothy and her friends had arrived in Oz in time for Ozma's grand birthday party. Now having established herself as ruler of Oz and having the Wizard as her aide, Ozma was ready to show off her kingdom to outside nobility.

Many readers spot curious faces and names in the list of Ozma's guests, but anyone who had been avidly reading Baum's output since 1900 was rewarded in The Road to Oz: they are all characters from his other works!

First was John Dough, the gingerbread king of Hiland and Loland. Accompanying him is Chick the Cherub, the androgynous Head Booleywag, and Para Bruin, the Rubber Bear.

John and Chick were the title characters of Baum's 1906 novel John Dough and the Cherub. John was made to display in a bakery store window, but a magic elixir got mixed into his dough and brought him to life. Fleeing on a Fourth of July rocket, John wound up on the Isle of Phreex where he met Chick, the Incubator Baby. Needing to flee, the two eventually wound up on Mifket Island, where they made new friends in Pittypat the Rabbit, Jacqueline the Island Princess and her parents, the King of the Fairy Beavers, and Para Bruin, a bear made of Para rubber, able to bounce from high places.

However, John's arrival spurred the nasty actions of the cruel little Mifkets. Jacqueline and her family soon fled the island, and the King of the Fairy Beavers helped John, Chick and Para leave as well, and they soon wound up on the island containing the twin nations of Hiland (populated by tall, thin people) and Loland (populated by short, rotund people), where an agreement between the nations allowed John to become the King.

Chick's gender was curiously left a mystery. A publicity article for the book claims that the editors noted it to Baum after he dropped off the manuscript, and he said the readers would decide if the Cherub was a boy or girl. As this was to lead in for a write-in contest where readers would decide Chick's gender, I'm a little suspect of it being truthful. Word has it the contest ended in a tie. On the other hand, the fact that Chick's gender isn't specified could be seen as a huge step to dissolving gender-based barriers in Baum's fantasy world.

The next guest to be announced at Ozma's party is none other than Santa Claus himself, accompanied by Ryls and Knooks from the Forest of Burzee. This is, of course, the same version of Claus from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and the short story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus."

Claus was adopted by the Immortals of the Forest of Burzee, and raised as an innocent man, unaware of the hardships of humanity. When finally shown other mortal humans, he decided to dedicate his life to easing their hardship, by making children happy. This soon led to his inventing toys and eventually, his Christmas Eve deliveries with a reindeer-drawn sleigh. When he was about to die, he was granted the Mantle of Immortality to indefinitely continue his work.

Then next is the Queen of Merryland and the Candy Man, who had previously appeared in Dot and Tot of Merryland.

The Candy Man was the man who befriended Dot and Tot as they sailed through his second valley of Merryland, explaining that his flesh is rather like marshmallow. (Dorothy notes that one of his thumbs appears to have been bitten off by someone very fond of candy. It was Tot.) To keep himself from sticking, he liberally dusts himself with powdered sugar. As long as he doesn't get eaten, he's quite cordial. (Disturbingly, he mentions that if someone is too badly damaged in his country and are beyond repair, they may be eaten.)

The Queen is a large wax doll who rules Merryland with her fairy wand and thinking machine. A running plotline in the book was that the Queen forgot to tell Dot and Tot her name. At the end of the book, Tot realizes it must be Dolly. A little disturbingly, the Queen of Merryland can choose when her the dolls in her Valley will have motion and when they won't.

The Royal Family of Ev arrived next, soon followed by the Braided Man of Pyramid Mountain, who Dorothy had met in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. One might wonder if the Braided Man moved away permanently since he seems to be able to get away. (According to some non-Famous Forty Oz books, yes he did.)

Also arriving was King Dox of Foxville, who had befriended Dorothy on her journey to Ozma's party and had actually informed her of it. Despite him giving Button-Bright a fox's head, Dorothy rewarded him by asking Ozma to invite him. He had several fox children, and also had the private name Renard IV.

Queen Zixi of Ix by Neill

Next was a triple royalty arrival: King Bud of Noland, his sister Princess Fluff and Queen Zixi of Ix, all from Baum's 1905 book Queen Zixi of Ix.

Fluff is actually Bud's older sister, but thanks to some luck and a magic cloak, Bud was named the new King of Noland when he arrived in the city of Nole with his sister and Aunt Rivette. The cloak would grant wishes, and after a few mishaps with it, the cloak became famous and attracted the attention of Queen Zixi of the neighboring country of Ix. Zixi set about to steal it, and after trying trickery and open war, finally got the cloak through disguise and making a duplicate cloak. However, she didn't know the cloak wouldn't work for anyone who had stolen it, so she left it by a river.

Zixi wanted the cloak because she was an ancient witch and had to mask her natural ugliness with her magic which would not be reflected in a mirror. However, when Bud and Fluff were forced to flee to her kingdom, Zixi confessed her crime, helped them find the cloak and rescue Noland from invaders. Thus, the three became good friends, though Zixi was never able to make her wish.

Bud, Fluff and Zixi by Fredric Richardson

While Dorothy didn't receive them, she noted that further guests included King Kika-bray of Dunkiton (who had given the Shaggy Man a donkey's head when Dorothy visited his town), Johnny Dooit (a quick working man the Shaggy Man summoned with the Love Magnet to make a sandboat that carried Dorothy over the desert), and the Good Witch of the North.

Baum would later introduce more countries seemingly snubbed by not being invited: King Rinkitink of Gilgad, the rulers of Boboland, and of course Thompson would introduce a multitude of new kingdoms and sub-kingdoms. But of course since they hadn't been introduced yet, they wouldn't be mentioned in the book. John R. Neill himself added the Queen of the Field Mice to Ozma's party by placing her on the table at Ozma's banquet.

To me, the biggest snub was that there was no delegation from the Valley of Mo. The Monarch of Mo likely would gladly attend the festivities with his queen and their children and likely the Wise Donkey. But Baum doesn't mention them. So they weren't there? Or were they? The Wise Donkey of Mo appears in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, mentioning he's been cut off from returning to Mo after visiting Oz on the day it was made invisible to outside world. Could it be that this delegation had attended Ozma's party and the Wise Donkey planned a second visit?

I brought the Monarch of Mo into my book Outsiders from Oz and briefly considered him mentioning that he hadn't been invited to attend Ozma's grand party. But since Outsiders certainly takes place a long time after The Road to Oz, I decided that the Monarch would be very friendly to Ozma, who actually at one point questions her diplomatic relations with Mo. (This is the scene in which she questions where she'll go for help.)

But what do you think? Were there more guests at Ozma's party than even Mr. Baum could describe?

The Characters of Oz — Polychrome

After leaving Foxville, Dorothy and her friends made a surprising new acquaintance.

A little girl, radiant and beautiful, shapely as a fairy and exquisitely dressed, was dancing gracefully in the middle of the lonely road, whirling slowly this way and that, her dainty feet twinkling in sprightly fashion. She was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes which melted one into the other with soft blendings. Her hair was like spun gold and flowed around her in a cloud, no strand being fastened or confined by either pin or ornament or ribbon.

Filled with wonder and admiration our friends approached and stood watching this fascinating dance. The girl was no taller than Dorothy, although more slender; nor did she seem any older than our little heroine. 

 They soon discovered that the girl's name was Polychrome, the daughter of the Rainbow. In Baum's universe, the Rainbow appears to be a sentient being or at least, controlled by one. Baum is unclear as to exactly what Polychrome's father is. (Dorothy calls her Polly, but the nickname dropped off in later books.) My guess is that he controls the rainbow, creating arches when the rain finishes. His daughters dance on it, and dressed in their multicolored dresses, create the colors seen.

Polychrome, however, has a tendency to slip off the Rainbow and leave it, getting lost in other lands. And in this case, she happened to be in Dorothy's path, and of course joined the company.

In The Road to Oz, Polychrome doesn't do much, being a lovely dancing companion as the company moves towards Oz. Yet, it is made clear that although she appears to have a human form, she has a different construction. She says she eats "dew drops and mist cakes." When she tries some of the food Dorothy received in Foxville, she only has a sip of tea and a small nibble of cold turkey. Dorothy says that it's about as much as a fly would eat. Polychrome does, however, manage to slap a guardian Scoodler, allowing Dorothy and her friends to escape being made into soup.

After charming Dorothy's friends in Oz and attending Ozma's grand birthday party, Santa Claus told the Rainbow where to find his wayward daughter and Ozma managed to get a rainbow at the end of her celebration without any rain.

With a glad cry the Rainbow's Daughter sprang from her seat and danced along the curve of the bow, mounting gradually upward, while the folds of her gauzy gown whirled and floated around her like a cloud and blended with the colors of the rainbow itself.

"Good-bye, Ozma! Good-bye, Dorothy!" cried a voice they knew belonged to Polychrome; but now the little maiden's form had melted wholly into the rainbow, and their eyes could no longer see her.

Suddenly the end of the rainbow lifted and its colors slowly faded like mist before a breeze.

Polychrome appears next in the "Trot" book Sky Island, Baum explaining that it made sense for her to appear since the adventures in the book take place near her home. Luckily the Rainbow comes near Sky Island when Trot, Cap'n Bill and Button-Bright were about to be pushed over the edge of the island. Polychrome is recognized by Button-Bright and she steps off and has a visit during which she correctly interprets the law of the Pinkies that allows for the protagonists' protection. Furthermore, she points out that their laws state that Trot is now the queen. Since she didn't get lost, she soon returns to the rainbow, and the protagonists see her again on their trip back home.

(I have to link to John Troutman's rendition of Polychrome's role in the book. It is perfect.)

Polychrome had made her stage debut in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz—which was a bit of a mish-mash of the previous Oz books—and so she returned in the "novelization" of the play, Tik-Tok of Oz. Because of this, Polychrome's role is very similar to her role in The Road to Oz: after straying off the Rainbow, she joins the company of heroes and is largely around for the ride. Her own loveliness makes Ruggedo the Nome King decide not to transform her or harm her, but offer to make her his queen. Due to this, she is able to help Quox break some of the Nome King's transformations. Later, it is her kiss that breaks the spell on the Shaggy Man's brother. She also got to spy on Ruggedo sneaking around when he was exiled. Finally, as the Shaggy Man, his brother, Betsy, Hank and Polychrome leave the Nome Kingdom for the surface world, it rains and Polychrome is able to rejoin the Rainbow.

In The Tin Woodman of Oz, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and Woot happen upon the castle of Mrs. Yoop, who soon imprisons them and reveals that she has Polychrome captive as well, transformed into a canary. After she transforms them as well, the four manage to escape the castle.

Polychrome is able to perform magic in The Tin Woodman of Oz. In The Road to Oz, this exchange happens:

"Polly, can you do any magic?"

"No dear," answered Polychrome, shaking her dainty head.

"You ought to know SOME magic, being the Rainbow's Daughter," continued Dorothy, earnestly.

"But we who live on the rainbow among the fleecy clouds have no use for magic," replied Polychrome.

But considering her adventures off of the Rainbow, it is entirely possible that Polychrome has learned some magic. From Neill's illustrations, she seems to be a little older in her later appearances than in The Road to Oz. Whether by choice or by necessity or requirement, Polychrome seems to have learned some magic in the interim, possibly to help out further transformations she might encounter, should she spot someone who needs her help or if she should stray from the Rainbow again.

The magic Polychrome has learned cannot affect Yookoohoo magic like Mrs. Yoop's, but it can do other things, such as conjure up food and make Tommy Kwikstep's magically added eighteen legs (and the corns on his toes) disappear. After arriving at Jinjur's Ranch, Ozma is able to restore everyone to their proper forms.

Later, Polychrome uses her magic to repair damage to the Tin Woodman and Captain Fyter, and later still, shrink herself and her companions to a small enough size to creep through a rabbit's tunnel into Nimmee Amee's garden and then restore them to their proper size. She later repeats this on their way out, waiting to restore them because it has begun to rain. Sure enough, after the rain finishes, the Rainbow arrives and Polychrome returns home.

Although it seems Polychrome would be right up Thompson's alley, she only used her twice. First in Grampa in Oz, when the characters get back to earth by the Rainbow after finding the king's head in the clouds, then again in The Purprle Prince of Oz, when Jinnicky, Randy and Kabumpo cross the Rainbow over the Deadly Desert to return to Oz and save Pumperdink. John R. Neill also has her and the Rainbow serve much the same purpose for Davy Jones and Lucky Bucky on their journey to the Emerald City in Lucky Bucky in Oz. (Neill's chapter in which this happens is literally called "Over the Rainbow.")

Readers of the Oz books often like Polychrome's character, and given her dainty and cheerful nature, it's not hard to see why. Baum himself had characters remark on her loveliness. And though some may call it uneven characterization on Baum's part, like Button-Bright, Polychrome actually develops. Aside from her personality and appearance, The only constant of Polychrome's character is that she seems to not be too concerned about getting home again: if her friends can't help her, then she only needs to be where it will rain eventually and wait for the Rainbow to appear.

In The Road to Oz, we have Polychrome, the dancing fairy girl, who knows no magic and is quite friendly. In Sky Island, we have Polychrome, who is still a dancing fairy girl, but is now willing to leave the Rainbow to help people out. In Tik-Tok of Oz, we still have the helpful Polychrome, who (given her next appearance) realizes she needs to learn to help others. This brings us to the Polychrome in The Tin Woodman of Oz, where she has become a powerful fairy by learning some magic. Perhaps after her adventures with the Tin Woodman, she has become more alert and is a little more careful not to slip off the Rainbow so easily.

But still, that's not to say that an accident might not happen or that she might do so willingly someday...

Yes, I know I didn't use any pictures from Tik-Tok of Oz here, but Neill produced so many lovely pictures of Polychrome that the ones I selected from the other Baum books that she appeared in proved plentiful enough for illustrating this blog entry.

L. Frank Baum biographies

With The Wonderful Wizard of Oz being a popular piece of Americana, of course people have wanted to know more about the life of the man who created it. Jack Snow, to my knowledge, was the first to attempt a Baum biography, though he was unable to complete it. In the back of Who's Who in Oz, he did include a biographical sketch of Baum and the other writers and illustrators of the (then) thirty-nine Oz books. The printed version has Baum's biography span four pages: the longest of the biographies. In its brevity, it shows a few inaccuracies, but that was due to the limited information available at the time.

The first book-length Baum biography was To Please A Child, published in 1961 by Reilly & Lee as part of their attempt to relaunch the Oz series. (This joined picture book versions of the first four Oz books, The Visitors from Oz picture books, and soon Merry-Go-Round in Oz and the White Edition Oz books.) The book was by Frank Joslyn Baum and Russell P. MacFall. However, Frank J. Baum had died during the writing process, leaving MacFall to try to tie what was left together. This led to many inaccuracies in the text and even a few cases of MacFall inventing situations out of whole cloth, including a brief mention of Baum leading a march in support of William Jennings Bryant. I have heard, though I'm unsure of the veracity of the claim, that Frank J. Baum actually didn't have a lot of research resources at hand.

Having heard about the inaccuracies, I had avoided getting To Please A Child for a long time, but when an Oz collector recently offered a nice copy for sale, I decided to go ahead and get it. The book contains many Baum family stories that may or may not be true (in the manner of Baum himself, sometimes the truth isn't such a great story), including the "Affair of the Bismarcks" and the famous origin of the word "Oz" from the filing cabinet. The book is also known for misportraying Maud Baum as a tyrannical mother and wife.

To me, one of the bigger issues was how MacFall offers a chronological life of Baum up until The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was released, then dedicates chapters to the success of the book and the series, breaking the chronological account of Baum's life. The remainder of Baum's life is retold rather simply in a few more chapters. It did, however, offer a few good bits of information: apparently not even ten years after Maud Baum's death, Ozcot was already torn down and an apartment building on its site.

Fortunately, by this time the International Wizard of Oz Club had been formed and was well underway with research of Baum's life and the creation of the Oz series, often finding where To Please A Child had dropped the ball. There have been many Baum biographies over the years, but I shall focus on the three that I've used for reference the most.

One cannot talk about Baum biographies without mentioning Michael Patrick Hearn. While he has yet to publish his critical biography of Baum (I have heard it is finished, they are simply awaiting a good time to release it, though Hearn probably is yet putting finishing touches on it), he did include a nice biography of Baum in his groundbreaking work The Annotated Wizard of Oz. While far from the first serious study of the Oz books, this book offered a reprint of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with annotations in which Hearn speculates on how the story is being told in the context of Baum's life and the larger work of the Oz series and the literary world. Thus, this put Oz in the eye of critically examined literature. The book was first published in 1973, but was heavily revised and expanded in 2000. (The shape of the book changed in 2000, so it was less like the original edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.) The lengthy introduction by Hearn offers a lot of good information about Baum's life as well as numerous photos. The appendix includes a bibliography of Baum's works.

Hearn's research was later used as the basis of the 1991 television film The Dreamer of Oz, though, in Baum tradition, that film took many opportunities to make the truth sound like a better story.

Mother and daughter pair Jean Shirley and Angelica Shirley Carpenter (now a former Oz Club president and a friend) produced L. Frank Baum: Royal Historian of Oz in 1992. While aimed at young readers, this biography was actually very well-done and researched and featured numerous pictures, definitely benefiting from the research that had been published in The Baum Bugle.

Finally is Katherine M. Rogers' L. Frank Baum: The Creator of Oz, published in 2002. A more studious biography of Baum's life, it is able to put his life and works into a good historical perspective with quite a bit more research.

While not Baum biographies, I should make mention of two books edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal: Our Landlady and Baum's Road to Oz, both of which focus on Baum's years in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

The less studious might ask, "Why get multiple biographies of someone? Shouldn't one good one be enough?" Perhaps, if one just wishes to know about the person's life, but to my knowledge, there is not a biography of a person that has been declared "definitive," in that that one book contains all the information you'd need to know about a person's life. Although I do look forward to the day Michael Patrick Hearn releases his critical Baum biography, I doubt that book will be the be all and end all source of information about Baum. Multiple sources of information are always best on a topic.

The Characters of Oz — Button-Bright

Once upon a time, a little boy lived in Philadelphia under the name of Saladin Paracelsus de Lambertine Evagne von Smith. His father claimed that his son was bright as a button, and so the name "Button-Bright" was soon applied to the boy, a nickname that stuck.

One day, the little lad vanished from his home and found himself by a road that turned out to be in a land across the desert from the Land of Oz. Baum never specified particularly how Button-Bright was so far away from his home. In my book, Outsiders from Oz, the first chapter reveals that he was playing with an old watch in the backyard when he disappeared. All else we know is that he was wearing sailor clothes, a fashion for young children back in those days.

Fortunately, Dorothy, Toto and the Shaggy Man found him and took him with them to Foxville, where King Dox of Foxville took a liking to Button-Bright's inquisitive and simple nature (his answer to most questions would be a simple "Don't know") and gave Button-Bright a fox's head, which the young boy had to wear until they found the Truth Pond in the Land of Oz.

Button-Bright allowed Baum to have a child character younger than Dorothy simply marveling at the wonders of fairyland, which was basically the entire theme of The Road to Oz. Except for the Scoodlers, Button-Bright is amazed and enthralled by what he sees, even being the lone fan of the Musicker's naturally-produced music.

At the end of The Road to Oz, Santa Claus recognizes Button-Bright and when the boy is sent home in one of the Wizard's bubbles, Claus promises to make sure the bubble sends him home.

Button-Bright, unlike Dorothy, didn't return to Oz very quickly, and in a rare case, when he next appeared in the book Sky Island, he's grown older and more mature. We have no idea how many years passed between Road and Sky Island, though it seems there was a shorter gap between Sky Island and The Scarecrow of Oz. (Joe Bongiorno's Oz timeline puts Road at 1905, Sky Island in 1908, and Scarecrow in 1909.) Road tells us that he was two or three years younger than Dorothy. Seeing as she was probably about eleven by then, I'm going to guess he had probably just turned eight in Road, but has grown to ten by Sky Island.

Button-Bright's role in Sky Island is quite different. Baum had established the Trot/Cap'n Bill duo in The Sea Fairies, and by all appearances he decided to add a character from the Oz books to not only attract more readers, but also try his hand at a young male protagonist. If Scarecrow was indeed the third "Trot" book initially, it seems he had determined to make Button-Bright a recurring character.

Button-Bright takes his family's ancient umbrella and discovers that it will fly its bearer anywhere they want to go, so long as they hold on to the handle. After doing a little visiting around the US, he visits the Pacific Ocean, happening to land outside Trot's home. After telling his story and proving the magic power of the umbrella, the three decide to go to a distant island they call "Sky Island." However, the umbrella carries them to the actual Sky Island: an island floating in the sky!

The three run afoul of the Boolooroo of the Blues of Sky Island, who confiscates the umbrella and makes the three work for him. However, Button-Bright manages to steal the Royal Record book as he tries to recover the umbrella just before they escape to the Pink Country. However, soon Baum's preference for heroines takes over and Button-Bright simply just aides Trot and Cap'n Bill as they wind up conquering both the Pinks and Blues and finally returning home.

Button-Bright rejoins Trot and Cap'n Bill in The Scarecrow of Oz, in which he is found in the Valley of Mo, lost in a snowdrift of popcorn, having taken the umbrella and flown away with it.

I am not sure why Button-Bright is suddenly so defiant about being lost in Scarecrow, but it becomes a recurring part of his character for the rest of Baum's Oz books. The text indicates that he has happily abandoned his home and has gone globe-hopping. We can only assume that something seriously wrong has happened in his home. Did his parents die and Button-Bright suddenly found himself orphaned? Did they offend him so greatly that he just didn't care anymore? Or was the call to adventure that great? And where was Button-Bright trying to get to that landed him in the Valley of Mo? Was he trying to return to Oz, but he accidentally let go of the handle just a little too soon?

Button-Bright contributes little to the plot of Scarecrow, getting lost a few times, leading me to suspect that he may have had a bigger part in Baum's original story concept but his action was deleted when the Scarecrow was introduced to the plot. He arrives in Oz with Trot and Cap'n Bill and stays there, never to return to his home again, becoming good friends with Ojo the Munchkin. (A woefully underdeveloped friendship in the Famous Forty, though writers outside of it have worked on it.)

In The Lost Princess of Oz, Button-Bright joins the Wizard and Dorothy's search party for Ozma, and he gets lost a few more times. He finds a peach in an orchard and eats it, keeping the golden pit he found inside. Later, when the company is told that Ozma is in a pit, they find Button-Bright in a hole in the ground. They soon discover that the pit was actually the peach pit, and prying it open, Ozma is released. So, even though he got lost, he wound up being the one to save Ozma!

In Glinda of Oz, he is part of the massive rescue party for Dorothy and Ozma, getting lost at one point, causing Glinda to save him from a tiger and a wolf. He is scolded, and then he never plays an important role in the Famous Forty Oz books again.

Was Button-Bright a successful character in creating a male child protagonist for Baum's books? I'd have to say no, even though he is one of my favorite Oz characters. Baum's Button-Bright is three different versions: the "Don't know" child of Road, the boy hero of Sky Island, and the boy who is always getting lost in Scarecrow and onward. Although Button-Bright's actions help resolve the plots of Sky Island and Lost Princess, every time he appeared, Dorothy or Trot would overshadow him. Some may find it liberating that female protagonists were preferred in Baum's tales, but characters like Button-Bright lead us to ask if it was because that Baum just didn't know how to have boys lead an adventure. He could have men—such as the Wizard, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Cap'n Bill and the Shaggy Man—take a lead role successfully, but when he put a boy in the lead, a female character would usually take the spotlight, unless the boy was a teenager or the star of a short story. Tip is a rare exception, but even he is arguably overshadowed by the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, and we know how his story turned out.

However, that is Button-Bright viewed through literary criticism. If we instead to look at the Oz books (and related work) as a consistent history with a few historian gaffes here and there, Button-Bright becomes one of the most developed characters of the series. Starting out as a young boy, his experience in fairyland gives him a lust for traveling to strange places. When he grows older and finds the magic umbrella, he is finally able to live out this fantasy. But when he finally is given one of the most wonderful places on earth—the Land of Oz—as a place to roam in, he becomes tired of organization and wanders off on his own, getting lost as Baum describes it. Perhaps he has problems paying attention or, as a friend once suggested, he has Aspergers' syndrome. Whatever the case, it's fortunate that he has friends like Ozma watching out for him.

Perhaps I wound up making Button-Bright a favorite because he made it clear that Oz was a place for boys as well as girls, a point I appreciated at a young age. Today, he's one of many points that make it clear that Oz is simply a place for anyone.

Quick updates

Over at Blu-Ray.com, they've revealed that Target has been selling an exclusive 5-disc edition of MGM's The Wizard of Oz since November. It contains the same five discs found in the "big box" set that I reviewed after its release in October. It also contains a miniature version of the photo book from the set. Target's is priced at about $30, but the exclusive agreement actually ends soon, so it will likely be popping up elsewhere.

Also, Mr. John Troutman has started scanning some illustrations from his Oz books and posting them on a new Tumblr blog. He insists this is just a hobby, but I thought you might like to know of another place to find Oz artwork.

Disney's Journey to Oz, Part 5

In March 2010, the Walt Disney Company released Alice in Wonderland, a film directed by Tim Burton. (Yours truly is not a fan of this film.) Featuring lavish CGI and standout 3D, the film was a major hit for Disney and led them to announce that they had greenlit Brick, a film based on the Wizard's arrival in Oz from the Oz books.

The development of the film had begun in summer 2009 when writer Mitchell Kaupner mentioned to executive producer Palak Patel that he was reading the Oz books to his children and considered an "origin" story for the Wizard. They decided to develop it as a film, and it soon came together with producer Joe Roth.

Two big roles had to be filled: director and the star of the movie, who would play Oscar Diggs, the all-important Wizard of the plot. Eventually, Sam Raimi (of The Evil Dead and Spider-Man fame) stepped in to direct, and out of contenders including Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, James Franco (also a fan of the Oz books) was cast as Oscar. The cast was soon fleshed out with Mila Kunis as Theodora, Rachel Weisz as Evanora, Michelle Williams as Glinda, Zach Braff as Finley (a flying monkey), and Joey King as China Girl.

The script had been leaked online, revealing a highly Baum-based but MGM Oz-derivative tale telling how Oscar Diggs came to the Land of Oz, fell for the beautiful witch Theodora, got imprisoned by her sister Evanora, headed south to meet Glinda, then joined forces with her to fight the Wicked Witches and become the Wizard of Oz. However, inbetween the leaked script were revisions and rewrites. (David Lindsay Abaire shares screen credit with Kaupner.)

Raimi made a number of fine creative choices for creating a 3D Ozzy cinematic spectacle. Unlike Burton's Alice, he had sets built so the actors could actually work off of actual scenery. Puppets stood in for Finley and China Girl so the cast would actually have something to react to. The film would open in Kansas, in black and white and in an old-fashioned academy aspect ratio with subtle 3D effects. In Oz, the film would switch to color, a wide, theatrical aspect ratio, and more dynamic 3D effects. (Yours Truly experienced no eyestrain during seeing the film in 3D. Perhaps the lead-in helped.) Finally, composer Danny Elfman got to score an Oz film.

The film finds the bored Oscar Diggs performing in 1905 Kansas in a circus as a magician. Escaping in his hot air balloon from the angry circus strongman, Oscar is caught in a tornado and crash lands in the Land of Oz, where he meets Theodora, the good witch, who believes that he is prophesied Wizard come to take the throne of the Emerald City, after the last king died. Along their way to the Emerald City, they meet Finley, who Oscar confides in.

Evanora, who has been keeping control of the Emerald City, tells Oscar that he must defeat the Wicked Witch, who she says is Glinda. Heading out, Oscar and Finley come across the ruins of China Town, the lone survivor of an attack by the Wicked Witch. They soon meet Glinda, who reveals that Evanora is the Wicked Witch. After being attacked by the Winged Baboons, they fly in bubbles to Glinda's castle in the Quadling Country.

Theodora, meanwhile, believes she's been jilted in favor of Glinda and agrees to eat an apple that turns her into a green-skinned Wicked Witch, believing it to be a cure for a broken heart. She flies to Glinda's castle and threatens everyone, promising to kill Oscar. After talking with Glinda and China Girl, Oscar comes up with a plan to oust the Wicked Witches by staging his death in the Emerald City and projecting his face to make himself to appear to be an all-powerful wizard, fighting them with fireworks and Glinda's magic. It works.

Brick, retitled Oz the Great and Powerful, opened in theaters in March, 2013. While not the billion dollar success that Alice in Wonderland was, Oz managed to take in well over $493 million on a $215 budget. A sequel is said to be in the works. Critically, it was not quite so successful, with a lot of praise showered on the visuals and CG creatures, but a lot of criticisms on Franco's acting (some of his co-stars didn't fare much better) and the plot.

Still, Disney had returned to Oz once more, having made its biggest success yet.