Adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Poster for Fred R. Hamlin's 1902 musical extravaganza, the first major theatrical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children's novel written by American author L. Frank Baum. Since its first publication in 1900, it has been adapted many times by L. Frank Baum and others: for film, television, theatre, books, comics, games, and other media.

Baum was responsible for many early adaptations, including the 1902 musical The Wizard of Oz, which was an enormous success on Broadway. The casting of comedians Fred Stone as the Scarecrow and David C. Montgomery as the Tin Woodman was especially praised.^[1] Baum featured the two characters in his second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), with the hopes of turning that into a stage play as well, with Stone and Montgomery in the lead roles.^[2] When the two actors declined to participate, Baum rewrote the story as The Woggle-Bug in 1905, which was a critical and commercial failure.^[3]

Following this, Baum was responsible for several more adaptations of the Oz series. His 1906 multimedia presentation, The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, toured for two months.^[4] A further musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, was staged in 1913. Baum also began a short-lived film company, The Oz Manufacturing Company, and released three short films, beginning with The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1914.^[5]

The most celebrated adaptation of the Oz books is the 1939 MGM musical starring Judy Garland, which has been hailed as the most-seen film in movie history.^[6] Other notable film adaptations include The Wiz (1978), Return to Oz (1985), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Another notable production is the 2003 Broadway and West End musical Wicked, based on the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire.

Visual arts

Film

Related films

Theatre

In addition to his books, Baum also wrote Oz-related stage plays: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1901) with music by Paul Tietjens and Nathaniel D. Mann, The Wizard of Oz (1902) (music by Tietjens et al.; with jokes by Glen MacDonough), The Woggle-Bug (1905) with music by Frederick Chapin, The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love (February 1909) with music by Manuel Klein, revised in April 1909 as Ozma of Oz, and ultimately produced, with music by Louis F. Gottschalk as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Also in 1909, he wrote a play called The Girl from Oz. The manuscript is held in the archives at Syracuse University, but apparently its relation to Oz is little more than nominal (it is also known as The Girl from Tomorrow and was later adapted for radio by Frank Joslyn Baum), as is also the case with the short story, "The Littlest Giant", a rather brutal tale designated in two lines to be in the Gillikin country of Oz. With Gottschalk writing the music, he wrote an unproduced stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz in November 1913, that was developed into the film scenario.

Television

Many of the television programs cited in this list are not strict adaptions of The Wizard of Oz; rather, they have reinterpreted aspects of the book, such as characters and plot, to create sequels, prequels or side-plots, which are inspired by Baum's original text. This section does not include single episodes from a larger unrelated series.

Music videos

The following are strictly limited to Wizard of Oz themed imagery:

Written works

Comics

The Wizard of Oz (Dell Comics, June 1956). Cover art by Mel Crawford.

• MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz was the first joint publishing venture between DC Comics and Marvel Comics.^[34]
• Marvel Treasury of Oz printed The Marvelous Land of Oz.
• One of the issues of Classics Illustrated Junior was a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz.
• The comic book series Oz Squad features an adult Dorothy and her original companions from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a covert operations group protecting Oz from threats both within its borders and from the "real world".
• The Oz-Wonderland War is a comics story in which the people of Oz fight together with the characters of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass against the villainous Nome King. It also starred Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew and was originally intended to be the comic's issues #21–26. The comic, however, was cancelled at #20, and the story was subsequently presented as a mini-series.
• Dorothy of Oz (Korean:Dorosi) is a manhwa (Korean comic) by Son Hee-joon about an ordinary girl named Mara Shin who winds up in a science-fantasy realm called "Oz". She meets up with this realm's version of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion, and follows the Yellow Brick Road to find her way home.^[35]
• The comic book Dorothy was launched by Illusive Arts Entertainment in November 2005. Presented in semi-fumetti style using digitally altered photographs, this retelling of Baum's story has been updated to 2005 and features model Catie Fisher as 16-year-old Dorothy Gale, a disaffected youth with dyed hair and piercings who steals her uncle's car and runs away from home; until she encounters a tornado and is knocked unconscious.
• An erotic re-telling of the story is featured in Lost Girls, a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie first published in its entirety in 2006. In this book, an adult Dorothy meets Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Wendy Darling from Peter Pan and the trio recount the stories of their respective works as allegories for their sexual awakenings.
• From 2009 to 2014, Oz fan Eric Shanower faithfully adapted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,^[36] The Marvelous Land of Oz,^[37] Ozma of Oz,^[38] Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,^[39] The Road to Oz,^[40] and The Emerald City of Oz^[41] into graphic novels illustrated by Skottie Young and published by Marvel Comics. In 2020, Shanower's Oz graphic novels were rereleased in three collected volumes.^[42]
• Marvel Fairy Tales features a retelling of The Wizard of Oz starring Marvel characters, such as the She-Hulk as Dorothy and the Scarlet Witch as the Wicked Witch of the West.
• The Steam Engines of Oz is a graphic novel series published by Arcana Studio. It is a "steampunk re-imagining" of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.^[43]

Games

• The Wonderful Game of Oz, a board game published in 1921 by Parker Brothers.^[44]
• The Wizard of Oz, a 1985 illustrated text adventure game for Apple II, Commodore 64 and DOS systems,^[45][46] which combined elements of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz. It was published by Windham Classics, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software.
• The Wizard of Oz, a 1993 video game for the Super NES, based on the 1939 film.
• The Yellow Brick Road (イエロー ・ブリツク ・ロード) trilogy, a multiplatform adventure RPG series developed in Japan by SYNERGY.
• Wizard of Land Oz (Волшебник страны Оз), a 1997 ZX Spectrum adventure game by Famous Faces Factory.^[47]
• Irozuki Tincle no Koi no Balloon Trip, a Japanese game which is a spin-off of The Legend of Zelda series. It features Tingle teaming up with a tin woman, a scarecrow and a cowardly lion to cross the land. Released in 2009.
• Emerald City Confidential, a point-and-click adventure game developed by Wadjet Eye Games and published by casual game portal PlayFirst. Released in 2009.
• RIZ-ZOAWD, a Japanese role-playing video game for the Nintendo DS, released in the US as The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.^[48] Released in 2008.
• The Wizard of Oz, a coin pusher game found in video arcades.
• Wizard of Oz Slots game found in Casinos. The game is a five-reel video slot machine with bonus feature rounds, produced by WMS (Williams Gaming). Released in 2013.
• The Card Game of Oz, a 2014 game created by James C. O'Connor under his Orion's Bell label.^[49] The game is based on the original books. Series 1, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was released in May 2014. Series 2, The Marvelous Land of Oz, was released in August 2014 as an expansion.
• The crossover-genre video game Lego Dimensions features a world based on the 1939 film.
• The mobile game Oz: Broken Kingdom Is based on the world of Oz and takes place after the original story.

Other media

• In September 1933, The Wizard of Oz debuted on the NBC radio network, sponsored by General Foods Corporation. It presented dramatizations of episodes from the book.^[50]
• In 1967, The Seekers recorded "Emerald City", with lyrics about a visit there, set to the melody of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".
• Ray Bolger recorded an audio adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. This was the first in a series of four audiotapes, The Oz Audio Collection, recorded by Bolger and issued by Caedmon Audio from 1976-1983.^[51]
• Todd McFarlane created a sinister toy series called Twisted Land of Oz that portrays all of the characters as more sinister (such as the monster Toto) and adult oriented (BDSM Dorothy).^[52]
• The rock band Aerosmith put some original audios from the 1939 movie and Steven Tyler's voice repeating some quotes of the characters in the song The Farm in the album 'Nine Lives' from 1997.
• The musical group America released the song Tin Man in 1974, with the enigmatic line; "And Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have." The song was the first single released from their album Holiday and became a top ten hit.
• German Power Metal band Blind Guardian made use of the story of the Wizard of Oz in the title track of their 1995 studio album Imaginations From the Other Side.
• Walt Disney originally wanted to make an animated version of The Wizard Of Oz to serve as the follow-up to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,^[53] but the film rights were bought by Samuel Goldwyn, who originally intended to make it as a standard musical comedy, with Eddie Cantor as his star. However, Goldwyn ended up selling the rights to MGM.
• The Felice Brothers wrote a song called "Don't Wake the Scarecrow" which features several references to The Wizard of Oz.
• American McGee's Oz was a darkly, twisted series of figurines based on Baum's original Wizard of Oz characters. This series was released before McFarlane's, and was supposed to help McGee launch a franchise around this interpretation.
• Stargate SG-1 has several verbal references to The Wizard of Oz, including Colonel Jack O'Neill calling Samantha Carter "Dorothy" when she defeated one of the show's villains.
• The band Scissor Sisters released a song on their self-titled album called "Return to Oz", referencing the sequel.
• The John Boorman film Zardoz derives its title from the Wizard of Oz (The WiZARD of OZ).^[54]
• Elton John's album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a clear reference to The Wizard of Oz.
• The Wiyos's album Twist is an original song cycle loosely based on The Wizard of Oz.^[55]
• Ray Bradbury's short story "The Exiles" mentions the Emerald City and its inhabitants existing alongside other famous literary characters and locales on a Martian colony.
• Big Finish Productions made a full-cast audio drama adaptation of the novel, adapted by Marc Platt.
• Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz is the sequel to Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz and is a Tom and Jerry direct-to-video film.
• AIEC Wizard of Oz is a short film parody of The Wizard of Oz starring characters from the Adventure In Epic's Chat web series.
• Edward W. Hardy released a cast album entitled The Woodsman (Original Off-Broadway Solo Recording)
• "Straight Outta Oz" is a studio album and original musical written and produced by Todrick Hall. It is based on the Wizard of Oz whilst being a semi-autobiographical account of his rise to fame in Los Angeles (Oz). The trailer for the album was first released on May 13, 2016. Todrick has released the musical in the form of (as well as each song separately) on his YouTube channel on March 21, 2017. It includes a host of guest stars including Nicole Scherzinger, Jordin Sparks, Perez Hilton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Amber Riley, Raven-Symoné, and Tamar Braxton.
• The marketing campaign for season 22 of American Idol is directly themed after the 1939 film, complete with a commercial featuring Ryan Seacrest and the judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan dressed as Tin Man, Dorothy, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow following the "Golden Ticket Road" to Hollywood. This was to reflect the show's plans to visit the judges' hometowns throughout the season.^[56][57]

Cancelled

• The Rainbow Road to Oz was a proposed Walt Disney live-action production. A preview segment aired in 1957 on the Disneyland TV show, featuring Darlene Gillespie as Dorothy, Annette Funicello as Ozma, Bobby Burgess as the Scarecrow, Doreen Tracey as Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, and Jimmie Dodd as the Cowardly Lion.
• Tim Burton's Lost in Oz is a 2000 unrealized television pilot script written by Trey Callaway with Tim Burton as executive producer. Key scenes were filmed by Michael Katleman.

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Further reading

Kevin Scott Collier. The Wonderful Animated World of the Wizard of Oz: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018. ISBN 172632558X