The Latest Wizard of Oz News

"Idaho" Lewis Croft, who played a Munchkin in the famous 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, died today after being bedridden for some time. He would have turned 89 on May 2. (Information courtesy Charlene S. Baum and Jane Albright.)

The Spring 2007 issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, is now being mailed to members. This issue celebrates the books L. Frank Baum wrote for older readers under several different pen names.
In this issue:

• The front cover is E. A. Nelson's frontpiece for Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad, colored by Marcus Mébès
• "Oz and Ends" looks at:
  • the Munchkins getting their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
  • the rumors of a new Oz movie based on the Todd McFarlane "Twisted Oz" toys
  • the new Wonderful Wizard of Oz Game from Front Porch Classics
  • the Oz-themed promotion from the Library of Congress to encourage lifelong literacy
  • a new membership pin from the Club
  • the Wicked Witch of the East doorstop
  • the second issue of the Oz/Wonderland Chronicles comic book
  • the first volume of the English-language collection of the Korean comic story Dorothy of Oz
  • the second issue of Into the Dust
  • the puppet show Unauthorized Magic in Oz being available on YouTube (in three parts — 1, 2, and 3)
  • the Volkov Magic Land books being available at http://volkov.anuta.org/
  • and new editions of Denslow's Humpty Dumpty and Tamawaca Folks
• As a child, Angelica Shirley Carpenter was a big fan of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum and the Aunt Jane's Nieces books by Edith Van Dyne. So imagine her surprise when she found out, as an adult, that these two authors were the same person! She looks for Baum in the Aunt Jane's Nieces books in "The Man Behind the Curtain: Can the Read Spot a Ringer in the Aunt Jane's Nieces Books?"
• "Baum Under Scrutiny" looks at some of the contemporary reviews of Aunt Jane's Nieces, Annabel, and Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea.
• "Recycled Steele: L. Frank Baum's Boys' Series Books" by H. Alan Pickrell looks at how the short-lived Sam Steele books by "Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald" morphed into the longer "Boy Fortune Hunters" series by "Floyd Akers," as well as how the books fit into the bigger picture of late nineteenth/early twentieth century boys adventure stories.
• "Bibliographia Pseudonymiana" by Bill Thompson looks at the publication history and bibliographic points of Sm Steele's Adventues on Land and Sea and The Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska.
• "Odd One Out: Annabel; or, Suzanne Metcalf's Unexpected Homage to Horatio Alger" by Sean P. Duffley looks at the roots of the only book by "Suzanne Metcalf."
• "Little-Known Writings of L. Frank Baum" presents "The Orchestra," a poem originally written for and privately printed by the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
• "Muli-MediOz" looks at the DVD release of the 1964 animated version of Return to Oz and Injoy Games' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz computer game.
• "The Oz Bookshelf" reviews new Oz offerings:
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, adapted for comics by David Chauvel and Enrique Hernández, adapted into English by Joe Keatinge (reviewed by Eric Shanower)
  • The Collected Short Stories of L. Frank Baum, reviewed by Blair Frodelius
  • The new reprint edition of Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross, reviewed by Jeffrey Bester
  • The Bashful Baker of Oz by Marcus Mébès, reviewed by Suzanna E. Henshon
  • Lost in Oz by Joshua Patrick Dudley, reviewed by Chris Dulabone
  • Scratch and Sketch Wizard of Oz: An Art Activity Book for Artists on Both Sides of the Rainbow by Mara Conlon, reviewed by Suzanna E. Henshon
  • An anonymous review of Toto of Oz and the Surprise Party by Roger S. Baum
• "The Magic Picture" looks at the Hollins Oz-Fest earlier this year at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.
• The back cover reproduces an Eric Shanower illustration that originally appeared as the frontpiece for the 1998 limited edition reprint of The Boy Fortune Hunters in Yucatan from Hungry Tiger Press.

The Munchkins from the classic 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz received a collective star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today, with ceremonies at Grauman's Chinese Theater. Of the nine surviving Munchkins, seven were present, as seen in this picture:

For more articles about the ceremony, see the links at CNN and USA Today.

The 2006 issue of the International Wizard of Oz Club's annual literary magazine, Oziana, is finally available and being sent out to those who have ordered it. Originally planned to come out last fall in observance of Halloween, "The Haunted Issue" (to use its subtitle) features stories and poems that look at the darker, more frightening side of Oz.
In this issue:

• The front cover is, for the first time, a photograph. Taken by Burlington Free Press photographer Peter Huoppi, it features one of the Winged Monkeys on the roofs of businesses in Lancaster, Vermont, in July of 2002. For more about Lancaster's rooftop monkeys, take a look at http://monkeyswithwings.com/.
• "The Wailing Witch of Oz" by Daniel Gobble, illustrated by John Mundt, Esq., tells how Dorothy, the Wizard, and the Sawhorse came to visit a village in the far reaches of the Gillikin Country, on the edge of the Deadly Desert. It seems the men of Bluffburg are falling into the desert, and the Wizard and Dorothy have come to investigate. But nobody in Bluffburg wants to help them. Could they be scared of the witch whose wails they hear throughout the night?
• "Rivals," a poem by Adrian Korpel, illustrated by David Lee Ingersoll, reveals the inner thoughts of Dorothy's three friends as she leaves Oz for the first time.
• "The Axman's Arm" by J. L. Bell, illustrated by Ingersoll, tells the story of Munchkin children Jair and Wenni, and how, when left on their own for a few days, they had to cope with a mysterious disembodied arm that appears on their farm. At first the arm just wants to help, but it all goes wrong when another arm arrives on the scene.
• The back cover features one of the Scares of Scare City, as illustrated by John R. Neill for Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz.

Today, as part of the festivities wrapping up its annual Winkie Convention, the International Wizard of Oz Club presented two of its awards for Ozian excellence. The Winkie Award, presented to a contributor to the Winkie Conventions, was given to Stan Sieler, who usually works behind the scenes in setting things up and making sure they go smoothly (and fixing things when they don't). The Club's highest award, the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award, was presented in abstentia to Nancy Tystad Koupal, who has contributed much to the Oz world about L. Frank Baum's days in South Dakota. She has researched Baum's time in Aberdeen, edited two books (a collection of Baum's "Our Landlady" columns, and Baum's Road to Oz: The Dakota Years, an anthology of historical and biographical essays), and organized the Aberdeen Oz Festival.

The (slightly delayed) Winter 2006 issue of The Baum Bugle, the journal of the International Wizard of Oz Club, has now been printed and is making its way to members. This issue celerates one hundred years of L. Frank Baum's book John Dough and the Cherub.

In this issue:

• The front cover features one of John R. Neill's illustrations for John Dough and the Cherub, newly colored by Marcus Mébès
• "Oz and Ends" looks at:
  • The new Dorothy statue in Oz Park in Chicago
  • The recent McDonald's promotion that put Madame Alexander Oz dolls in Happy Meals, and a similar promotion at Chick-fil-A that gave out abridged copies of Ozma of Oz
  • Gregory Maguire may be adding a fourth volume to the series that began with his novel Wicked, and the play will open next year in Australia (headlined "Wicked Goes to Oz")
  • New books coming out include Oz in Perspective by Richard Tuerk and reprints of the Walt Spouse comic strip versions of The Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz from Hungry Tiger Press
  • New on the World Wide Web are the unconventional Oz books of March Laumer, interactive Oz story The Sword of Oz, and most of Baum's pseudonymous Aunt Jane's Nieces series
  • New on DVD are the 1980s holiday special Dorothy in the Land of Oz and the 1964 animated special Return to Oz
  • Harold Arlen's son, Sam Arlen, is touring with a show about his father's music, "The Wonderful Wizard of Song," including music from The Wizard of Oz
  • The International Wizard of Oz Club announces its upcoming Board of Directors meeting and the 2007 Winkie Convention
  • The Lancaster (New York) Opera announces its 2007 Wizard of Oz Festival
  • The Everything Oz group talks about its events
• J. L. Bell writes about L. Frank Baum's major fantasy book of 1906 in "Home-Made Bread by the Best Modern Machinery: An Appreciation of John Dough and the Cherub
• "Baum Under Scrutiny" reprints several early reviews and articles about John Dough and the Cherub
• Ruth Berman examines some of the geographical difficulties of John Dough and the Cherub and other stories in "Not to Be Miff'd: Mapping Phreex and the Mifkets/Mifkits"
• In the "Multi-MediOz" column, Jane albright reviews Disney Treasures: Your Host, Walt Disney, which includes what little was made of the eventually abandoned movie The Rainbow Road to Oz
• A Bugle tradition is revived and expanded with "The Fred Meyer Memorial Quiz," compiled by J. L. Bell
• Atticus Gannaway tracks the geneology of Pigasis, the poetical flying pig created by Ruth Plumly Thompson, in "Flying Off the Shelves: A Brief, Highly Selective History of the Flying Pig in Literature"
• Reviewed in "The Oz Bookshelf":
  • Toto of Oz by Gina Wickwar, illustrated by Anna-Maria Cool, reviewed separately by Nathan Mulac DeHoff and M. A. Berg
  • The Discontented Gopher by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by Carolyn Digby Conahan, reviewed by Barbara S. Koelle
  • The Oz Odyssey by Roger S. Baum, illustrated by Victoria Seitzinger, reviewed by Joe Bongiorno
  • Annabel by L. Frank Baum, recently reprinted by Hungry Tiger Press, reviewed by Suzanna E. Henshon
  • The Wonder Book by Ruth Plumly Thompson, reviewed by Barbara S. Koelle
  • Time in Oz by Jeremy Steadman, reviewed by Nathan Mulac DeHoff
  • Dorotee Kap Ozma Haeng Oz, a new Thai edition of Ozma of Oz, reviewed by Peter E. Hanff
• "The Magic Picture" looks back on some Oz events of 2006, including the Munchkin Convention (Princeton, New Jersey, August 11-13), the first Tex-Oz gathering (Dallas, Texas), and The Wonderful Weekend of Oz (Syracuse, New York, October 6-9)
• "In Memoriam" remembers two departs friends of Oz, Pete Cervenak and Marak Haas
• "The Oz Sketchpad" looks at how John R. Neill created the picture of John Dough, Chick the Cherub, and Para Bruin in The Road to Oz
• The back cover reproduces Lau Shiu Fan's cover for the 1966 Opium Books edition of John Dough and the Cherub

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced the 2008 honorees who will be presented with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at Hollywood and Vine, and there are two names of interest to Oz fans: The Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz (1939), being honored in the film category; and Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, for live theatre/live performance. They will be receiving their stars soon in ceremonies to be scheduled at a later date. For more information about the honors and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, see the Chamber's website at http://www.hollywoodchamber.net/icons/walk_fame.asp

Tonight, the American film Institute unveiled it's latest "100 Years..." list, celebrating more than a century of American filmmaking. As this was their tenth list, they also celebrated a decade of these lists with a tenth anniversary edition of their first list, "100 Years, 100 Movies." As expected, the famous 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz not only made the list, it's still in the top ten. It appeared at #6 on the original 1998 list, and this time around it fell four places to #10. For the complete list of this year's selections and side-by-side comparison with the original, take a look at this article on Wikipedia.

• Lost in Oz, a series that was to feature Melissa George as a Kansas university student who is whisked to Oz sixty years after the events of The Wizard of Oz and helping to spearhead a rebellion against the new Wicked Witch of the West. Although developed for the WB and a pilot film produced, it was never picked up, nor the pilot shown. (But keep an eye out on auction sites, as a bootleg DVD sometimes shows up...)
• A telelvision miniseries based on Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked, with Demi Moore in the title role. (There are stories that the people developing this version later pushed their involvement into the musical version now playing on Broadway and touring North America.)
• The O. Z., a hip-hop flavored re-telling of The Wizard of Oz for Fox. Among the rumored Dorothy's at one point were Brandy, Mya, and the late Aaliyah. Justin Timberlake, John Leuizamo, and Little Richard were mentioned for other parts.
• Surrender Dorothy. Drew Barrymore as Dorothy's great-granddaughter coming to Oz, and battling the Wicked Witch of the West's granddaughter.
• Somewhere starring Elizabeth Taylor as Dorothy, now a grandmother, returning to Oz. (Rod Steiger was one of the forces behind this project, so his death likely means that it won't be developed.)
• Pamela West, where the Wicked Witch is the innocent victim and Dorothy (with Toto as a pit bull) is the evil interloper.
• The Land of Oz (not based on the book of the same name), produced by Hallmark for NBC.

If progress is made on any of these projects, such as actually going into production or a release date announced, the news will be posted as quickly as possible on this page. But at this stage, any of these going into production is very unlikely.