Updates

Some day, there will be a version 3.3 of this FAQ. Until then, this is the place to come to see what I'm thinking about adding or changing in the current version, as well as any errata that I or others have spotted, or new information that's come up. Think of this as a sneak preview of the next version. I'll think of this as a place I can jot ideas down and share them with you.

As I was wrapping up the latest edition, I received word that Ray Bolger may not have originally been born Raymond Wallace Bulcao, after all. I had no time or desire to research it for this edition, but I'll see what I can do before the next one.

More famous Oz fans: writers Lin Carter and Erica Jong, and comic book writers Kurt Busiek, Erik Larson, and Roy Thomas.

This is a little one, but big enough to fix soon: Hustling for Health, the feature coupled with the 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz on a British DVD, is not a Laurel and Hardy one, but a solo outing for Stan Laurel. Makes sense, as The Wizard of Oz is best known for Oliver Hardy being in it...

MGM costume designer Adrian wasn't born Gilbert Adrian, but Adrian Adolph Greenburg. I'm not sure if it's relevant to the FAQ, but I found it interesting.

The Supreme Court ruled that movie studios owning theaters (and, by implication, vice versa) was an illegal monopoly in 1948. MGM and Loew's would be the last such arrangement to be dissolved.

I've found the missing link in MGM/The Movie ownership: Kirk Kerkorian bought out what was left of MGM in 1969, becoming the primary stockholder and vice-chairman of the board. He was responsible for selling off most of the land, the 1970 auction that included the first auction of a pair of Ruby Slippers, and using much of those assets to build the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. He sold what was left to Ted Turner in 1986 — who then sold the studio back to Kerkorian (it's now the Sony Pictures Studio), keeping the movie rights, including The Wizard of Oz.

An excellent book that I will add to the bibliography: Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman. While there's not a lot about The Movie in it, it does come up. It's an excellent history of not only the man who created MGM, but also how the studio worked.

Another name for the Wicked Witch of the West: In The Living House of Oz by Edward Einhorn, she is named Mordra. And in Roger S. Baum's The Oz Odyssey, she uses the name Bekama.

The latest broadcasts of The Movie to add to the list: July 3 and 4, 2006, on TCM; November 10, 11, and 12, 2006, on TBS; December 11 and 17, 2006, on TNT; June 3, 2007 on TCM; November 9-11, 2007 on TBS; November 9 and 25, 2007 on TNT; March 21 and 22, 2008 on TCM. There was no broadcast in 2006 or 2007 on the CW, the successor network to the WB.

The list of Oz-themed music videos will now have to include the recent Hebrew rap one from Israel that's been making the rounds. I've now also seen one by Ryan Adams, for the song "Answering Bell," and one in Portuguese from Brazil, an animated tale of the Tin Man's loneliness.

Another clue as to where Dorothy lived in Kansas: In the short story "Jack Pumpkinhead and the Saw-Horse Win a Race and Incite a Riot; the Woggle-Bug Restores Harmony" by L. Frank Baum, published in 1904 as part of his Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz comic page, Dorothy takes the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and the Wogglebug to the nearby Jones County Fair. But there is no Jones County in Kansas.

Another possible location for Oz: In the 1964 animated television special Return to Oz, Dorothy descibes it as being "halfway to yesterday and back."

A misspelling: Bert Lahr's real last name is spelled Lahrheim, not Lahreim. Also, he died on December 4, 1967, and not in 1968.

I must do some research on the famous shoes in the novel version of Wicked, but in the play, they are either red or silver, depending on how the light shines on them.

The Wizard of Oz Catalog, compiled by Fraser A. Sherman, erroneously states that the Wicked Witch of the West is named Blinky in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I have no idea where he got this idea. This is not the same as Blinkie, the wicked witch in The Scarecrow of Oz.

Baum's adventure book for older readers, The Daring Twins, was recently reprinted under the title The Secret of the Lost Fortune by Hungry Tiger Press. The same publishers also put another old Baum title, The Boy Fortune Hunters in China, as The Scream of the Sacred Ape. Two other recent titles of interest are a reprint of The Navy Alphabet from Applewood Books, and The Collected Short Stories of L. Frank Baum from the International Wizard of Oz Club.

Yes, I've now seen Wicked, and even have the libretto, so I can at least speak about this show more authoitatively, and there will be more about it in the next edition of the FAQ, particularly question 9.5.

I've found out more about the "backdrops were found right before they were to be thrown out" story. It seems that this actually happened with many of the matte paintings that were joined with film in post-production to make it look like there really was an Emerald City in the background, not a soundstage wall. They're now at the archives of film school at either USC or UCLA, and I'll have a more definitive answer in the next edition.

The Munchkin who adds "If any" to the mayor's speech? A lawyer has told me that this is a legal term, and there are a number of reasons why he might add it. That makes more sense now, since that character is the Munchkin barrister.

The French comic book series, Le Magicien d'Oz, has now been issued in a complete omnibus edition in English, as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Image Comics. I know there is also a German edition available, so it may have been translated into other languages as well.

Plans for a Wizard of Oz-themed amusement park have surfaced again, this time in upstate New York. Yes, I'll be talking more about this if it actually happens.

Two more Oz music videos, both from The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, were available at one point on the Disney website.

The Red Brick Road is a venue in Roger S. Baum's novel The Oz Odyssey.

Tin Man, a mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel, was broadcast in December of 2007, and is now available on DVD.

Wizard of Oz FAQ Table of Contents

Section 20

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