Adaptations of The 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 novel by L. Frank Baum, which has been adapted into several different works, the most famous being the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland. Many of the adaptations have themselves been adapted for pantomime or amateur productions.

Film adaptations

• The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays is a 1908 multimedia presentation made by L. Frank Baum which featured the young silent film actress Romola Remus.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a fifteen-minute 1910 film, based on the 1902 stage musical, directed by Otis Turner, and may have featured Bebe Daniels as Dorothy.
• His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz is a loose 1914 adaptation by Baum with so many new ideas that it became the basis for The Scarecrow of Oz.
• The Wizard of Oz is a 1921 film project, directed by Ray C. Smallwood, but never completed.^{[citation needed]}
• Wizard of Oz is a 1925 film, directed by Larry Semon in collaboration with Frank Joslyn Baum and well-known mostly because it features a young Oliver Hardy. It has almost nothing to do with the original novel.
• The Land of Oz, a Sequel to the "Wizard of Oz" is a virtually unknown 1932 film featuring the Meglin Kiddies.^{[citation needed]}
• The Wizard of Oz is the 1939 musical film by MGM, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley. It is the story's most well-known adaptation (in fact, it's even more famous than the book), and follows the novel in a general way, but makes many changes. It is not an adaptation of the 1902 stage musical, but instead uses new songs written specifically for the 1939 film.
• Journey Back to Oz is a 1974 animated film, begun in 1963, the official sequel to the 1939 film.
• Fantasia...3 is a 1966 Spanish film directed by Eloy de la Iglesia. One segment is loosely based on The Wizard of Oz.^{[citation needed]}
• The Wonderful Land of Oz is a 1969 low-budget kiddie matinee version of The Marvelous Land of Oz directed by Barry Mahon.
• Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde is a 1971 Turkish film, directed by Tunç Başaran known to bootleggers as "The Turkish Wizard of Oz".
• Once Upon a Time is a 1976 film in which Maria and Mary-Lou get sucked down a well into Holleland. It is loosely based upon, and also pays homage to, "Wizard of Oz".
• Oz is a 1976 Australian rock musical film, also known as Oz – A Rock 'n' Roll Road Movie or 20th Century Oz.
• The Wiz is a 1978 movie directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow, based on the Broadway musical of the same name. It was a commercial failure and has been called the last film of the blaxploitation era and genre.
• Return to Oz is a 1985 film by Walt Disney Pictures, an unofficial sequel to the 1939 film, directed by Walter Murch and starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale. It takes place six months after the original, where Dorothy escapes from a sinister mental institution and wakes up in Oz only to find that evil forces have taken over. It incorporates many characters and concepts from the literary sequels The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. It was a critical and commercial failure, but has since earned a cult following.
• The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005) Starring Ashanti, Queen Latifah and The Muppets. Miss Piggy played ALL of the witches, Pepe the Prawn played Toto, Kermit the Frog played the scarecrow, Gonzo the Great played the Tinman, and Fozzie the Bear plays the Lion.
• Apocalypse Oz (2006) is a short film crossover between The Wizard of Oz and Apocalypse Now.

Future adaptations

• Dorothy of Oz is an upcoming 2012 animated film.
• Oz: The Great and Powerful is set to be directed by Sam Raimi. It will be produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and will tell the story of the wizard's arrival in Oz. James Franco has signed on to star as the then-young illusionist with a grandiose attitude, who is forced to flee a traveling circus. His hot air balloon is swept up by a tornado to the land of Oz, which is run by two wicked witches. The score for the film is expected to be composed by Danny Elfman.
• Surrender Dorothy, a sequel film to The Wizard of Oz, is set to be directed by Drew Barrymore.
• Dreams of Oz is an adaptation of the Calibre Comics series, Oz, scheduled for 2012. An adult Dorothy (Natalie Portman) is having dreams of the magical land of Oz again. When she returns, the Wizard has shown his true evil colors, and the two parts of Oz are at war. Dorothy has to choose between Hunk (the Scarecrow), Hickory (the Tin Man) and Zeke (the Cowardly Lion) and vanquish evil before it's too late. It is to be directed by Pearry Teo. The film is scheduled to be released in 2014.

Television adaptations

Nearly all of these are not, strictly speaking, adaptations of The Wizard of Oz, but are rather adaptations of sequels as well as original films using the Oz characters.

• 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 and Annette Funicello as Ozma.
• "The Land of Oz" is the 1960 premiere episode of The Shirley Temple Show, known in previous seasons as Shirley Temple's Storybook, and no relation to the Shirley Temple Theatre which showcased old Temple films. This adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz was written by Frank Gabrielson and directed by William Corrigan. William Asher produced. The cast included Shirley Temple, Ben Blue, Agnes Moorehead, Sterling Holloway, Jonathan Winters, and Arthur Treacher.
• Tales of the Wizard of Oz is a 1961 animated series of short episodes based on the Oz characters from the book.
• Off to See the Wizard is a 1967 television anthology series which showcased then-recent MGM family films. The Oz characters appeared in animated segments.
• Return to Oz is a 1964 animated television special sequel-cum-remake of the 1939 film, based on the artistic renderings of the characters in the 1961 animated series.
• Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz aka Dorothy in the Land of Oz (1980), animated television special starring Sid Caesar that aired during the Thanksgiving holiday.^{[citation needed]}
• A feature-length anime adaptation of the story was made by Toho in 1982 and was directed by Fumihiko Takayama, with music by Joe Hisaishi. The English version of the movie stars Aileen Quinn as the voice of Dorothy and Lorne Greene as the Wizard. Like the 1939 film, this anime take on The Wizard of Oz ends the story with Dorothy's trip home to Kansas after visiting the Wizard. Original songs are sung by Aileen Quinn in the English version, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrnes. It was released in the United States before it premiered in Japan. In the U.S., it was released on video and syndicated to local television stations.
• An anime adaptation of four of Baum's Oz books known as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was created in 1986. It consists of 52 episodes and follows the story of Dorothy and her adventures in Oz with the Tin Woodsman, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow. It continues on to the story of Ozma and Mombi, and follows the events in other Oz books. In 1987, HBO purchased the rights to the series and dubbed/edited together key episodes of the series into a series of movies. Production for the English version was done by the Canadian studio Cinar. Margot Kidder was hired as narrator for the series, which aired as a mini-series.
• The Wizard of Oz, an animated series based on the 1939 film, was broadcast on ABC during the 1990–1991 TV season. The cartoon featured Dorothy returning to Oz, reuniting with her four friends, and journeying through the magical realm in an attempt to rescue the Wizard from a resurrected Witch of the West.
• The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz (Supêsu Oz no Bôken) is a 1990 anime series, involving Dorothy and the gang travelling the "Galaxy of Oz". It was truncated to 76 minutes and dubbed for American release as The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz
• The Wizard of Oz is a little known 1995 adaptation made for British television set in the present day, starring Denise Van Outen as Dorothy, a spoiled socialite sent to Oz against her will, and featured an early appearance by Zöe Salmon. It was described as a more adult version of the story, with characters using profanity and sexual innuendo. It featured several thematic elements from the 1985 semi-sequel Return to Oz. Its low budget and mostly non-professional cast, as well as low ratings and critical indifference, caused it to sink quickly from view, but it occasionally appears on TV in the UK.
• The Oz Kids is a 1996 animated series by Hyperion Pictures and Nelvana featuring the children of the original characters.
• Adventures in the Emerald City (Приключения в Изумрудном городе) is a 1999-2000 animated series directed by Alexander Makarov, Ilya Maximov and Denis Chernov.
• Tim Burton's Lost in Oz is a 2000 television pilot script, written by Trey Callaway with Tim Burton as executive producer. Key scenes were filmed by Michael Katleman.
• Lost in Oz is a 2002 television pilot, never broadcast. It is a sequel to the 1939 film
• In the Futurama episode "Anthology of Interest II", a retelling of the story is shown as a dream of Leela's with the cast of the show.
• Tin Man was released in December 2007 on the Sci-fi Channel by RHI Entertainment and Sci Fi. This three-part miniseries, directed by Nick Willing and starring Zooey Deschanel, Richard Dreyfuss, Alan Cumming, Raoul Trujillo, Neal McDonough, Kathleen Robertson, was advertised as a re-imagined version of The Wizard of Oz, with a heavy science fiction/fantasy emphasis and, at first glance, giving only allusive references to most of the original story and the 1939 film. However, the revelation in the third part of Tin Man (that the heroine D.G. is a descendant of Dorothy Gale and that other humans, called 'Slippers' by the people of Oz, have visited Oz since Gale's fateful adventure) indicates that the series portrays a future version of Oz, thereby making the mini-series both a sequel and a re-imagining.
• W krainie czarnoksiężnika Oza - Polish Television adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz. It was broadcast only in Poland.^{[citation needed]}
• Ozenders - A Children In Need episode of EastEnders in which June Brown starred as "Dorothy Cotton", John Culshaw as Ozzy Ozbourne and Adam Woodyatt as "Ian Beale", and employed the rest of the cast of Eastenders, Merseybeat and Casualty.
• In the 2006 episode of the Disney Channel Original Series That's So Raven titled "Soup to Nuts", Raven sees herself in a parody of "The Wizard of Oz". Dr. Stuckerman (Steve Hytner) was the Wicked Witch of the West, Raven (Raven-Symone) was Dorothy, Chelsea (Anneliese van der Pol) was the Scarecrow, Eddie (Orlando Brown) was the Cowardly Lion, Cory (Kyle Massey) was The Tin Man and Victor (Rondell Sheridan) was the Wizard.
• My Way Home; the 100th episode of the comedy-drama Scrubs, makes numerous cultural references to the Wizard of Oz.
• The Witches of Oz is a 2011 television mini-series directed by Leigh Scott, based on the novels The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Road to Oz, and The Magic of Oz by Baum.
• In The Suite Life on Deck episode titled "Twister: Part 2", Bailey has a dream based on The Wizard of Oz, where she sees herself as Dorothy, Mr. Moseby as the munchkin, London as the Good Witch of the North, Moose as the Scarecrow, Cody as the Tin Man, Zack as the Flying Monkey, and Woody as the Cowardly Lion.
• In the Cartoon Network series, "Mad", there is a sketch where Buzz Lightyear wakes up from a dream similar to Dorothy waking up from her dream.
• An episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" shows SpongeBob and Patrick going to see Mr. Magic. As in "The Wizard of Oz", Mr. Magic, who was thought to be a giant, magical head, is revealed to be a powerless, little man.
• Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz is a Tom and Jerry direct-to-video film, the first to be made for Blu-ray. It first appeared on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2011.
• In the Raising Hope episode "Bro-gurt", broadcast November 29, 2011, a con man using motion capture technology behind a curtain to deceive an audience into thinking they were seeing Andrew Dice Clay through videoconferencing is uncovered by baby Hope, tells the people to ignore the man behind the curtain, and explains to certain characters that one has a brain, one a heart, and one courage.

Stage adaptations

• The first musical version of the book was produced by Baum and Denslow (with music by composer Paul Tietjens) in Chicago in 1902, and moved to New York in 1903. It used many of the same characters, and was aimed more at adult audiences. It had a long, successful run on Broadway. Baum added numerous political references to the script, mentioning President Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Mark Hanna, and John D. Rockefeller by name. Many existing songs that had nothing to do with the story were interpolated. Baum followed with two additional Oz musicals, The Woggle-Bug (1905) and The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (1913). Both were panned as rehashes rather than sequels; although Tik-Tok did better than The Woggle-Bug, neither made it to Broadway.
• The Wizard of Oz is a 1942 musical using songs from the 1939 film. It was adapted by Frank Gabrielson for the St. Louis Municipal Opera. The piece continues to receive frequent revivals.
• In 1959, the popular ice skating show Holiday on Ice included a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz.
• The Wiz is a 1975 musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls, exclusively featuring African American actors. Stephanie Mills starred as Dorothy in the original Broadway cast. The production won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Musical. Geoffrey Holder directed a 1984 Broadway revival, which also featured Mills as Dorothy.
• The Marvelous Land of Oz is a 1981 musical by Thomas W. Olson, Gary Briggle, and Richard Dworsky. The original production, which included Briggle as the Scarecrow, was taped and shown on television.
• The Wizard of Oz (1987–1989) is an adaptation by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company, based on the novel and 1939 film, which hews more closely to the film's screenplay than the 1942 version did; this adaptation continues to be frequently revived and toured.
• The Wizard of A.I.D.S. is a 1987 adaptation of the Oz story which serves as an AIDS education tool.
• The Wizard of Oz Live (1989–1990) is an arena touring production in celebration of the film's 50th anniversary. The production featured a pre-recorded soundtrack.
• The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True was a 1995 concert performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation at Lincoln Center, featuring celebrity actors such as Jewel as Dorothy, Roger Daltrey as the Tin Man, Joel Grey as the wizard (a role he later reprised in Wicked, Nathan Lane as the Lion, Debra Winger, Natalie Cole, Jackson Browne as the Scarecrow, and Lucie Arnaz.
• The Wizard of Oz on Ice (1995–1999) was a production produced by Kenneth Feld, that toured nationally & internationally around the world.^{[citation needed]}
• The Wizard of Oz on Tour was a 1998 touring production of the 1987 RSC version that originally played in the Madison Square Garden theatre in May 1997. Roseanne Barr was the Wicked Witch, replaced by Eartha Kitt in 1998 and JoAnne Worley and Liliane Montevecchi in 1999. Mickey Rooney was the Wizard. The production played at Madison Square Garden from May 1997 to May 1999. The touring production ran from May 1998 to late 1999.
• Wicked (2003–Present) is a 2003 Broadway and West End musical based on the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. It features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.
• Der Zauberer von Oz is a 2005 stage play with music by Ralf Linke, performed by the Festspiele Balver Höhle.^{[citation needed]}
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 2000 musical that premiered in Toronto.
• Dothy et Le Magicien d'Oz was a 2009 musical spectacular that played in France. A cast album was generated.^{[citation needed]}
• The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical) is a 2011 West End version building on the 1939 film songs and script with new material by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It began previews on February 7, 2011 and officially opened on March 1. Danielle Hope was chosen to play the role of "Dorothy" through the BBC UK TV Series Over the Rainbow. Michael Crawford plays the role of the WIzard.
• Oz – The Wonderful Wizard is a ballet by the Italian choreographer Giorgio Madia, who created an entirely danced version for the company of Staatsballett Berlin on compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich. The production premiered in March 2011. The role of the Wizard was interpreted by Vladimir Malakhov, the role of Dorothy by Polina Semionova.

Books

There are 40 "canonical" Oz books, including 14 by Baum, all of which are considered "official" sequels or prequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In addition, the following books use the Oz milieu as settings for their tales:

• Home from Oz (Thomas Nelson, 1994) and The Oz Syndrome (Hillcrest Publishers, 2001) are two books penned by psychologist and professor, Dr.Michael A. O'Donnell--it deals with the Oz characters and MGM musical version from a psychological point of view.
• Was is a 1992 parallel novel by Geoff Ryman focusing on the lives of disparate individuals linked to one another by the original novel and the 1939 film.
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, which provides a backstory regarding Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West. Wicked has two sequels: Son of a Witch (2005) and A Lion Among Men (2008). It is considered the most famous parallel novel to Baum's originals, although it also bears a great deal of resemblance to the 1939 film.
• Dare is a 2007 novel by BET host Abiola Abrams is a loose adaptation with several references to the tale of Oz. The main character's middle name is Gayle, which was Dorothy's last name, and she is on a journey to find love, courage, and home. A record producer referred to as the wizard is named Ozzie Marvelous, and there is a wicked witch stylist and her "good" sister. The hotel Heretix is on a yellow bricked road and they leave Ohio in a tornado and land in beautiful sunshine the author refers to as Technicolor. There is also a frequent refrain that "no place was home."
• A Barnstormer in Oz is a 1982 novel by Philip José Farmer in which a pilot named Hank Stover, who is Dorothy's son, is transported to Oz when his plane becomes lost in a green cloud over Kansas.
• The Wizard of the Emerald City, a 1939 children's novel by Russian writer Alexander Melentyevich Volkov, a loose translation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was adapted into animated series (1976) and a live action film (1994). It has 5 sequels by the same author.
• The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein uses Oz as one of many alternate universe settings in which events take place, alongside alternate versions of the setting's Earth, Barsoom, and Lensmen settings, as well as other of Heinlein's own works' settings.
• Dorothy: The darker side of Oz Is a 2010 novel by Scott Stanford, offering a modern re-imagining of the classic tale. In this original story, keeping the essence of Baum's original, young Dorothy's enchanting journey takes her through a strange new land, as we see a sometimes beautiful, though often deadly Oz, one like never before.

Comics

• MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz was the first joint publishing venture between DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
• 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 Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass against the villainous Nome King.
• Dorothy of Oz (Korean: ??? Dorosi "Dorothy") is a manhwa (Korean comics) 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.
• 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. This version of the tale, created by Greg Mannino, written by Mark Masterson with artwork by Greg Mannino and Ray Boersig, is in part a retelling of Baum's tale and in part a retelling of the 1939 movie version of the story, as it incorporates elements of the Judy Garland film.
• The novel was adapted into a comic book in 2005, illustrated/painted by Enrique Fernandez and adapted by David Chauvel, with almost all dialogue and narration taken directly from Baum's original. The comic was originally published in 2005 in France, where it won the prestigious Grand Prix de La Ville De Lyon Award of Illustration. In 2006, it was adapted into English and published in America by Image Comics.
• 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.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published by Marvel Comics
• Two of Mad (Magazine)'s movie parodies are both a satire of "The Wizard of Oz".

Games

A screenshot from the 1985 text adventure game.

• The Wizard of Oz is a 1985 illustrated text adventure game for Apple II, Commodore 64 and DOS systems 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, is based on the 1939 film.
• Wizard of Land Oz (Волшебник страны Оз) is a 1997 ZX Spectrum adventure game by Famous Faces Factory.
• RIZ-ZOAWD is a Japanese role-playing video game for the Nintendo DS, released in the US as The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
• 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).
• Emerald City Confidential, a point-and-click adventure game developed by Wadjet Eye Games and published by casual game portal PlayFirst.
• Irozuki Tingle no Koi no Balloon Trip - This Japanese game, which is a spin-off of the Legend of Zelda series, has Tingle teaming up with a Tin Woman, a Scarecrow, and a Cowardly Lion to cross the land.

Other

• 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).
• 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, 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. Interestingly, this series was released before McFarlane's. This series was supposed to help McGee launch a franchise around this interpretation, following up with a film, game, etc.
• 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".
• Elton John's album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a clear reference to "The Wizard of Oz".
• Tommy heavenly6 (an alternate name for Tomoko Kawase) made reference to "The Wizard of Oz" in her music video for her song "PAPERMOON" (which became the second opening for the anime Soul Eater#Anime).
• The band Blues Traveler's video of the song Run-Around has a Wizard of Oz motif, with Blues Traveler playing behind a curtain in a nightclub while a young, "hip" and more "photogenic" group appears to be playing the song.
• The band The Good Life's video for the song Heartbroke has characters from "The Wizard of Oz" going to a pastry/ice cream shop. There are two versions to this video; a "nice" version and a "mean" version. In the "nice" version the characters pretend to rob the shop but then purchase treats. In the "mean" version they violently rob the store, but the Scarecrow (who was supposed to be the getaway car) does not make it on time due to a flat tire and the would-be robbers get arrested.
• Pandora Hearts a manga and anime series, the main character is named Oz Vessalius.