Saturday, February 09, 2019

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz: Mission Imp-Possible

When Wilhelmina gets three mail-order imps, she fires Frank and Lyman and decides what kind of mischief her new henchmen will do. Meanwhile, in the Emerald City, the Zoop on Emerald Mountain has hiccups, causing earthquakes. (Yeah, I don't get the geography or geology of it, either, so let's just go with it.) Knowing Dorothy will head up there to try and cure his hiccups, Wilhelmina sends the imps along to stop her, knowing that the Zoop will then rampage towards the Emerald City, because he blames Ozma for getting the hiccups. (Again, go with it.) Sure enough, Dorothy's cure almost works until the imps drop an icicle on the Zoop's head. He goes on a rampage, heading towards Emerald City, while Dorothy and the boys try to stop him, even after the imps create an ice slide that gets him going that much faster. Wilhelmina, watching all this in her crystal ball, flies to the Emerald City to gloat—only to see the Zoop kissing Ozma and Dorothy. It turns out it was all an elaborate hoax on Wilhelmina! Frank and Lyman tipped Dorothy and Ozma off about the imps, and everyone concocted the prank to get back at Wilhelmina! Needless to say, Wilhelmina is not happy. She turns the imps back into the pills that were delivered to her, and hires back Frank and Lyman as she slinks back to her castle. The Zoop claims to be cured of his hiccups, and then starts up again, worse than before—before admitting that he was kidding!

This was fun while I was watching it, but now that I've written this down I'm not so sure it's that good of an episode. So much of it depends on people tricking or fooling others that I'm not sure it's a good example to give. Also, even for a cartoon, bits of it don't make a lot of sense (see all my little asides above). Still, it's nice to see the silent Oz movies acknowledged with the character of the Zoop (he appeared in all three Oz Film Manufacturing Co. movies in 1914).

And with that, I am done with recapping episodes of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, at least for now. Boomerang hasn't shown any more recent episodes yet (and I know there are a whole lot more to go), so I will either have to wait until they show up, are released on home video, or I break down and buy Boomerang's streaming service to see the rest. But rest assured, I will get my hands on them at some point, and I will tell you all about them when I do. I am looking forward to seeing how this show handles the Wizard (yes, at last!), General Jinjur, and Sir Hokus of Pokes!

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