Those darned LOL cats in Oz

Aaron Adelman sent me a few more LOLcats, including one he put his own caption on.

First off, here are some new takes on the Lollipop Guild here, here, and here.

Second, could this have happened if Dorothy took Eureka instead of Toto on that famous first trip to Oz?

And finally, Aaron provides the caption for this news picture. Yes, only a true-green dyed-in-the-wool Ozzy would think of that one, but it is good!

I Can Goze to Oz Now?

If that title means anything to you, then you're familiar with the phenomenon of LOLcats. Well, thanks to Aaron Adelman, we now have a couple of Oz ones to share with you. So go ahead and take a look here and here (admittedly, that last one is only slightly tangentially Ozzy, but it's still fun). Thanks, Aaron!

Quick hits

Dang. Too many things have piled up at once. So I'll just put them all together in one bullet-listed post.

• Oz Not in Jeopardy! The other day, Jeopardy! had as a category Dr. Oz. No, nothing to do with the famous fantasy land. This was a set of clues on health presented by Dr. Mehmet Oz.
  
• Today's Oz Comic: I'd like to point out to Scott Hilburn, the writer/artist of today's edition of The Argyle Sweater that Dorothy's instructions at the end of the book were a lot more specific, and this wouldn't have happened.
  
• It's Banned Book Week! It actually started yesterday, and runs through Saturday. Go out and read a book someone else doesn't want you to read. And yes, in the past, that has included The Wizard of Oz.
  
• And the LOLcats are at it again. Fortunately for those who don't like LOLspeak, this one's actually in English.
  

I can goze to Oz now?

Those crazy LOLcats at icanhascheezburger.com have thrown in an Oz edition today. So, go take a look already!

A bunch of quick hits

I've got a lot to cover and not a lot of time, so I'll just jump right in. The good news is, none of these items are Jeopardy! clues, and very few about comic strips.

• So let's get the comic strip stuff out of the way. Reader StevenR pointed out a commentary on an Oz-themed comic arc at http://planetcory.com/write/?p=270. I did a little investigating, and found the strip Watch Your Head, but didn't have time to look for the actual Oz-themed strips. Anyone care to take that on?
  
• Over at Oz and Ends, J. L. Bell has a pointer to another blog that has scans of Frederick Richardson's gorgeous artwork from Queen Zixi of Ix. Take a look at Golden Age Comic Book Stories for the whole suite.
  
• It's been a big week here at Chez Gjovaag for Oz comics. All arriving at one time were The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Sketchbook, as a preview of the upcoming comics adaptation by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young; Avengers Fairy Tales #4, featuring She-Hulk (!) in the role of Dorothy; and volume 4 of the Korean manhwa series Dorothy of Oz. This one ends on a cliffhanger, confirming my suspicion that the first four issues solicited were not all of them.
  
• Also big right now is news of Oz and Baum movies. John Boorman, who gave us the very tangentially Ozzy Zardoz back in the '70s, is a producer on a new computer animated version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that looks like it could be a pretty good adaptation. Check out the website at http://www.actionsynthese.com, then click on "Projects in Production" to start exploring. Also in the works is a computer animated version of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Both are scheduled to come out in 2010. And there seems to be a lot of progress now on the animated adaptation of Roger Baum's Dorothy of Oz. It even has a website now, at http://www.dorothyofozthemovie.com/. As with all Hollywood projects, I will not get my hopes up or speculate on what they may be like until I actually go see them in whatever form they are released — if ever.
  
• Speaking of movies, I'd like to squash this rumor before it spreads to the point where it can't be extinguished (unlike that @#%$*!! "hanging man" story): No, Elizabeth Taylor was not one of the dancers in the Lullaby League in the famous MGM movie version of The Wizard of Oz. She was already a contract player at MGM at the time (she and Judy Garland were classmates at the MGM school), so it's doubtful that she have been given such a small (pardon the expression) role. Also, it is very well known who those dancers were: Nita Krebs, Olga Nardone, and Yvonne Murray. Someone seemed to want to find out this information on my website, based on some of the searches someone used (yes, I get a list of what people are looking for). And yes, this will most likely make it into the next edition of the FAQ.
  
• A shoutout to the nice folks at OTRCAT.com the Old Time Radio Catalog. They have an impressive collection of all kinds of old radio shows from around the world. They were kind enough to send me a complimentary edition of their Wizard of Oz CD. If you already have the latest DVD release of The Movie, you have most of this, as it includes the Leo Is On the Air promo, the edition of the Maxwell House Good News show that publicized the release, and the Christmas 1950 Lux Radio Theater adaptation of The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland playing Dorothy. But if you don't have them already, they're a real treat. OTRCAT also has a radio interview with Margaret Hamilton from the 1960s, which I doubt you can get anywhere else, so that would be a good reason to get this even if you have the rest.
  
• And finally, here's an Oz-themed LOL Cat. Enjoy!