The Wicked Trailer Is Here!

Well I know what I'm doing on Thanksgiving this year (and it does not involve a turkey):

My Latest Oz Reading

Oh, so many things I've read recently, and so little time to actually write about it. But I'll try to squeeze in a few reactions over the coming days and weeks. I'll group them in loose categories, but these two aren't with anything else, so I'll just do them.

• Pharaoh is my Eloise Jarvis McGraw reread this time around. This is her only adult novel, and for good reason. It covers a lot of political wranglings in ancient Egypt during the rule of four different Pharaohs, and it is just a plain long epic. There are also some hints of adult topics, but these are touched upon rather than described explicitly. Thankfully it is also split into four parts, so I was able to read one part, take a break and read something else, read another part, take a break, and so on. Anyone who thinks gamemanship and oneupmanship is a new thing will learn otherwise when reading this book, as it keeps happening, primarily from Hatshepsut, who convinces herself that she should be Pharaoh, and does all she can to make it so, up to and including exiling her nephew, Thutmose III, to Babylon. (Looking over the biographies I've linked to, I can see that Eloise may have made up some of the events and relationships in this book, which she herself does not deny. She clearly states in her foreward that this is a novel based on what is known of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Plus, we've likely had another fifty-some years of research and discoveries since Pharaoh was published, too.) It is a sprawling, epic story, and I'm glad I reread it. But something tells me I may not get around to reading it again.
• The Wizard of MGM by A. Arnold Gillespie. If you think the name Buddy Gillespie may be familiar, you may know him as one of the chief special effects men at the M-G-M studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He started off in silent films (one of his earliest credits was the original 1925 film version of Ben Hur), and before long he was running the entire department. This was his attempt to distill all his knowledge and experience into a textbook that he hoped would benefit future filmmakers. He covers all kinds of pictures, and it might surprise some people just how many films need special effects of one sort or another. At times, it does get a little dry and technical, but Gillespie also peppers this book with all kinds of anecdotes about his long Hollywood career and the people he's worked with. With a title like this, you'd think there would be a lot about the special effects in The Wizard of Oz, but surprisingly there isn't although there is some. So this book is for the true hardcore movie and special effects fans more than Oz fans.

The Latest Oz Reading

Well, with spring break in the district I'm currently working in extended a few more weeks, I may as well catch up on not only my reading, but telling you about it.

• The Road to Oz: The Evolution, Creation, and Legacy of a Motion Picture Masterpiece by Jay Scarfone and William Stillman. This is the duo's latest book about the famous film version of The Wizard of Oz, and like all the others, it is well-researched and full of all kinds of information. Unlike their previous books, this one has not been licensed by Warner Bros., so they were able to tell the story they wanted to tell without any editorial interference by the current owners of The Movie. There was not a lot in here that was new to me, but I've been reading books on this topic for over forty years now. But that doesn't mean I was totally unsurprised. This book contains the first ever published picture of Hickory's wind machine, for example (cut from the final film), and has details about its early release that I had not heard before. Plus the background information leading up to the production of The Movie was terrific, such as Samuel Goldwyn's plans for a movie (before he ended up selling the rights to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), or the fact that there were actually three radio shows in the 1930s (not the two I already knew about). This is always a good topic to revisit every once in a while, and I'm glad Scarfone and Stillman can still wring a lot of new information out of a movie that's now over eighty years old.
• That was a pretty long book, so I thought I'd temper it with a little one, and A Legend in Straw: The Spirit of My Uncle Ray Bolger by Christianna Rickard fit the bill nicely. This is not a biography of Bolger, although there are some biographical touches. It's much more a remembrance of Bolger by his niece, and what his example taught her, especially when Rickard has to deal with a rare form of cancer. (Spoiler alert: She survives, as I bought this book directly from her at OzCon International two years ago. Of course she was kind enough to sign it for me.) It has a clear, nondenominational spiritual bend to it, so in that it reminded me a lot of The Wisdom of Oz by Gita Dorothy Morena, another memoir by an Oz-related relative (for those who don't know, Morena is L. Frank Baum's great-granddaughter). It's not a crucial book for Oz fans to get, but for those who want to know more about Ray Bolger, this is a good introduction.

The 31 Days of Halloween, Oz Style: Day 27

A quickie: I recently recalled this movie:

I haven't actually seen Fun Size, but hey, our main character is dressed as Dorothy for Halloween. That makes it a Halloween Oz movie in my book! It looks kind of dopey, and it's a PG-13 movie from Nickelodeon, so take it with a grain of salt. But if you're interested in owning it, here's where you can get it.

Oz (sort of) in Jeopardy!

A quickie today, and not actually about Oz but an important contributor. It was the February 20, 2018 game and two of the categories, next to each other, were March, and Of Dimes. In Of Dimes for $800:

Rob, the defending champion, rang in first and responded, "What is, 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'" which was wrong. John, the challenger in the middle, then rang in and came closer with, "What is, 'Hey Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'" which was also wrong. The other challenger, Damien, wisely didn't try. The correct response is "What is 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime?'" and this is Ozzy because Harburg also wrote the lyrics for the songs in The Movie, including "Over the Rainbow".

Lots of Oz on TV!

All kinds of Oz TV alerts!

• First, I probably should have posted this earlier, but it's not too late. If you get the Boomerang cable channel (as opposed to the Boomerang streaming service), you can now watch the new show Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, originally shown on Boomerang (the streaming service, not the cable channel). Oh, and word on the Yellow Brick Road is that it has been picked up for a second season.
• Second, The Movie gets a cable TV airing, outside of its usual holiday showings, on TCM later this week. It's set for 8:00 pm EDT Thursday, June 7. Take a look at TCM's website on The Movie for details.
• Finally, Season 1B (no, I don't know why it isn't just called Season 2, either) of Lost in Oz drops on Amazon Prime this Friday, June 8. The first part of the season was awesome, so I'm really looking forward to the rest. And yes, I'll do what I did last year and blog about each episode as I watch it. (Hmm, maybe I'll even binge the first part, too, if my time allows.) You can get details on Amazon's Lots in Oz page.

Oz in Jeopardy!

The first Oz clue of 2018 on Jeopardy! came during the January 4 episode. The category was At the Yard Sale, for $600 in the Jeopardy! round:

Steph, the defending champion, rang in first and correctly responded, "What is Wicked?" However, she ended up in third place at the end of the match.

There was another tangentially Ozzy clue earlier in the game, also for $600, in the category Cliches Made Fancy:

Meghan, the challenger on the right, got in first and correctly said, "What is a horse of a different color?" She, however, came in second. Of course this phrase has been around for a long time, but a horse of a different color (well, four, actually) appears in The Movie. Here, take a look at this clip to see him in action:

Oz in Jeopardy!

Yes, I have once again fallen behind on my blogging of Oz references on Jeopardy!, America's favorite answer-and-question quiz show. But I'm at least nowhere as far behind as I got last year, either. So I will try to blog a clue or two a week until I catch up or run out, whichever comes first.
Unlike me, Jeopardy! didn't waste any time getting into Oz during its thirty-fourth (!!!) season, as this clue showed up in only the second game of the season, on September 12, 2017. It was the $800 clue in the category Multiple Roles, Same Film, during the Double Jeopardy! round:

The defending champion, Laura, rang in first and correctly responded, "What is The Wizard of Oz?" She went on to win the game, thus confirming my theory that those who get the Oz clues right go on to win the games (or, conversely, those who get them wrong go on to lose). However, this theory rarely actually works. Hmm, maybe this would be a good time to start actually keeping track, however.

This Week's Oz Movie

I seem to have stumbled across a movie-of-the-week vibe here. Well, that's fine, I actually have a few I haven't watched yet, maybe I can continue this a little before school starts again. But a friend of mine kindly bought the Rifftrax edition of The Wonderful Land of Oz, so I felt it was time to watch it.

But first, a little background. The Wonderful Land of Oz was a cheap film version of the second Oz book meant to be shown as a kiddie matinee. It didn't do at all well at the box office, and made little impression outside of Oz circles and bad movie lovers. (Fun fact: Mike Thomas, who played the Scarecrow and may be the most competent actor in this, went on to a long and successful Hollywood career as a make-up artist. One of the films he worked on? The Wiz, where he is rumored to have worked on Michael Jackson's Scarecrow.) This movie is also one of the best counterarguments for those Oz fans who bemoan how so many Oz movies deviate from the book too much, and they should stick as closely as possible to what's on the page. Well, the script is actually a pretty good, faithful adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, but everything else really lets it down. I first saw this movie at my first Oz convention, back in 1980. Despite that, I kept going back to the convention. Anyway, it quickly became obvious just how bad this was, so a few people started shouting out silly comments, talking back to the characters and the like. Fast forward a couple of decades or so, and a bunch of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 performer-writers got together and formed a company to do just that, only legally and for sale to the public. In many cases (including their version of The Wizard of Oz), they sell you an mp3 track to play. But with this movie, they sell you a digital copy of the movie and incorporate their wisecracks into the soundtrack.

I will say this, their jokes sure livened up the movie! If anything, this movie just gets worse with age (it looks even more like a relic of its time than it did in 1980), but the Rifftraxing sure livened things up. There are many comparisons to The Wizard of Oz, of course, and they even get in a sneaky reference to the Scarecrow's questionable version of the Pythagorean Theorem. And there's lots of pointing out the absurdity of it all. So yes, I enjoyed watching it this way.

This Week's Oz Movie

I was challenged not so long ago to watch Of Oz the Wizard, where The Movie is reedited so that every word is said, or sung, in alphabetical order, from "a" to "zipper". I finally had enough time freed up to watch it last night, and it was—interesting!

I liked the opening and closing credits, where each of the title cards was also rearranged in alphabetical order. (One spelling error I spotted: The producer is Mervyn LeRoy, not Mervin.) As I watched, the more I realized what a technical achievement that must have been. I suspect the titles were totally redone against a new, clean cloud background, because I don't see how they could be done any other way!

But on to The Movie itself! It's actually an interesting insight into the English language, and how many words are used repeatedly. Common words, notably pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, essentially resulted in quick rapid-fire summaries of The Movie. The sequence for "the" and the surprisingly large number of common "w" words were especially notable (or maybe by that point I was just weary of all the staccato deliveries). My favorite was "hhh", used for little breaths and huffs and other pauses to catch your breath. It was almost like watching it as a silent movie, with snippets of the score in the background.

Song lyrics were intriguing, such as the monotone deliveries of "ding", "dong", and "yellow", among others. All the "somewhere"s in The Movie's most famous and beloved song all performed back to back were also of interest.

So, anyway, challenge met. And in case you're wondering, yes, someone has also synched up Of Oz the Wizard to the classic Floyd Pink album Dark Moon of Side the

Oz in Jeopardy!

The problem with real life getting in the way of all this really good stuff I want to do is that once you get to the old stuff, you may find you've forgotten something, or made a mistake and can't easily fix it. Such is the case with today's Jeopardy! clue. I had saved one episode, only to find I was a day off. The episode I needed was long gone, so I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way.

So, from the November 17, 2016 episode, the second semifinal of this season's Teen Tournament, we get this clue in the Movie Villains category of the Jeopardy! round for $400:

WE WOULDN'T BLAME THIS
"WIZARD OF OZ" VILLAIN IF SHE
HAD A SEVERE CASE OF
HYDROPHOBIA

Alec, a junior from New York, rang in first and correctly responded with "Who is the Wicked Witch of the West?" He would go on to win the game in a squeaker, and came in second in the final.

The Dare

I have been double dog dared by an old college friend to watch this reedited edition of The Wizard of Oz. Challenge accepted! But it won't be soon, as I have school to finish first (in real life, I'm a teacher).

Oz in Jeopardy!

Yes, more! All from the same week, no less, and all from the same ratings-grabbing event. For one week, the show recorded in Washington, DC for Power Players Week, where politicians, journalists, and others who work in the city played for charity. So, let's see what was so Ozzy about this week.

First, on the May 17 game, Lara Logan of 60 Minutes chose the $800 clue in the Double Jeopardy! category Get Out The Vote, and uncovered a Daily Double. She bet $1000, and saw this:

She correctly replied, "What is a straw vote?" and Alex helpfully added, "Or a straw poll." She added $1000 to her total and went on to win the match, being awarded $50,000 for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Okay, that one may have been a stretch as far as Ozziness goes, but it got better. The next day, on the May 18 episode, one of the Jeopardy! round categories was Musical Theater. Sure enough, under $400, this clue was uncovered:

Kate Bolduan of CNN's At This Hour rang in first and correctly responded with, "What is Wicked?" She ended up in a distant third, but the show still gave $10,000 to her charity, Free Arts NYC.

Finally, on the May 20 program, in the Double Jeopardy! round Category Echo Category (called that because all of the responses were repeated words or syllables), this clue for $800 was uncovered:

Matthew Weiner, one of the creators of Mad Men, rang in first and replied, "Who is Rin Tin Tin?" Yes, he got it wrong. Nobody else wanted to guess, "Who is Toto?" Despite getting this so very, very wrong, Matthew won the game and Alexandria House received $50,000.

And that was it for Sweeps Week special events for the season. There are a few more Oz clues to come, but they all involve ordinary people, so I'll tell you about them in another post.

Oz in Jeopardy!

It has been a very long time since I've posted an Oz clue from this past season of Jeopardy! But even though I have been very busy, I have still managed to keep track of them all so that I can blog them once I have time. Well, I now have the time, and hope that I can get caught up over the next few days — just in time for the new season to start next month!

One other reason for the delay is that the first bit I wanted to show you was a video, and so I had to figure out how to do that. Before I jump into the Oz content of a particular episode, however, I want to show you the opening of this past season, as it kind of reminds me of the Yellow Brick Road. And since I now have the capacity to embed video, I thought I'd do that first:

Pretty neat, huh? What is especially neat about this is that Jeopardy! is shot at what is currently the Sony Picture Studios. Way back in the day, however, it was the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, which means The Wizard of Oz was shot there, and very probably even in the Jeopardy! studio. This is even discussed a bit from this clip from the Christmas Day 2015 episode, in which Dee, the first contestant, shows off one of her talents:

 

Despite Kiddie Lit, Moving Pictures, and Libraries all being categories in this game, however, there were no Oz clues, so Dee's impression is the only Ozzy thing in this episode — but that's certainly enough! Sadly, it wasn't enough to give Dee the win, although she did come in a strong second.

This Day in Oz History

It's not often that an Ozzy milestone is so well recorded, both in time and on a medium we can actually see. It's especially unusual in that today is that rarest of days, Leap Day, which comes along only every four years. But this happened on this day seventy-six years ago, on February 29, 1940.

Too bad the newsreel cameras didn't actually record Judy's singing "Over the Rainbow"!

The Latest Oz Comic

This month, DC Comics has variant covers based on classic Warner Bros. movie posters. (This is because Warners owns DC. So there's no incentive, or impediment, to use posters from other companies.) Naturally, one of their covers is based on The Wizard of Oz. That would be Supergirl #40, and it's real pretty. Here, take a look for yourself in this side-by-side comparison.

Oz in Jeopardy!

Oh, they had a good game way back on January 21 (which was also, coincidentally, my birthday). It didn't start off so promising, with a pretty standard Jeopardy! round. And the Double Jeopardy! round was a theme board, with the categories Cotton Is King, The Blue & The Grey, "Civil", War, Gone with the Wind, and 1865 America. Yikes! That didn't look Ozzy at all! But there was one clue in, of all categories, Gone with the Wind that made me think, you, I'll be blogging this one. For $2000, the clue was:

None of them wanted to guess that the director was Victor Fleming, and that other 1939 blockbuster was, of course, The Wizard of Oz. I found it curious that they didn't actually mention that — until, towards the end of the round, the $1600 clue in Cotton Is King was revealed, and it was a Daily Double! Erin, the challenger in the middle, wagered $2000, and was given this clue: Of course she correctly replied, "What is gingham?" Despite being the only one to get an Oz clue correct, she didn't win the game, however.

Today's Oz Comic

We seem to have hit a recent dry spell of Oz references in the comics. But that ends today, with today's Pickles. I just have to wonder how old Earl was when he first saw it.

Oz in Jeopardy!

Happy New Year, everybody! I must say, 2015 is looking a little disappointing so far, what with the lack of flying cars for $39,999 and hoverboards from Mattel. (Why, yes, I have seen the Back to the Future trilogy more than a few times, why do you ask?) Anyway, here's that big epic Jeopardy! post I promised earlier this week. On the December 12 episode, the second category to be revealed in the Jeopardy! round was:

Alex made it clear very quickly, however, that these quotes were from The Movie, not the book (which might have been interesting, too). Our three brave contestants went to other categories at first, but it didn't take them long to try it out, as Michael, the challenger on the right, picked the $400 clue: Emily, the challenger at the center lectern, rang in first and correctly responded, "Who is the Wicked Witch of the West?" She then picked the $200 clue, which proved to be: Emily rang in and said, "What is Montana?" which we all know is incorrect. Nobody else wanted to try and guess, "What is Kansas?" But Emily got to pick again. Under the $600 card she found the Daily Double, and so bet $1000. Her clue proved to be: She correctly replied, "What is courage?" and raised her score. Naturally, she then picked the same category for $800, which was: This time it was Michael who rang in first, and correctly replied, "What is, 'Oh my'?" He finished the category off, and for $1000 the clue was: Emily got in first and correctly said, "What is 'There's no place like home.'?" And that was that for Oz in that game (and, as it turned out, the rest of the year). Surprisingly, the defending champion, Ryan — the only player not to give an answer in that category — went on to handily win the whole game, thus once again poking very large holes into my theory that whoever correctly responds to the Oz clues goes on to win the game.

Today's Oz Comic

It looks like the grandchildren in today's Nest Heads comic have been watching one of TBS's recent broadcasts of The Movie and, like all too many of today's movie watchers, are confused by the history of color in movies. (And in a twist, the Kansas scenes were actually the final ones recorded!)