Today's Oz Comic, Halloween Edition

BOO! Now that we've got that out of the way, here's today's Nest Heads. You know, with that original early Iron Man costume, I can totally see where the kids are coming from.

Today's Oz Comic

With Halloween coming, everyone's trying to figure out what to wear. Over in today's Red and Rover, Red's trying to decide on a costume for a boy and his dog (since that's what the comic is about). Well, that first one on the left would sure get an extra candy bar from me.

Today's Oz Comic

Today, Betty starts getting in the Halloween mood with one of the earliest scares most people ever get.

Wicked in Mexico

Here's a little bit of news that slipped under the radar here: Wicked has just opened its first Spanish-language production in Mexico City. And you know what a new production means, don't you? Yup! Here's "Popular" in Spanish!

That may be the flailingest Glinda I've ever seen, with arms and legs going every which way. She's great.

Word on the street is that a Korean-language production will open in Seoul next month. So when we can show a number from that one, we will!

Oz in Jeopardy!

It took a little while for Oz to show up in the new season of Jeopardy! — the thirtieth (!) since it's revival with Alex Trebek hosting. But when they did, on the October 9 episode, they did it big. The category for Final Jeopardy! was:

This did not cause my Ozzy sense to start tingling, but the clue was another story! Thirty seconds after listening to the famous "Think" music, the first response was revealed. It was from Theresa, the challenger in the middle, and she wrote: Of course, that was wrong. She'd bet a modest $1,801, and ended up with a grand total of $6,799. Next up was Amanda, the challenger at the right hand podium, who looked down and shook her head as her response was revealed: Yup, still wrong. She'd bet $7,201, and ended up with a final score of $2,799. Finally, the returning champion, Jason, showed the world that he'd written: Wrong again (and spelled wrong as well, but so long as it doesn't change the pronunciation, they forgive those — which is a moot point in this case anyway). It was then that Alex told the contestants that the cabinet files were labeled A-G, H-N, and O-Z, the last one spelling Oz. Jason had bet $4,801, which gave him another win and an extra $10,399.

Before anyone gets pedantic and wonders about the veracity of the filing cabinet story, the way the clue is written indicates that it's what the creator claimed. Sure enough, there's an interview out there somewhere in which L. Frank Baum says that he got the name from the labels on his three-drawered filing cabinet. No, we still don't know if that's really the case, or if he just made the name up (which is, in my opinion, much more likely).

One week later, on the October 16 show (a game from which I was unable to grab screnshots due to technical difficulties), one of the categories in the Jeopardy! round was Filmographies, in which you have to identify an actor based on the films he or she has appeared in. For $400 came this clue:

"127 HOURS",
"RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE
APES",
"EAT, PRAY, LOVE"

Mat, the challenger in the middle, rang in first and correctly asked, "Who is James Franco?" Even though Franco played the title role in Oz the Great and Terrible this year, I was not planning to feature this clue, until the $1000 clue in the same category was revealed a bit later on:

"TED",
"BLACK SWAN",
"FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS"

Jane, the other challenger, got in first and said, "Who is Natlie Portman?" Not a bad guess, but not the right answer. Stuart, the returning champion, next rang in with, "Who is Milan Kundera?" Yeah, good question, because I've never heard of her. Finally, Mat snuck in, and correctly replied, "Who is Mila Kunis?" She was one of James Franco's co-stars in Oz the Great and Powerful, that's who!

Today's Oz Comic

I never really thought of The Wizard of Id as an homage to Oz, despite the name. But going by today's strip, maybe it is. After all, this wizard also uses flying monkeys and has a big ol' head avatar to greet the public.

Today's Oz Comic

You know, Ruthie asks a very good question in today's One Big Happy. However, as there were only three Munchkins who met Dorothy in the book, I suspect Dad doesn't quite know what he's talking about.

The Latest Oz Comic Book Reading

Yup, I just finished reading Fables #133. Sure enough, not much Oz at all. However, Ozma does have a larger than usual appearance, and delivers some bad news to Snow White.

Er, and that's about all I have to say.

Today's Oz Comic

Okay, it appears from today's Herb and Jamaal that there is a pretty darned good reason for some people not to go see the new 3-D version of The Wizard of Oz. Incidentally, if you missed it in IMAX the other week, the 3-D Oz is now being shown in a handful of non-IMAX theaters around the country (and in Canada). So check your local movie listings if you want to see it.

The Latest Oz Reading

Yup, there's more after all — because the latest comics order came. There aren't a lot of Oz comics in it this time, however, and one of them is Fables, which I don't think will have a lot of Oz (if any). But the first thing I read was Marvel's The Emerald City of Oz #3. As I suspected, with only five issues to tell the story, things are progressing at a breakneck pace, and the first major cut has appeared (the zebra and crab are cut — no loss there, at least). In this issue, Dorothy and her party leave the Cuttenclips, visit the Fuddles (the whole thing takes only three pages), Dorothy gets lost and visits Utensia (sadly, some of the most groan-worthy puns in the entire Oz series are cut out), and then she visits Bunbury, where we wrap up with Toto eating three crumpets and a salt-rising biscuit. Guph, meanwhile, visits the Phanfasm, and convinces them to join the Nomes and their other allies in the conquest of Oz. I like the effects Skottie Young uses to show the Phanfasms' transformations, including themselves and their whole city at the end of Guph's visit (with the old Nome being none the wiser). Again, Young and Eric Shanower have hit this one out of the park. I am looking forward to the next issue's visit to Bunnybury, and Guph's report back to Roquat.

The Latest Oz-Related Reading

I'm not in one of my usual Oz reading cycles right now, but I had to read this one for a very special reason. In fact, I had intended it as part of my last cycle, but it didn't arrive in time. It seems that the first copy the place sent me got lost in the mail, so they hunted down another one! So, what book is this? I finally found an affordable copy of Crown Fire by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. This is one of only two of Eloise's books I didn't have, and the last fiction book of hers. (Yes, that means the only one I'm missing now is Techniques of Fiction Writing, which seems to have jumped in price in recent years.) This is one of her earliest books, having been published in 1951, a dozen years before Merry Go Round in Oz. It's the story of Chip Ladou, a hotheaded young French-Canadian lumberjack working in the Pacific Northwest somewhere. (The nearby town is the fictitious Port Chance. There are enough references to local landmarks that it's pretty clear it's in Washington or Oregon. Since Eloise lived in the Portland area munch of her life, and most of her modern fiction is set there, this is not a risky assumption.) His temper takes him too far one day, and he walks out of camp before he can be kicked out. Logging jobs are getting hard to come by, however, so he settles in Port Chance, returns to high school, and gets a job as a dishwasher at the local soda shop. He gets in trouble for fighting on the first day of school, but he also realizes he has friends and allies, and a teacher takes an interest in him and starts teaching him how to box. It's a real little slice-of-life story, and Chip has a lot of growing up to do over the course of the book. Of course, set in a lumbering town and with a name like Crown Fire, you'd expect the climax to be a forest fire, which it is. I enjoyed the story as a piece of Americana and an example of Eloise's work, but if you're just an Oz fan, you don't need to hunt this down for your collection.

Today's Oz Comic

I know Mark Tatulli knows his Oz, with all the stuff he's done in Heart of the City (including a very Denslowesque Sunday strip in the early days). But today is the first time I ever recall an Oz reference in his other strip, Lio. Still, this explains where the Scarecrow's been hanging around all this time.