It's not terribly Ozzy, but the subject of this clue was involved in making The Movie and discovering Judy Garland, so I think it's Ozzy enough to include here. In the Double Jeopardy! round of the January 25, 2018 game, the $800 clue in the category The Producers was this:
While playing horseshoes of a different color, the Munchkin mayor informs Dorothy that she has overstayed her welcome, and has only four hours before she has to take the Official Ozian Exam to officially become an Ozian. With the assistance of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion, she hits the books to study, but Wilhelmina tries to disrupt her so she'll leave Oz. Wilhelmina sends a dragon to attack Indigo City, but Dorothy gets lost on the may and ends up with a yellow chicken that the Tin Man initially names Bill. He amends her name to Billina when Dorothy informs him that all chickens are girls. Getting her bearings again, they head off to Indigo City, in Munchkin Country. Figuring out that the dragon must be hungry, Dorothy sets out to Fuddlecumjig, in Quadling Country, to get some dragonberries. She sweet talks a Fuddle into giving her his dragonberry pie, but the dragon's roar causes the pie to fly into the Lion's face, so there goes that idea. Then Dorothy notices a piece of something stuck between the dragon's teeth. Wishing the Ruby Slippers to take her into the dragon's mouth (!), Dorothy tries to remove it, but has no luck. So the gang treks over to Gillikin Country to grab a grabber from a grabber tree, which does the trick. By this time, of course, Dorothy has used up all her study time, and shows up at the exam recounting her most recent adventure. The Mayor starts checking things off, and says that Dorothy passed. Not only did Dorothy know all about the places in the exam, she visited them. So now Dorothy is an official Ozian (as if there was ever any doubt)!
I liked that this one covers geozify so thoroughly, and it's the correct geozify from the books no less. Yes, Fuddlecumjig is made up of puzzle pieces, including the dragonberry pie maker. Billina is fun, and pretty much takes the place of Toto in this story, but she doesn't talk. Good thing the Scarecrow knows chicken, however. But the big "Aw, yeah!" moment for me was the big map of Oz on the wall in the study, clearly based on the updated version published by the International Wizard of Oz Club, as it has the Winkies in the west and the Munchkins in the east.
I have actually been doing a lot of Oz reading lately, and would have done even more if I'd had more time. But that lack of time has meant that I haven't been able to say much about it until now. So let's jump in and see what's no longer in my to-read pile.
Dorothy discovers the journal is missing, then Guph discovers that Roquat is missing. Roquat, meanwhile, is a spoiled brat who wants everything to be about him, so he makes the map into a fortune teller, which promptly gets lost overboard. Fortunately, Roquat has another map, and food, at his private play palace, Villa Roquat. Not trusting his servants, he disguises himself with Scarecrow's hair, and Dorothy draws a beard and mustache on him with marker. But Guph sends out a broadcast calling for the return of the king. He also tells Dorothy, if she's out there, that he'll give her the journal and let her go if she brings Roquat back. The villa's Nome servant, his fork wife (she's from Utensia), and their young son (he looks like a stubby fork made out of rock!) chase after them, but our little crew manages to escape with the map and head off towards Oz again. Meanwhile, back in Emerald City, West, Ojo, Reigh, and Patchwork Boy decide to contact Dorothy through one of Smith's paintings. Smith wants nothing to do with that, as Langwidere used his paintings as prisons, but they must eventually convince him, because the last we see of them is them chatting with Evelyn, and discovering that Dorothy never made it bark to Kansas. So now Dorothy's friends know she's still lost in Oz.
Computer animation has come a very long way in the last few decades, but this episode shows it still has some drawbacks, at least on a budget of this size. The chase scenes are not terribly convincing because it seems to be very difficult to show the characters running. Still, a little suspension of disbelief and that can be overlooked. Villa Roquat is a fun little place, except I'm sure you or I would get sick and tired of all the portraits and statues of him all over the place. I also like how his character is developing, at least in a simple cartoony way. It looks like he's going to end up being one of Dorothy's greatest allies.
I've started falling behind on these again, but now that my time is freed up a bit more I am cautiously optimistic that I can get caught up on these before the season ends in a few weeks, without becoming overwhelming. But I'm still a few months behind right now, as this is from the January 23, 2018 game. And when I saw the category Characters' Full Names in the Jeopardy! round, I had a sneaking suspicion that the clue below would turn up. Sure enough, for $600:
Focused on a mission for Ozma to find a memory flower, Dorothy neglects Toto, who just wants to play fetch and get some belly rubs. Wilhelmina, noticing the situation and longing for a pet of her own, sends Frank and Lyman out to kidnap Toto. She bribes Toto with balls, toys (including a squeaky squirrel!), balls, kibble, anything a dog could love, but Toto still pines for Dorothy. Not to be denied, Wilhelmina finds a spell to turn Toto's love to her. Meanwhile, having found the flower, Dorothy realizes Toto is missing. The empty banana peels indicate that flying monkeys were involved, and they quickly figure out that Wilhelmina kidnapped Toto. They go to her castle, but Toto ignores Dorothy, until he gets a whiff of the memory flower. His happy memories of all his time with Dorothy is enough to overcome the spell, and our friends head back to the Emerald City. Wilhelmina, meanwhile, realizes they may not quite be pets, but Frank and Lyman are enough, and she plays fetch the squeaky squirrel with them.
This show may often aim for the funny bone, but this episode shows it has a heart, too. The flashbacks to Kansas are adorable (particularly when we see some of the same events from Toto's point of view), and done in colors so washed out that they evoke the sepia tones of The Movie. But it had its laughs, too, such as when Dorothy tells Toto no tummy rubs, and the Lion gets up from an identical position and says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, right, no belly rubs. Yeah, no time for belly rubs," as he sheepishly slinks off to keep looking for the flower. (Now I have visions of various versions of Dorothy giving tummy rubs to various incarnations of the Lion.)
Dorothy's attempts to escape the Nome Kingdom via sandboat keep getting waylaid by other stuff coming up. And she quickly realizes that the Still Season is coming, which would mean no wind, and no more chance to escape. Finally, she, Scarecrow, and Toto have no choice but to perform for King Roquat. Guph has set them up to fail, however, and the spoiled brat bully of a young king is about to throw a royal temper and turn them all into ornaments. Only a quick change of plans from Dorothy saves them, but now the king wants them to be his BFFs (or at least until, as Guph points out, Roquat gets tired of them and turns them into ornaments). Another of Roquat's presents might help them escape after all, but Roquat gets wind of it and starts up on another temper. But through the course of events, they all discover that Guph is planning a coup to overthrow Roquat and take the throne for himself. Roquat throws his lot in with Dorothy and escapes with them, but none of them notice that Dorothy's magic journal has fallen off the sandboat and is still in the nome kingdom.
Meanwhile, Glinda and Ojo are helping West tap into and control her powers. West is frustrated that she can't get anything to work, but Glinda points out how many other magicians before her have failed before they finally broke through and succeeded. Then, looking back on when she was able to use her magic, West and Ojo realize that Dorothy was present every time.
It's still early in this part of the season, so there's still lots of set-up to manage that will probably pay off big later. At least they know the sandboat works, and the end of the episode sees them sailing off towards the Emerald City. One new reference to the books is Glinda's roster of magic workers who succeeded before they failed, which included herself, Ozma, the Wizard, and Blinkie of Jinxland.
Yes, I'm still reading the 1994 issue of Oziana out of order, but at least this week I got to the first story! "Billy Bumble of Oz" by Jane Albright, with illustrations by Eric Shanower, is a tribute to long-time Oz Club member and artist Bill Eubank. Bill also put on puppet shows at Oz conventions, often in the guise of the clown Billy Bumble. In this story, Billy Harris is a regular kid whose best friend happens to be an old lady, Mary Jane, with a terrific and busy garden and a story room full of Oz books which she has read to him. Billy is trying to think of an act for the school talent show, and Mary Jane suggests a puppet show about Oz. One of the inspirations is Mary Jane's old clown puppet, Billy Bumble, whom she discovers in an old trunk. After weeks of work creating puppets and rehearsing, all is ready, but Ozma's dress keeps getting tangled up in the strings. So Mary Jane finds her old Ozmite Club pin (yes, an actual club from the 1920s) to pin it up. That night, after Billy has gone home, Mary Jane gets a visit from an old childhood friend, the Scarecrow! It's time for her to go back to Oz. The next night, Billy's parents hide the news of the disappearance of Mary Jane and her house from Billy, so as to not upset him before the talent show. He puts the pin on Ozma, and all the puppets come to life! They're all a bit confused at first, but it turns out that Mary Jane's Ozmite pin was enchanted, allowing the wearer to return to Oz. Well, it didn't quite work out that way this time. The Oz characters decide to help out Billy and the puppet show is a success, even though the Oz characters reveal that Mary Jane is back in Oz and won't see it. Before Billy removes the pin, Ozma decides to alter its enchantment so that it will bring Billy Bumble to life. Billy Bumbles' new job is to train Billy Harris to be a clown!
This is a terrific little love letter to Oz and its fans, and the power of imagination and belief. The timeline doesn't quite work as an origin story for Bill Eubank, but it's still a loving tribute to the man. I never met him myself, but I know many who did, and I suspect Bill would approve strongly of this story.
Is it just coincidence that this happens in today's Yaffle only days after this book is published? Well, yes, it probably is, actually.
This story makes it official: Dorothy (well, this version, at least) is now a Princess of Oz. This means she has royal duties, and so she must take the magical mandolin to Munchkinland for their music festival. How is it magical? Play it during the day, and it makes everyone dance. Play it at night, and it puts them into a trance! As Dorothy sets out, we discover two eavesdroppers: flying monkeys Frank and Lyman! (Yes, they did indeed name the two comic relief flying monkeys after the Royal Historian's first and middle names. It just goes to show how well the creators of this show know the books!) They report back to Wilhelmina, the Wicked Witch of the West's niece. (Quick backstory: It seems the Wicked Witch of the West is trapped in the crystal ball, so she's trying to convince Wilhelmina to steal the Ruby Slippers and use them to free her. Then she can conquer the world, but she has to make Wilhelmina a princess to get her to cooperate.) The report gets garbled, however, and Wilhelmina just thinks the Mandolin will put people in a trance. (Let's just say Frank and, especially, Lyman aren't the brightest colored crayons in the box.) Wilhelmina steals the Mandolin, but has no luck until the Scarecrow let's the secret out of the bag, and the Lion, somehow, cases night to come around almost instantly. (Did I mention this cartoon plays things a lot more for laughs? This sequence pretty much comes out of the old Looney Tunes playbook.) Wilhelmina gets to Munchkinland and puts everyone in a trance, but Dorothy has the foresight to cover her ears, gets the Mandolin, and turn the tables on Wilhelmina. Dorothy sends Wilhelmina flying home, a few quick words from the Lion makes it day again, and the Munchkin Music Festival continues with everybody dancing to the Mandolin's music.
Another fun one, so long as you're not taking things too seriously (and with this cartoon, you really shouldn't). But more than once, Dorothy uses the Ruby Slippers to chase after Wilhelmina, quickly get away from Wilhelmina, or otherwise make a quick change of scenery. So my question is, why didn't Dorothy just use the Slippers to get to Munchkinland in the first place? Or, if she wanted to wander around and play tourist for a but, why didn't she use them to finish her journey the moment Wilhelmina showed up? Ah, but then I doubt there would be much of a story to tell.
It appears that in Rex Morgan, M. D., Rex is on a road trip through the central part of the United States. Today, he went through Kansas, where one of his stops appears to be this place.
Long Story Short today has an Oz character in today's comic. (I don't think I can say much more without giving it away!) So go look already!
Prisoners of the Nomes, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and Toto are put to work sorting and recycling King Roquat's birthday presents (he gets so many he can't really use them all). A month later, their plans for escape are nearly completed, but General Guph calls their bluff and appoints them the entertainment for the King's forthcoming next birthday party. Meanwhile, in the Emerald City, West is dealing with the aftermath of her final battle with her aunt Langwidere. It seems West has developed nonelemental magic powers, which shouldn't be possible. West is having difficulties controlling them, as they only come out when she is angry or asleep. Her mother tries to convince West to not tell anyone about them, but West tells a doctor, who in turns tells the Nomes! Ojo figures out something's wrong with West and goes to Glinda for help. After a Nome tries to kidnap West, her mother realizes that she can't help her by herself, and so puts West in Glinda's charge for training.
Not a lot actually happens in this episode, but it's definitely setting stuff up to further the story down the road. A few touches from the books include a bun from Bunbury, a fork from Utensia, and a Hammerhead all showing up in a commercial, the doctor's degree from Evoldo University, and Cyra's pet name for her daughter, West: Mifket.
Lost in Oz isn't the only new Oz cartoon around right now. Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, originally part of Boomerang's streaming service, is now also being broadcast on Boomerang's cable channel, so the DVR is full of episodes right now. The basic premise appears to be that Dorothy, having found the Ruby Slippers, has come back to Oz, and is living in the palace with Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cawardly Lion, andher new BFF, Queen Ozma. These cartoons are a lot shorter, and are aimed at a younger crowd than Lost in Oz. Also, DatWoO (to use an awkward abbreviation) seems to go more for comedy than adventure. So, let's dive in! The first story (and the only on that you can watch for free on Boomerang's website is "Beware the Woozy". That title alone ought to excite fans of the books! Ozma receives her newest potion from the Potion of the Month Club, a perfume of petrification. While the Scarecrow is looking for the directions, Dorothy spritzes it on her, turning Ozma into a statue! Whoops! Fortunately, the Scarecrow finds the antidote, and a six-leafed clover (!), bark from a Fighting Tree, and a Daisy from Munchkinland (and not, as the Scarecrow discovers, a Munchkin named Daisy) are quickly gathered, but the final ingredient, three hairs from a Woozy's tail, is tougher to find, as the only Woozy is enclosed in a pen. Dorothy uses the Ruby Slippers to get them over the fence, and the big, furry, friendly, yellow (!) Woozy gives them three hairs. (No, the design of the Woozy is not even anywhere near what he's like in the books, one of the few drawbacks I've seen in this show.) Meanwhile, while all this is going on, the Nome King decides to take over the throne of Oz, and orders the people of the Emerald City to paint the castle yellow. Some kind of magic barrier keeps the Ruby Slippers from taking everyone out of the Woozy's barrier, so they eventually rig up the Tin Woodman as a steam-powered rocket that carries them all back to the Emerald City, where Dorothy tricks the Nome King into whispering to the Woozy. Since whispering drives the Woozy into fits of anger with fire flashing out of his eyes, he manages to drive off the Nome King, giving Dorothy a chance to brew the antidote and restore Ozma. The Woozy is welcomed, and the palace gardens are made a no whispeing zone.
Phew! That's a lot to pack into only eleven minutes! Anyway, if you step in with the right mindset, this is harmless fun, and lots of Ozziness abounds. This Oz is a mashup of The Movie and aspects of the books, which ought to appeal to many. Besides the Woozy (who's actually pretty chill when nobedy's whispering), Ozma, and the Nome King, we're also introduced to the Tin Woodman's hollow chest of many things, which has all kinds of useful things in it (we'll see more of this in later episodes).
Yes! It's back for the second half of the first season! So naturally I'm going to watch and blog the next thirteen episodes of Lost in Oz. (I may not do them every day, however, and the viewings may get interspersed with other shows that I will talk about when they come up.) As you may remember, when we left off, Dorothy, Toto, and the Scarecrow didn't make it back to Kansas after all. Instead, the house had landed in a desert. Well, at the top of this episode, Scarecrow confirms that it's the Deadly Desert, and Dorothy is frustrated at getting lost again. Nevertheless, she tries to find a solution, and eventually spots a signal from a lighthouse. She uses the bathroom mirror to signal it, and eventually a high-tech flying carpet (which looks a lot like a metallic articulated manta ray!) comes for them. They head off towards the lighthouse, but the Wheelers come after them. They almost shake them off, but in the struggle Dorothy falls into the desert—and nothing much appears to happen to her. A sand ghost surrounds her, however, and scares off the Wheelers. So far so good, until Dorothy spots a distant lunch pail tree and heads towards it. Trouble is, Scarecrow and Toto can't. Toto follows anyway, and he and Dorothy enjoy a meal and are eventually joined by Ojo, West, and Dorothy's mother. It's the latter image that casts doubts in Dorothy's mind, and she realizes it's all a mirage, but it's very convincing and nearly stays anyway. Only Scarecrow swooping in on the carpet shakes her up enough to notice they're really sand ghosts. Fortunately, Dorothy and Scarecrow arrive at the lighthouse, which is on rock that the sand ghosts can't travel on. Our little group is safe, but they have a gauntlet of pounding fists to get through (the Lost in Oz version of the Giant with the Hammer, I'm guessing) before finally finding out where they are—as General Guph welcomes them to the Nome Kingdom, and he has plans to present Dorothy to his king.
So it's off to a slow but promising start. The sand ghosts are a creepy new addition to tho Oz mythos, and Dorothy's scream of frustration behind a closed door before coming out again to take charge of things is right on. We don't see what's happening back in the Emerald City, but it looks like we will in the next episode.
Two popular but not-wholly-sotisfactory-book-adaptation films of the 1930s meet in today's Pop Culture Shock Therapy. (Had that been the book Scarecrow, it wouldn't have been an issue, as the Wizard was at least smart enough to put something in the Scarecrow's head to make him believe he had a brain.)
No, that's not a typo, I actually read two stories this week—or rather, two second parts of the same first part I read last week. Yes, I decided to start off the 1994 edition of Oziana with the two winning ending's to last issue's contest to provide an ending for Eric Shanower's story "The Silver Jug". As you may recall, Glinda's maid Amanda has a somewhat flighty and impetuous nature which is affecting her work, so Glinda gave her a sealed silver jug to care for while Glinda was in the Emerald City for three days. The first ending is by Margaret Berg, and in it Amanda leaves the jug on a table in a sunny room. The sun heat up the silver and melted the wax, causing it to pop open when Amanda knocked it over while dusting! All kinds of trumpet and bell flowers fall out, creating a terrible din. But with help from one of the other maids, Amanda gets it all put back together and the jug sealed. When Glinda returns, she hears the whole story, and decides that Amanda would fit in better working for the Tin Woodman, so Amanda becomes Nick Chopper's new housekeeper.
The second ending is by Fred Otto, and involves Amanda's curiosity leading her to the Great Book of Records, only to discover that the Book has stopped! It turns out, however, that the entries are now appearing in the silver jug, so when Amanda opens the jug, sentences start appearing in the Book again! With the Book giving away the fact that she opened the jug, Amanda and another friend try to set things right. Some clever thinking and a little word play take care of things, and Amanda gets to keep her job, but with her friend Maxine mentoring her.
Both endings are clever and very Ozzy, and I'm glad that, in both cases, Amanda not only showed initiative in taking care of her own problems, she also found the right people to help her.
A trio for you today, although only one of them is current for today:
Going back, the second story in the 1993 issue of Oziana (and the last one I will be reporting on for this issue) is "The Silver Jug", written and illustrated by EricShanower. Amanda is a young Gillikin woman who gets a coveted job as one of Glinda's handmaidens. Only trouble is, she's a little impulsive, and prone to straying from her tasks or doing them her own way. Glinda patiently guides her, but finally decides that Amanda needs to learn some control. Glinda gives Amanda a sealed silver jug to look after while Glinda is off to the Emerald City for a few days, entrusting Amanda with its contents—and then the story ends! It's a finish-the-story contest, so I'm writing it up now so that the next thing I can read is the winning conclusions in the 1994 issue, but you only have to wait a week.
I will wrap up this look at the 1993 issue with the one other non-story extra, the cover by Bill Eubanks. It depicts the Fab Five from The Movie carved into a mountain, looking not at all unlike Mt. Rushmore, with a trio of Munchkins at the base admiring the view.
Man, they really like The Wizard of Oz over at Pop Culture Shock Therapy, because this is already the second one this month! But at least Scarecrow's new brain is already working.
Oh, good, Steve Artley has an Oz political cartoon that doesn't have to do with Donald Trump's "witch hunt" accusations. Still, it does say a lot about one of Trump's current signature policies.
This edition of Rhymes with Orange started showing up all over my Facebook feed yesterday. Since I'm a regular Rhymes with Orange reader, I thought it might have been an old one, but then I noticed the 2018 copyright. So I then concluded that these people had gotten the early editions of their local Sunday papers. Sure enough, I finally saw the online version in my feed this morning.
I'm impressed with the pun in the final balloon, but I'm worried about how many readers are going to understand it. After all, most people know The Wizard of Oz only as a movie. (True story: Someone actually wrote to me once asking if Baum wrote the novelization of The Movie.) L. Frank Baum is no longer as well known as his creations.
All kinds of Oz TV alerts!
I skipped the second story in the 1993 edition of Oziana for reasons I will explain next week, so this week is the third and final story, "Jubulut" by Onyx Madden. Madden was a beloved figure in Oz circles who wrote The Mysterious Chronicles of Oz, and "Jubulut" is an excerpt from his next book, which sadly remains unpublished, as Madden died not long after this was published. Presumably he never completed the book. But what we do get is our American heroine, Robin (a name Oziana editor Robin Olderman was jealous of, as she wanted to have adventures in Oz, too), has made her way onto a cloud so that she can cross the Deadly Desert into Ev. She meets Tracey, one of Polychrome's less adventurous sisters, lounging on top. Good thing, too, as a yagmur starts to suck the water from their cloud. (Yagmurs are nearly invisible flying cloud eaters, of course.) They scare off the yagmur, but the cloud needs some TLC to continue the journey. Tracey takes them to Jubulut, the cloud tender, and Robin and Tracey have some fun exploring Jubulut's palace while they wait for their ride. And that's about it! As a little slice-of-life tale, it's fun, but it's disappointing that the book has never been published.
It's another two-fer!
