Submitted for your approval: One L. Frank Baum. A man who had many successes and failures in life, but like our Mr. Rod Serling, is most famous not in autobiographical history, but for creating a dimension of wonder. One, similar to the Twilight Zone, has outlived its creator and became an instant component in Americana. The place I am referring to, of course, is OZ.
Rumour speculates Baum discovered the name from an implausible source, a dictionary bearing the script O to Z. However, what is known is when Baum created The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, it had promptly spawned several sequels about this mystical land and its people.
The tale is rather a simple one at best: a young girl and her dog have inexplicably transported to another realm by means of a cyclone. Once there, she inadvertently saves the inhabitants from one wicked witch by dropping in on her. As she discovers her predicament, she encounters the Good Witch of the North, and given the former Witch's magic slippers.
Thus she embarks on her quest to locate OZ himself, the Wizard who can help her return back to her own realm known as Kansas. Upon her journey, Dorothy, with her dog, Toto, come across three bizarre individuals: The Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Each with a request for our intrepid Wizard: a brain, a heart and some courage.
Thus, they promptly transverse the Yellow Brick Road to go to the Emerald City, stumbling across unusual dangers, such as Kalidahs and the Infamous Poppy Field. Despite the technicolor vision produced by MGM. the real story behind OZ appears more enchanting, if not more curious.
For instance, in the case of the Tin Man, he was not originally a victim of the Wicked Witch of the West as the film would have you surmise. But instead, he was an unwittingly victim of the former Witch of the East, all for the love of a Munchkin girl. Where, like our Cybermen and Borg, our poor woodchopper ends up replacing his body from flesh and blood to tin, due to an enchanted axe. Afterwards, discovering in his haste for interchanging his missing parts, he now realizes he lacks one thing making him once human: a heart.
Another tale altered is Dorothy's encounter with the Wicked Witch of the West, where in this one, though she employs the Flying Monkeys to capture her. The tale actually has our Wicked protagonist have the flying simians dispatch of the Scarecrow and Tin Man, whereas Dorothy is spared by the North Witch's kiss, and the Lion due to the fact the West Witch wants him for her beast of burden.
Enslaving the child of Kansas and imprisoning the Lion, the West Witch attempts getting the slippers from Dorothy. But is felled when she causes Dorothy to trip over an invisible, iron bar and obtains one of the slippers. Angered by the witch, Dorothy throws the bucket of water upon her. Thus, our fiendish sorceress ends up being melted and washed away, freeing the Winkies from her once-cruel reign.
Though much later, in the Emerald City, when the Wizard is revealed to be nothing more than a charlatan from Kansas as well, Dorothy does not use the slippers as the film indicates right away. The Wizard does make good with giving our trio what they think they need, and promises to take Dorothy home via his air balloon. But when Toto, and a fated gust of wind, throw a monkey wrench into the works. Our group actually embark upon a new journey, one which takes them through a land where the beings are composed of China. A forest besieged by a giant spider, and a mountain inhabited by strange, men with shooting heads.
Until they finally reach the Land of the South, where they meet Glinda the Good. She not only informs Dorothy how to return back home, but helps the Scarecrow return to the Emerald City, the Tin Man to the Land of the Winkies and the Lion back to the Forest.
Though I apologize for the long exposition, it does seem fascinating how this tale began on such simplicity. Only later to spawn more tales about the wondrous land, for in the Land of OZ, we meet beings like Tip, Jack Pumpkinhead, and a new witch known as Mombi (who, despite many versions, has no relation to the other Wicked Witches). Not to mention, Ozma as well. Here Tip must save OZ, not from Mombi, in general, but a rebellion from an all-girl army upon the Emerald City.
Afterwards came countless of other sequels about this magical realm, with a plethora of inhabitants and assorted items only one could dare imagine. But once again, I tend to digress.
As with our favourite dimension, OZ mysteriously has ingrained itself into a multitude of sequels as well as unexpected catalysts for other fantastic tales. Submitted for your approval: L. Frank Baum's The Magic of OZ, becomes a nightmarish tome for a school teacher in Zenna Henderson's "The Believing Child." In this intrepid story, the child is Dempsey, who believes anything she is told, and regrettably discovers an OZ phrase, "Pyrzqxgl," enabling her to perform actual feats of magic. Especially for transforming some mischievious boys into rocks. I have to agree with Dempsey's mother, 'the thing they print in children's books these days.'
Fanger and his son, Fanstar, have also visited this Land Over the Rainbow. Of course, whereas Fangarius visited a more conventional version of OZ (pre-Land of OZ days), Fanstar ends up visting a futuristic version in "Atomic Baum." Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew also came across OZ, in "The OZ/Wonderland War." Where the Nome King has taken over OZ and plans on invading Looking Glass Country, thus the Cheshire Cat enlists their help, and his assisted by Dorothy for this mission.
There have also been other versions of the realm as well from other countries, as with Dorothy of OZ, where a young girl known as Mara ends up in an altered-dimension of the Land Over the Rainbow, where the Witches are now scientists, the Scarecrow's a genetic clone, The Tin Man a cyborg, and the Lion's a cowardly lycanthrope.In this tale, Mara has the strange ability into transforming herself into a witch thanks to a pair of strange boots. Unlike Baum's tale, the Lands are now at constant war, and Mara must seek out the Wizard not for just returning her home, but hopefully establishing peace in this altered reality.
Nevertheless, now in its 7th decade, it's amazing how, as with our favourite otherly-dimension, the Twilight Zone, OZ has endured and will also remain another realm beyond our imagination and still exist somewhere over the rainbow...
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