The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children's novel written by American author L. Frank Baum. Since its first publication in 1900, it has been adapted many times by L. Frank Baum and others: for film, television, theatre, books, comics, games, and other media.
Baum was responsible for many early adaptations, including the 1902 musical The Wizard of Oz, which was an enormous success on Broadway. The casting of comedians Fred Stone as the Scarecrow and David C. Montgomery as the Tin Woodman was especially praised.[1] Baum featured the two characters in his second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), with the hopes of turning that into a stage play as well, with Stone and Montgomery in the lead roles.[2] When the two actors declined to participate, Baum rewrote the story as The Woggle-Bug in 1905, which was a critical and commercial failure.[3]
Following this, Baum was responsible for several more adaptations of the Oz series. His 1906 multimedia presentation, The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, toured for two months.[4] A further musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, was staged in 1913. Baum also began a short-lived film company, The Oz Manufacturing Company, and released three short films, beginning with The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1914.[5]
The most celebrated adaptation of the Oz books is the 1939 MGM musical starring Judy Garland, which has been hailed as the most-seen film in movie history.[6] Other notable film adaptations include The Wiz (1978), Return to Oz (1985), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Another notable production is the 2003 Broadway and West End musical Wicked, based on the book by Gregory Maguire.
| Name | Format | Original Release Date | Short summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays | Live action | September 24, 1908 | Multimedia presentation made by L. Frank Baum which featured the young silent film actress Romola Remus. | |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | Live action | March 24, 1910 | 15-minute 1910 film, based on the 1902 stage musical, directed by Otis Turner, and may have featured Bebe Daniels as Dorothy. It was followed by three now-lost films also directed by Turner: Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz, The Land of Oz, and John Dough and the Cherub, based on another Baum novel of the same name. | |
| The Patchwork Girl of Oz | Live action | September 28, 1914 | This is an adaptation produced by Baum's live-action motion picture company, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. It follows the adventures of Ojo, Unc Nunkie, and Patchwork Girl in their quest for the ingredients needed for a magic potion. The film is partially lost due to a missing scene early in the film. | |
| His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz | Live action | September 28, 1914 | This is an adaptation by Baum via the Oz Film Manufacturing Company that became the basis for the book The Scarecrow of Oz. | |
| The Magic Cloak of Oz | Live action | September 28, 1914 | Another 1914 adaptation in the series produced by Baum himself via The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. It follows the story of Fluff, the unhappiest person in Oz, and a magic cloak fairies devised for him to grant her one wish. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Live action | April 13, 1925 | Directed by Larry Semon in collaboration with Frank Joslyn Baum and featuring a young Oliver Hardy. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Animation | June 19, 1933 | Animated short film directed by Ted Eshbaugh. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Live action | August 25, 1939 | The famous 1939 musical film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Frank Morgan. It is the story's best-known adaptation and the version about which most cultural references to the story are based. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Live action | 1967 | A black and white Soviet adaptation. While borrowing some elements from Alexander Volkov's retelling, it is considered an adaptation of Baum's book and is titled accordingly | |
| The Wonderful Land of Oz | Live action | October 31, 1969 | A low-budget children's film adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz directed by Barry Mahon. | |
| Journey Back to Oz | Animation | December 14, 1972 | Begun in 1962, finished in 1971 and eventually released between 1972 and 1974. It features Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland, as the voice of Dorothy. | |
| The Wiz | Live action | October 24, 1978 | Directed by Sidney Lumet starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow, based on the Broadway musical of the same name. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Animation | July 1, 1982 | Anime adaptation of the story produced by Toho in 1982 and directed by Fumihiko Takayama, with music by Joe Hisaishi. The English version of the movie stars Aileen Quinn as the voice of Dorothy and Lorne Greene as the Wizard. Original songs are sung by Aileen Quinn in the English version, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrnes. In the U.S., it was released on video and syndicated to local television stations. | |
| Return to Oz | Live action | June 21, 1985 | A 1985 film by Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Walter Murch and starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. | |
| Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz | Animation | November 18, 1987 | Direct-to video animated film produced by Kushner-Locke. | |
| W krainie czarnoksiężnika Oza | Animation | c. 1988 | Polish series of theatrical shorts adapting The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz, produced by Se-ma-for and starring as voice of the Dorothy and Piotr Fronczewski as the voice of Scarecrow. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Animation | 1991 | Direct-to-video animated film produced by American Film Investment Corporation. | |
| Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz | Animation | August 23, 2011 | This is a Tom and Jerry direct-to-video film which first appeared on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2011. It was followed by a sequel, , released June 21, 2016. | |
| Oz the Great and Powerful | Live action | March 8, 2013 | 2013 film by Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Sam Raimi and starring James Franco, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis. | |
| Animation | May 9, 2014 | American-Indian 3D animated musical adaptation of Dorothy of Oz by Roger S. Baum and stars Lea Michele. | ||
| Guardians of Oz | Animation | April 10, 2015 | Mexican-Indian 3D computer-animated adventure film directed by Alberto Mar. It features an original story and new characters. | |
| Animation | June 21, 2016 | Direct-to-video film, sequel to Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz. | ||
| The Steam Engines of Oz | Animation | June 5, 2018 | Canadian Animated film directed by Sean O'Reilly which is produced by Arcana Studio. It tells the story of Oz a hundred years later and features new characters as well as old ones.[7] |
| Name | Format | Original Release Date | Short summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Wizard of Mars | Live action | 1965 | Low budget science fiction film takeoff of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz co-written and directed by stage magician David L. Hewitt. | |
| Fantasía... 3 | Anthology | 1966 | A Spanish anthology film using a portion of Baum's original novel in one of its sequences. | |
| Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde | Live action | 1971 | A Turkish film directed by Tunç Başaran and known to bootleggers as "The Turkish Wizard of Oz". | |
| Oz | Live action | July 29, 1976 | Australian rock musical film, also known as Oz – A Rock 'n' Roll Road Movie or 20th Century Oz. | |
| Os Trapalhões e o Mágico de Oróz | Live action | June 21, 1984 | Brazilian parody of Wizard of the Oz. | |
| Mamo, czy kury potrafią mówić? | Live action/Animation | July 10, 1998 | Polish loose adaptation of Ozma of Oz produced by Se-ma-for and starring Leon Niemczyk as voice of Awidor.[8] | |
| Apocalypse Oz | Live action | 2006 | short film parody of The Wizard of Oz and Apocalypse Now. | |
| After the Wizard | Live action | July 2, 2011 | Independent film as a modern-day semi-sequel to the story. | |
| Dorothy and the Witches of Oz | Live action | February 17, 2012 | Edited together out of the 2011 miniseries Witches of Oz (see below under "Television"). The film version removed about an hour of footage and updated the visual effects. | |
| OzLand | Live action | September 4, 2014 | Independent fantasy/sci-fi drama film inspired by characters and events from the book, which plays a crucial role. |
In addition to his books, Baum also wrote Oz-related stage plays: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1901) with music by Paul Tietjens and Nathaniel D. Mann, The Wizard of Oz (1902) (music by Tietjens et al.; with jokes by Glen MacDonough), The Woggle-Bug (1905) with music by Frederick Chapin, The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love (February 1909) with music by Manuel Klein, revised in April 1909 as Ozma of Oz, and ultimately produced, with music by Louis F. Gottschalk as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Also in 1909, he wrote a play called The Girl from Oz. The manuscript is held in the archives at Syracuse University, but apparently its relation to Oz is little more than nominal (it is also known as The Girl from Tomorrow and was later adapted for radio by Frank Joslyn Baum), as is also the case with the short story, "The Littlest Giant", a rather brutal tale designated in two lines to be in the Gillikin country of Oz. With Gottschalk writing the music, he wrote an unproduced stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz in November 1913, that was developed into the film scenario.
| Name | Lyrics by | Premiere date | Short summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum | Unpublished | A stage play closely based on the novel, featuring songs with music by Paul Tietjens. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum W. W. Denslow | June 16, 1902 | This was the first musical version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz produced by L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow (with music by composer Paul Tietjens) in Chicago in 1902 and moved to New York in 1903. It used many of the same characters, and was aimed more at adult audiences. It had a long, successful run on Broadway. Baum added numerous political references to the script, mentioning President Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Mark Hanna, and John D. Rockefeller by name.[9] Many existing songs that had nothing to do with the story were interpolated. | |
| The Woggle-Bug | L. Frank Baum Arthur Gillespie | June 18, 1905 | A stage musical based on The Marvelous Land of Oz, with music by Frederic Chapin. Reviews praised only Chapin and the show never opened on Broadway. It was also panned as a rehash rather than a sequel to "The Wizard of Oz". | |
| The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love | L. Frank Baum | Never produced | A stage musical, music by Manuel Klein, based on Ozma of Oz and The Road to Oz. | |
| Ozma of Oz | L. Frank Baum | Never produced | A revised draft of The Rainbow's Daughter. | |
| The Girl from Oz | L. Frank Baum | Never produced | While this is a play by Baum, the connection to Oz is reported as minimal. Held in the L. Frank Baum Papers at Syracuse University; later adapted for radio as The Girl of Tomorrow by Frank Joslyn Baum. | |
| The Tik-Tok Man of Oz | L. Frank Baum Oliver Morosco | March 31, 1913 | The final version of The Rainbow's Daughter, now with music by Louis F. Gottschalk, as produced by Oliver Morosco. Morosco and Victor Schertzinger interpolated two songs of their own, but the production was not a big enough success for Morosco to want to move it to New York. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Yip Harburg | 1942 | This musical uses songs from the 1939 film. It was adapted by Frank Gabrielson for the St. Louis Municipal Opera. The piece continues to receive frequent revivals.[10] [11] | |
| The Wiz | Charlie Smalls Zachary Walzer Luther Vandross | October 21, 1974 | The musical exclusively features African American actors with music and lyrics are by Charlie Smalls. Stephanie Mills starred as Dorothy in the original Broadway cast. The production won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Musical. Geoffrey Holder directed a 1984 Broadway revival, which also featured Mills as Dorothy. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Yip Harburg | 1987 | An adaptation by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company based on the novel and 1939 film, which hews more closely to the film's screenplay than the 1942 version. This show ran through 1989 and continues to be frequently revived and toured.[12] [13] | |
| The Wizard of A.I.D.S. | 1987 | An adaptation of the Oz story which serves as an AIDS education tool. | ||
| The Wizard of Oz on Ice | 1995 | A Kenneth Feld production that toured from 1995 to 1999, based on the film and was choreographed by Robin Cousins. It featured a pre-recorded soundtrack with the voice of Laurena Wilkerson as Dorothy and narration by Bobby McFerrin.[14] It toured nationally and internationally and was broadcast in 1996 with Oksana Baiul skating as Dorothy[15] and Victor Petrenko as the Scarecrow, with Bobby McFerrin both narrating and appearing as the Wizard. Shanice was the prerecorded voice of Dorothy in the TV broadcast.[16] | ||
| November 22, 1995 | This was a concert performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation at Lincoln Center, featuring celebrity actors such as Jewel as Dorothy, Jackson Browne as the Scarecrow, Roger Daltrey as the Tin Man, Nathan Lane as the Lion, and Joel Grey as the Wizard (a role he later reprised in Wicked). The production also featured Debra Winger, Natalie Cole, and Lucie Arnaz. | |||
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | James P. Doyle Joe Cascone | October 27, 2000 | Premiering in Toronto in 2000, this musical was revived in 2002, 2010 and again in 2017. | |
| Wicked | Stephen Schwartz | June 10, 2003 | This Broadway and West End musical is based on the book by Gregory Maguire. Universal Pictures had bought film rights to the 1995 novel when composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz convinced the company to adapt the novel into a musical instead. Schwartz wrote Wickeds music and lyrics and it premiered on Broadway in October 2003.[17] | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Yip Harburg Tim Rice | March 1, 2011 | West End musical, building on the 1939 film songs and script with new material by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It began previews on February 7, 2011 and officially opened on March 1. Danielle Hope, of the BBC television Series Over the Rainbow, appeared as Dorothy. Michael Crawford plays the role of the Wizard. | |
| The Woodsman | James Ortiz Edward W. Hardy Jennifer Loring | 2012 | Off-Broadway play with minimal dialog and bunraku puppetry retelling the origin story of the Tin Woodsman. A pro-shot was released on BroadwayHD in 2016. |
Many of the television programs cited in this list are not strict adaptions of The Wizard of Oz; rather, they have reinterpreted aspects of the book, such as characters and plot, to create sequels, prequels or side-plots, which are inspired by Baum's original text. This section does not include single episodes from a larger unrelated series.
| Name | Format | Start date | End date | Short summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tales of the Wizard of Oz | Animated series | September 1, 1961 | December 1961 | Animated series of short episodes based on the Oz characters from the book. | |
| Return to Oz | Special | February 9, 1964 | Animated television special sequel-remake of the 1939 film, based on the artistic renderings of the characters in the 1961 animated series. | ||
| Off to See the Wizard | Anthology | 1967 | 1968 | A 1967 television anthology series which showcased then-recent MGM family films. The Oz characters appeared in animated segments. | |
| Manga Sekai Mukashi Banashi | Anthology | May 3, 1978 | May 24, 1978 | An anime television anthology, has a four 10-minute episodes adaptation. | |
| Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz | Special | November 15, 1980 | Animated television Thanksgiving special. Retitled Dorothy in the Land of Oz in future airings. | ||
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | Animated series | October 6, 1986 | September 28, 1987 | This anime adaptation consists of 52 episodes and follows the story of Dorothy and her adventures in Oz with the Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow. It continues on to the story of Ozma and Mombi, and follows the events in other Oz books. In 1987, HBO purchased the rights to the series and edited together key episodes of the series into a series of movies, which aired as a television mini-series. Production for the English version was done by the Canadian studio Cinar. | |
| The Wizard of Oz | Animated series | September 8, 1990 | December 28, 1990 | An animated series based on the 1939 film, was broadcast on ABC during the 1990–1991 TV season. The cartoon featured Dorothy returning to Oz, reuniting with her four friends, and journeying through the magical realm in an attempt to rescue the Wizard from a resurrected Witch of the West. | |
| The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz | Animated series | October 5, 1992 | April 4, 1993 | Japanese anime series involving Dorothy and her friends in a futuristic setting, traveling the "Galaxy of Oz". It was truncated to 76 minutes and dubbed for the American release. | |
| World Fairy Tale Series | Anthology | September 29, 1995 | Anime television anthology produced by Toei Animation, has half-hour adaptation. | ||
| The Oz Kids | Animated series | October 1, 1996 | February 18, 1997 | Animated series by Paramount Pictures and Hyperion Pictures featuring the children of the original characters. | |
| The Muppets' Wizard of Oz | Television film | May 20, 2005 | Starring Ashanti, Queen Latifah and The Muppets. Miss Piggy plays all of the witches, Pepe plays Toto, Kermit plays the Scarecrow, Gonzo plays the Tin Man, and Fozzie plays the Lion. | ||
| Tin Man | Miniseries | December 2, 2007 | December 4, 2007 | Three-part miniseries released on the Sci-fi Channel by RHI Entertainment. The miniseries, directed by Nick Willing and starring Zooey Deschanel, Richard Dreyfuss, Alan Cumming, Raoul Trujillo, Neal McDonough, and Kathleen Robertson, is a re-imagined future version of The Wizard of Oz. The heroine, D.G., is a descendant of Dorothy Gale. Other humans, called "Slippers" by the people of Oz, have visited Oz since Gale's fateful adventure. | |
| Witches of Oz | Miniseries | 2012 | Television mini-series directed by Leigh Scott, based on the novels The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Road to Oz, and The Magic of Oz by Baum. | ||
| Lost in Oz | Animated series | June 26, 2015 | June 8, 2018 | On June 26, 2015, Amazon Video released an original 24-minute pilot for an animated series, Lost in Oz. On November 2, 2016, it was re-released with additional content under the title Lost in Oz: Extended Adventure. The two seasons series aired on August 4, 2017. | |
| The Wiz Live! | Special | December 3, 2015 | Produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, it is a performance of a new adaptation of the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, a soul/R&B reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The performance aired live from Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York.[18] [19] | ||
| Emerald City | Television series | January 6, 2017 | March 3, 2017 | Created by Matthew Arnold for 10 episodes.[20] [21] In August 2014, it was reported that NBC would not be proceeding with the series.[22] In April 2015, NBC reversed course and announced that the series would move forward under the leadership of executive producer and writer David Schulner.[23] | |
| Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz | Animated series | June 29, 2017 | July 31, 2020 | Animated series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It was released in June 2017 for Boomerang's SVOD service.[24] Clips of the series were revealed in the Boomerang upfront for 2017.[25] |
The following are strictly limited to Wizard of Oz themed imagery:
| Artist | Song name | Release date | Short summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nirvana | Heart-Shaped Box | August 30, 1993 | Nirvana's video makes extensive use of symbolism, much of which touches on Oz themes and imagery. The bulk of the video takes place in a field of fake poppies. The video also shows a stand of 'spooky' trees, and a pointed hat sinking into a puddle, which bear a resemblance to the 1939 film. Additionally, there are multiple shots of a man suspended in a crucified position from a rough cross and adorned with ravens in a manner more suggestive of a scarecrow.[26] [27] | |
| Blues Traveler | Run-Around | February 28, 1995 | The music video for "Run-Around" has a Wizard of Oz motif, with Blues Traveler playing behind a curtain in a nightclub while a young, "hip" and more "photogenic" group appears to be playing the song. | |
| Sara Evans | Born to Fly | June 26, 2000 | Sara Evans stars as Dorothy in her music video "Born to Fly". | |
| De La Soul | Oooh. | July 10, 2000 | The music video shows the "Land of Oooh", which is heavily based on the Land of Oz. | |
| Toy-Box | Wizard of Oz | July 28, 2001 | Romantic song about a girl finding her true love (her "Wizard") who welcomes her to the "Land of Oz". | |
| The Good Life | Heartbroke | September 11, 2007 | The music video has characters from The Wizard of Oz going to a pastry/ice cream shop. There are two versions to this video; a "nice" version and a "mean" version. In the "nice" version the characters pretend to rob the shop but then purchase treats. In the "mean" version they violently rob the store, but the Scarecrow does not make it on time due to a flat tire and the would-be robbers get arrested. | |
| The Black Eyed Peas | Imma Be Rocking That Body | January 12, 2010 | The music video is claimed to be the futuristic version of The Wizard of Oz.[28] | |
| Tech N9ne | He's A Mental Giant | May 4, 2011 | This song follows the plot to the Wizard of Oz with darker imagery. | |
| Naughty Boy | La la la | May 13, 2013 | The music video featuring Sam Smith shows a young boy traveling around a city meeting characters resembling the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow. |
See main article: List of Oz books.