Talk:The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Differences between the movie and the book
It would be nice if someone could contrast the movie and book. I mean, I was shocked to find out the Scarecrow does get a brain in the book. The whole 'You didn't need _________, you've had it all along" is one of the most famious lines in American Film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.37.144.32 (talk) 23:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Alice in Wonderland
There are a lot more similarities with Lewis Caroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' than only the fact Dorothy and Alice are both little girls who are trapped in a strange country... Oz = The King of Hearts/White King, (?) Glinda/Locasta(Tattypoo) = Mirana (The White Queen), Bastinda/Gingema = Iracebeth (The Queen of Hearts), the Scarecrow/the Tin Woodman/The Cowardly Lion = Tarrant Hightopp (the Mad Hatter)/Chessur (the Chesshire Cat)/Nivens McTwisp (the White Rabbit)/Malymkun (the Dormouse)/Thackery Earwicket (the March Hare), Oz's balloon = the Jabberwocky, Omby Amby (the soldier with the Green Whiskers)/the Guardian of the Gates = Absolem (the Catterpillar), the King of the Winged Monkeys = The Knave of Hearts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.194.233.40 (talk) 14:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this information. Alice in Wonderland is mentioned at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz but there is much more that can be said about the similarities of the two stories. I will include this information in the article once I have found scholarly analysis that draw parallels between them. Cunard (talk) 01:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced content – moved from article
Russian author Alexander M. Volkov brought his own loose translation of the story to the Soviet Union in 1939 (the same year MGM released their film). The Soviet Union did not recognize foreign copyrights at the time, and neither Baum nor his family received any royalties for it. Volkov's version was published under the title The Wizard of Emerald City (Волшебник Изумрудного Города) and the country where the story takes place was changed from Oz, to "Magic Land". Volkov also took many liberties with the text itself, editing as he saw fit, and adding a chapter in which Dorothy, now renamed Ellie, is kidnapped by a man-eating Ogre and rescued by her friends. The Wizard is renamed "James Goodwin", the Scarecrow is called "Strasheela" (derived from a Russian word meaning "to scare"), and the Tin Woodman is called "the Iron Woodman". The four witches each have new names as well: Villina (The Good Witch of the North), Gingema (The Wicked Witch of the East), Bastinda (The Wicked Witch of the West), and Stella (The Good Witch of the South). Volkov subsequently wrote his own independent series of sequels to the book, even more tenuously based on Baum's books, including: Urfin Jus and His Wooden Soldiers, Seven Underground Kings, The Firey God of the Marrans, The Yellow Fog, and The Secret of the Deserted Castle. Some characters in these sequels have clear origins in the original Oz books, such as Ellie's uncle Charlie Black, who is a combination of Baum's Cap'n Bill and Johnny Dooit, and Volkov's last book invokes the Forbidden Fountain. The latter three sequels feature, instead of Ellie and Toto, her younger sister Annie along with her own dog, Toto's grandson Arto, and her childhood friend Tim. Baum's original version and all of its sequels were later translated in a more faithful fashion, and Russians now see these two versions as wholly different series. In 1959, illustrations by Leonid Vladimirsky depicted Volkov's Scarecrow as short, round and tubby; his influence is evident in illustrations for translations across the Soviet bloc, where the Scarecrow is usually portrayed in this manner. Vladimirsky has written at least two additional sequels to Alexander Volkov's alternative Oz; two more Russian authors and one German have written additional sequels to the "Magic Land" stories. The books have been faithfully translated to English by Peter Blystone as Tales of Magic Land. These last two books were previously made available as Oz books through Buckethead Enterprises of Oz, but were translated loosely to make them Oz books.

References to The Wizard of Oz (and Magic Land) are thoroughly ingrained in British, American, Russian, and many other cultures. In the U.S., however, The Wizard of Oz did not become a cultural phenomenon until after the highly successful annual network telecasts of the film began in the late 1950s. A mere sampling of the breadth in which it is referenced includes Futurama, Family Guy and Scrubs (the former parodied it in an episode, the latter based an episode on it), The Cinnamon Bear (a 1938 radio serial), RahXephon (a 2002 Japanese animated television show), Zardoz (a 1974 Sean Connery movie), Avatar (a 2009 fantasy film), The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (a 1997 Stephen King fantasy/Western novel), World of Warcraft (in the form of a boss fight), and the science fiction literature of Robert A. Heinlein, particularly The Number of the Beast. The Wizard of Oz Mystery, a murder mystery game based on the famous characters was released in 2007 from Shot In The Dark Mysteries. John Connor, a character in the Terminator series who sometimes uses the alias John Baum (presumably in honor of L. Frank Baum), stated that one of his favorite memories was of his mother reading him the story of the Wizard of Oz in Spanish as a child. The terminator series also references the Wicked Witch, Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in a few episodes. The character of Cypher in the 1999 movie The Matrix explicitly quotes a part of a line from the original book. In the film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, reporter Polly Perkins meets with scientist Walter Jennings at Radio City Music Hall during a showing of the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film.

Cunard (talk) 03:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Margery Hourihan's Deconstructing the Hero
In response to this reversion, Margery Hourihan's Deconstructing the Hero was published in the Psychology Press, which was acquired by Taylor & Francis, an "international company originating in the United Kingdom which publishes books and academic journals". Critics need not be notable for inclusion of their views in the article. That this book was published by a reputable publisher is sufficient for inclusion. Only when the article's "Critical reception" has too many views and becomes bloated should it be pared down. Otherwise, commentary from scholarly sources should not be removed. Please reverse your reversion. Cunard (talk) 08:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The reversion is reversed per the lack of a response after 48 days. Cunard (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

13 June 2012 addition
"in 1933 during the Great Depression Dorothy is a young orphaned girl raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm after the death of her parents at the hands of the German soldiers during World War 1 in 1918 when she was a baby." Is in the beginning of the plot summary. I find the dates impossible to believe considering the book was published in 1900. Did someone just copy and paste from the film? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.115.1.109 (talk) 17:19, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * That material was added at 13:15, 13 June 2012‎ (UTC) and reverted by at 22:52, 15 June 2012 (UTC). I cannot tell if the change was Vandalism or a good faith but mistaken edit, but I agree with you it does not belong in the article. Cunard (talk) 23:50, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Broken Link
The page linked to in footnote 37 - Responses to Littlefield – The Wizard of Oz - appears to be gone. A capture of the page can be found at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090501183546/http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/OZ/Responses.php

This may have been taken care of already; I can't tell. Ileanadu (talk) 18:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Evelyn Copelman
The article on this page (http://oz.wikia.com/wiki/Evelyn_Copelman) states that the Copelman-illustrated version was not published until 1949, but the Denslow version went out-of-print in 1944.AlbertSM (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Wiki pages are not reliable references67.170.169.30 (talk) 05:02, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Fixing things up
I've been working to clean up and revise this entry in order to (hopefully) get it back to FA status. The summary is still a disaster, but I've cleaned up some sections and removed poorly sourced and/or unrelated material. Hope others may join me! Clevelander96 (talk) 13:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Gold Standard
The article appears to have been edited to deny this theory. Contrary to the assertions in the article, this theory has received a lot of currency. In fact, the "Responses to Littlefield" article shows that many scholars give some support to the idea. I've tried to adjust the text.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:31, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Coxey's Army
According to the wikipedia page on Coxey's Army:

Among the people observing the march was L. Frank Baum, before he gained fame. There are political interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which have often been related to Coxey's Army. In the novel, Dorothy, the Scarecrow (the American farmer), Tin Woodman (the industrial worker), and Cowardly Lion (William Jennings Bryan), march on the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, the Capital (or Washington, D.C.), demanding relief from the Wizard, who is interpreted to be the President. Dorothy's shoes (made of silver in the book, not the familiar ruby that is depicted in the movie) are interpreted to symbolize using free silver instead of the gold standard (the road of yellow brick) because the shortage of gold precipitated the Panic of 1893. In the film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, the silver shoes were turned into ruby for the cinematic effect of color, as Technicolor was still in its early years when the movie was produced. However, this theory was not advanced until many decades after the book was written.[9] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.22.202.55 (talk) 23:00, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

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"Possible psychological significance" section removed from article
I've removed the following new section from the article:

From very beginnings, "Wizard of Oz" was attributed with the various versions of possible Jungian and Freudian psycho-analytical interpretation options, of this or that psychological structures and archetypes.

Of the many possible, of greater importance to mention are the versions of psychological interpretations that are generally consistent with the Freudian or Jungian vision of psychological structures, such as:

Freudian version :

Dorothy Gale = Whole personality, if and when it to be catarsicaly achieved (see bellow); Scarecrow = Super-Ego (Mind, understanding of world and other people); Cowardly Lion = Ego (Courage, to do that is must be done); Tin Man = Id (Heart, good will and empathy)

These three Freudian above-archetypes can be interpreted as three mirrors of Dorothy from three different standpoints, of yet non-achieved personality, and only if and when solution of hers internal psychological dillemas catarsically be achieved, these three can be united in whole personality.

Jungian version :

Scarecrow = Jungian "Conscious Ego" ; Cowardly Lion = Personal unconscious ; Tin Man = Collective unconscious ; Toto = Dorothy's personal reckless and agressive side - sexual drive of Dorothy ; Yellow Brick Road = Path/Time which anybody, who whish to become full and complete personality, must go itself, in order to survive everything that future brings.

Of course, age of Dorothy, which, especially, by famous movie from 1939 is indirectly implied, is pre-puberty to puberty, and change in color by arrival to Oz ("We are not anymore in Kansas") implies that she must accept herself as complete, but fully sexual person (which she fears of), capable to enjoy sexual pleasures without remorse, but to do proper decisions after consumation of it, which can be achieved by kind of self-testing in "Oz".

So, "Oz" itself can be understood, in both Jungian and Freudian version, as a kind of mind-body test-state where personality can allow itself all splendors and possible miss-behaviors, but with limited longevity, symbolizing life pleasures and beauty of life itself, and Mind-Place where every-puberty battle between sexuality and death, can be and should be won (see bellow).

In this context, Good Witch can be interpreted as gift of birth and beginning, and Evil Witch - as : death and inevitability of cessation of life.

From the above-stated, circumstances and higher-force reason (a tornado) for Dorothy to be temporary "expelled" to the Oz, can be understood by Dorothy's internal conflict between sexuality (Toto) and death (Evil Witch), where only solution is to : sexuality wins over death, in order to survive, as a person, or any - universal person, because that means procreation and continuation of life, and very fall into Oz (inside her house) and subsequent killing of Evil Witch can means only her first experience of dream-orgasm and test-entrance into world of adults.

No citations are provided. Wikipedia is not a place for original research. The section also needs to be edited for style and grammar. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 15:20, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The section was added by. Strawberry4Ever (talk) 15:27, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

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Allusions to 19th-century America
This section is really long and seems to simply restate the points made in the book it mentions. Wouldn't all that material (if needed at all) work better on the Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz page? 24.149.37.233 (talk) 05:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I got rid of the entire mess. We don't need to devote half this article to the intricate detail of some crackpot literary theory.&mdash; Chowbok  ☠  04:16, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep it -- the Oz story is deeply rooted in Americana and that deserves serious treatment. Baum said it was a "modern fairy tale" and that calls for explanation. The "Political" article is entirely different and refers to a discussion led by economists on the images of gold and silver and utopia.  Rjensen (talk) 20:50, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The section is a bunch of crap. "The South is red for the red earth it contains or the 'redneck' inhabitants. Yellow describes the West, denoting the California gold rush." "The Tin Woodman's year of waiting is parallel to the unemployment of Eastern workers during the severe depression of 1893-1897." Statements like this are not only false, they're an embarrassment to Wikipedia. And this nonsense takes up a third of the article! The entire section needs to be destroyed with fire.&mdash; Chowbok  ☠  21:15, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've reverted that great long essay, which could possibly be inserted in abbreviated form into the Littlefield bio or the political interpretations page. We need to adhere to WP:Summary Style. YoPienso (talk) 21:41, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

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Warner Bros.
So warner bros owns the rights to Wizard of Oz? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.228.157.238 (talk) 14:17, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

References of "The Wizard of Oz" in the "Dora the Explorer" series.
I recently saw The Wizard of Oz, and realized that the plot is like an episode of Dora the Explorer, only that in the old tale/film it was not a video game but a dream. Throughout the story Dorothy (who at some point she is called 'Dora') find along the way several characters who need help, they join her and finally they all get their reward. It's the same plot as in each and every episode of Dora the Explorer, but modernized. I don't know if this has been considered before, but I think it is worth digging into. I leave it here for your consideration, if it is generally agreed to be developed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donguijote (talk • contribs) 19:19, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

External link replaced
Just reporting here that I’ve replaced an external link that I think is dead: the one in "Dorothy" section, currently footnote 14. The old link was: Eriksmoen, Curt (July 11, 2020). "Eriksmoen: North Dakota girl was the likely inspiration for Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz'". West Fargo Pioneer. Archived from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200713003614/https://www.westfargopioneer.com/entertainment/books/6563278-Eriksmoen-North-Dakota-girl-was-the-likely-inspiration-for-Dorothy-in-The-Wizard-of-Oz

My main question: Have I inserted the link in the correct way? I’ve copied the template, but I have the feeling that’s not the best way to go about this.

And the other question: Is there a way to make external links "immune" to link rot – like submitting them to the Wayback Machine or some such thing?--Geke (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Order of events
"Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West." Dorothy is not tasked with this "upon her arrival" in Oz, but only when she meets the Wizard several chapters later. Can someone fix this chronological mix-up? 36.75.173.83 (talk) 00:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

not a cyclone
Dorothy and Toto were sucked upward by a TORNADO.

Although lots of folks call them cyclones, the latter is a meteorological term referring to a system of low pressure, up to thousands of miles in diameter. 142.254.38.241 (talk) 03:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It's called a "cyclone" in the book, though, and that's all that's relevant for this article.&mdash; Chowbok  ☠  20:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

"Classic"
"the classic 1939 live-action film."

Is it ok to call something a "classic" in an encyclopedia as a factual statement? Or is it a subjective kind of thing, even in a case like this? I'm asking out of curiosity. Dornwald (talk) 23:07, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It depends on if there are reliable sources that call it "classic", which I definitely expect there are. Still, I don't feel like looking them up, so I took the word out. The sentence works fine without it. I'm glad you flagged that! Toughpigs (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! Dornwald (talk) 23:46, 25 March 2024 (UTC)