Adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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 Toy Ride|Wizard of Oz (1902 stage play)|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. Baum featured the two characters in his second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, with the hopes of turning that into a stage play as well, with Stone and Montgomery in the lead roles. When the two actors declined to participate, Baum rewrote the story as The Woggle-Bug in 1905, which was a critical and commercial failure.
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. 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.
The most celebrated adaptation of the Oz books is the 1939 feature-length musical starring Judy Garland, which has been hailed as the most-seen film in history. Other notable film adaptations include The Wiz, Return to Oz, and Oz the Great and Powerful. Another acclaimed production is the 2003 Broadway and West End musical Wicked, based on the 1995 revisionist novel Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. The musical itself has since been adapted into a successful two-part film.
Visual arts
Theatre
In addition to his books, Baum also wrote Oz-related stage plays: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with music by Paul Tietjens and Nathaniel D. Mann, The Wizard of Oz, The Woggle-Bug with music by Frederick Chapin, The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love 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, 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 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. 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. It toured nationally and internationally and was broadcast in 1996 with Oksana Baiul skating as Dorothy 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. | |
| The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True | 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. The production also featured Debra Winger, Natalie Cole, and Lucie Arnaz. It was televised live in the United States that night. | |
| 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 | Broadway and West End musical based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West 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. |
| 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. |
Television
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 unofficial 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 from the 1939 film 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. | |
| Emerald City | Television series | January 6, 2017 | March 3, 2017 | Created by Matthew Arnold for 10 episodes. In August 2014, it was reported that NBC would not be proceeding with the series. In April 2015, NBC reversed course and announced that the series would move forward under the leadership of executive producer and writer David Schulner. |
| Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz | Animated series | June 29, 2017 | July 31, 2020 | Animated series based on the 1939 film produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It was released in June 2017 for Boomerang's SVOD service. Clips of the series were revealed in the Boomerang upfront for 2017. |
Music videos
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. |
| 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 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. |
| 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. |
Written works
Comics
- MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz was the first joint publishing venture between DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
- Marvel Treasury of Oz printed The Marvelous Land of Oz.
- One of the issues of Classics Illustrated Junior was a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz.
- The comic book series Oz Squad features an adult Dorothy and her original companions from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a covert operations group protecting Oz from threats both within its borders and from the "real world".The Oz-Wonderland War is a comics story in which the people of Oz fight together with the characters of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass against the villainous Nome King. It also starred Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew and was originally intended to be the comic's issues #21–26. The comic, however, was cancelled at #20, and the story was subsequently presented as a mini-series.Dorothy of Oz is a manhwa by Son Hee-joon about an ordinary girl named Mara Shin who winds up in a science-fantasy realm called "Oz". She meets up with this realm's version of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion, and follows the Yellow Brick Road to find her way home.
- The comic book Dorothy was launched by Illusive Arts Entertainment in November 2005. Presented in semi-fumetti style using digitally altered photographs, this retelling of Baum's story has been updated to 2005 and features model Catie Fisher as 16-year-old Dorothy Gale, a disaffected youth with dyed hair and piercings who steals her uncle's car and runs away from home; until she encounters a tornado and is knocked unconscious.
- An erotic re-telling of the story is featured in Lost Girls, a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie first published in its entirety in 2006. In this book, an adult Dorothy meets Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Wendy Darling from Peter Pan and the trio recount the stories of their respective works as allegories for their sexual awakenings.Erfworld was heavily inspired by The Wizard of Oz. It includes a distorted retelling of the original, with some characters and elements persisting into the main narrative. "Charlescomm", the comic's primary antagonist is revealed to be the wizard.
- From 2009 to 2014, Oz fan Eric Shanower faithfully adapted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Road to Oz, and Emerald City of Oz into graphic novels illustrated by Skottie Young and published by Marvel Comics. In 2020, Shanower's Oz graphic novels were rereleased in three collected volumes.Marvel Fairy Tales features a retelling of The Wizard of Oz starring Marvel characters, such as the She-Hulk as Dorothy and the Scarlet Witch as the Wicked Witch of the West.
- The Steam Engines of Oz is a graphic novel series published by Arcana Studio. It is a "steampunk re-imagining" of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
- In Serbia, Đorđe Lobačev started his adaptation in 1941 but wouldn't be able to finish it until 1974.
- In Spain, an adaptation was published by Art Studium in 1978.
- In Italy, Anna Brandoli and Renato Queirolo adapted Il mago di Oz in 1980.
- In France, David Chauvel and Enrique Fernández adapted it as Le magicien d'Oz.
- Tommy Ohtsuka also did a manga version of the book.
Games
The Wonderful Game of Oz, a board game published in 1921 by Parker Brothers.The Wizard of Oz, a 1985 illustrated text adventure game for Apple II, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS, which combined elements of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz. It was published by Windham Classics, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software.The Wizard of Oz, a 1993 video game for the Super NES, based on the 1939 film.- The Yellow Brick Road trilogy, a multiplatform adventure RPG series developed in Japan by SYNERGY.Wizard of Land Oz, a 1997 ZX Spectrum adventure game by Famous Faces Factory.Irozuki Tincle no Koi no Balloon Trip, a Japanese game which is a spin-off of The Legend of Zelda series. It features Tingle teaming up with a tin woman, a scarecrow and a cowardly lion to cross the land. Released in 2009.Emerald City Confidential, a point-and-click adventure game developed by Wadjet Eye Games and published by casual game portal PlayFirst. Released in 2009.RIZ-ZOAWD, a Japanese role-playing video game for the Nintendo DS, released in the US as The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. Released in 2008.
- The Wizard of Oz, a coin pusher game found in video arcades.Wizard of Oz Slots game found in Casinos. The game is a five-reel video slot machine with bonus feature rounds, produced by WMS. Released in 2013.The Card Game of Oz, a 2014 game created by James C. O'Connor under his Orion's Bell label. The game is based on the original books. Series 1, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was released in May 2014. Series 2, The Marvelous Land of Oz, was released in August 2014 as an expansion.
- The crossover-genre video game Lego Dimensions features a world based on the 1939 film.
- The mobile game Oz: Broken Kingdom Is based on the world of Oz and takes place after the original story.
- In Sherlock: Hidden Match-3 Cases, a mobile video game published in 2020 by G5 Entertainment, one of the featured books is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Other media
- In September 1933, The Wizard of Oz debuted on the NBC radio network, sponsored by General Foods Corporation. It presented dramatizations of episodes from the book.
- In 1967, The Seekers recorded "Emerald City", with lyrics about a visit there, set to the melody of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".
- Ray Bolger recorded an audio adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. This was the first in a series of four audiotapes, The Oz Audio Collection, recorded by Bolger and issued by Caedmon Audio from 1976 to 1983.
- Todd McFarlane created a sinister toy series called Twisted Land of Oz that portrays all of the characters as more sinister and adult oriented.
- The musical group America released the song "Tin Man" in 1974, with the enigmatic line; "And Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have." The song was the first single released from their album Holiday and became a top ten hit.
- German Power Metal band Blind Guardian made use of the story of the Wizard of Oz in the title track of their 1995 studio album Imaginations From the Other Side.
- Walt Disney originally wanted to make an animated version of The Wizard Of Oz to serve as the follow-up to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but the film rights were bought by Samuel Goldwyn, who originally intended to make it as a standard musical comedy, with Eddie Cantor as his star. However, Goldwyn ended up selling the rights to MGM.
- The Felice Brothers wrote a song called "Don't Wake the Scarecrow" which features several references to The Wizard of Oz.
- American McGee's Oz was a darkly, twisted series of figurines based on Baum's original Wizard of Oz characters. This series was released before McFarlane's, and was supposed to help McGee launch a franchise around this interpretation.Stargate SG-1 has several verbal references to The Wizard of Oz, including Colonel Jack O'Neill calling Samantha Carter "Dorothy" when she defeated one of the show's villains.
- The band Scissor Sisters released a song on their self-titled album called "Return to Oz", referencing the sequel.
- The John Boorman film Zardoz derives its title from the Wizard of Oz.
- Elton John's album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a clear reference to The Wizard of Oz.
- The Wiyos's album Twist is an original song cycle loosely based on The Wizard of Oz.
- Ray Bradbury's short story "The Exiles" mentions the Emerald City and its inhabitants existing alongside other famous literary characters and locales on a Martian colony.Big Finish Productions made a full-cast audio drama adaptation of the novel, adapted by Marc Platt.
- The novel has been adapted for radio at least twice by the BBC: the first attempt was broadcast in 1994, dramatised by Marcy Kahan and starring Maureen Lipman as the Wicked Witch of the West. A much darker take on the story was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2009 and featured Amelia Clarkson as Dorothy, Emma Fielding as the Wicked Witch of the West and Jonathan Keeble as the Wizard.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as well as the other two books in the first portion of the series were adapted by Australian playwright Aron Thomas into an audio drama podcast series which imagines a more adult, politically-driven rendition of Baum's world. Entitled The Chronicles of Oz, the series adapted The Marvellous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz after adapting the first book.Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz is the sequel to Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz and is a Tom and Jerry direct-to-video film.AIEC Wizard of Oz is a short film parody of The Wizard of Oz starring characters from the Adventure In Epic's Chat web series.
- Edward W. Hardy released a cast album entitled The Woodsman (Original Off-Broadway Solo Recording)
- "Straight Outta Oz" is a studio album and original musical written and produced by Todrick Hall. It is based on the Wizard of Oz whilst being a semi-autobiographical account of his rise to fame in Los Angeles. The trailer for the album was first released on May 13, 2016. Todrick has released the musical in the form of on his YouTube channel on March 21, 2017. It includes a host of guest stars including Nicole Scherzinger, Jordin Sparks, Perez Hilton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Amber Riley, Raven-Symoné, and Tamar Braxton.
- The marketing campaign for season 22 of American Idol is directly themed after the 1939 film, complete with a commercial featuring Ryan Seacrest and the judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan dressed as Tin Man, Dorothy, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow following the "Golden Ticket Road" to Hollywood. This was to reflect the show's plans to visit the judges' hometowns throughout the season.