Wicked/L. Frank Baum Question — Page 2

I though I remembered Glinda being the witch of the south, and I found the whole book online.

http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Baum/wonderfulwizard/wonderfulwizard1.html

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"How do you like THAT 'misanthropic panache,' Mr. Goldstone?" - PalJoey

So I thought, Michael B. Thanks for the update. It makes me wonder, though, if there were all sorts of things from the movie Maguire and the show had to sidestep (the shoes, referring to it as Yellow Brick Road - though Maguire does use that in the title of the prologue), how'd they get away with the green skin?

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Lots of "wicked witches" in fairy tales were depicted as having green skin. It would be pretty hard to "trade mark" anything about Margaret Hamilton's costume in the film as it was so generic and typical of the folklore witch.

And the yellow brick road is also a function of the book. The only things MGM would have had claim to are the ruby slippers, Miss Gulch (and the farm hands), Professor Marvel, and the horse of a different color -- i.e. -- things invented for the MGM script that weren't already in the now public domain original book.

Right, I just remember reading things (which, of course, aren't necessarily accurate) that said anything that was an invention of the film wasn't usable in the musical. As for the road, I'd read that the reason they saw "road of yellow brick" in the musical as opposed to "yellow brick road" was because of the film.

This could all be apocryphal, of course.

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I'm not at all familiar with the other Oz books. Where does Dorothy fall in the whole series? Is she still not in the public domain? I understand that's why her name (and Toto's) couldn't be used on stage...

this is all quite interesting...

Are you sure they don't say Dorothy's name in the show, WICKED? She at one point was a character seen on stage (in the worskhops).

Dorothy is not in the second book, THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ, which takes place after THE WIZARD OF OZ, but explains alot of the early history of the land of OZ.

Dorothy returns to Oz in OZMA OF OZ (by way of a chicken coop), DOROTHY IN THE WIZARD IN OZ (by way of earthquake), THE ROAD TO OZ (by way of mysterious path) and finally moves to Oz permenantly (with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry) in EMERALD CITY OF OZ.

The other major character in the books is OZMA, the child princess who ascends the throne in THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ. Maguire mentions her linneage briefly in WICKED. It would be virtually impossible for Maguire to conintue his Oz saga and stay faithful to the original L.Frank Baum OZ (which he largely does in Wicked) without including her.

Others have guessed that the main character in SON OF A WITCH could be Maguires' answer to "Tip" == the boy Princess Ozma is briefly turned into in THE LAND OF OZ.

I think the reason they don't show her is to keep the show purely from the Witches' point of view. I don't think there is a copyright on "Dorothy" as a character, though there could be a problem if they depicted her wearing the exact outfit Judy Garland wore in the film.

He didn't have to worry about copyright too much. "Wicked" is pretty much a satire, therefore the Fair-Use doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Law would protect him. Maguire's book is based soley on the book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Only the musical makes pointed references to the film.

<<<"Are you a Munchkin?" asked Dorothy. (To the Witch of the North)
>>>

Okay, c'mon, I cannot be the only one that had a Kristen flash with this line that Kringas pasted here. :)

Michael Bennett - I thought Ozma was 'Tip' for pretty much 95% of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" with the exception of the very end after he/she discovers his/her true identity and changes back. In fact Ozma had been 'Tip' pretty much since babyhood acording to the book IIRC and not just 'briefly'.

"The Emerald City of Oz" is by far my favourite of the latter books though. Somewhat more action-adventurey then alot of the others.

It was also the last book that really set up any real major backstory to the OZ franchise. The remainder 30 odd books after that where really just storys.

While from what I read the book will be about Liir, one cannot help wonder who Maguire will incorporate from the latter books into .

In terms of copywrite, from what I gather, all the books actually written by L. Frank Baum (the first 14) are completely in public domain, thus Jack Pumpkinhead, Tit-tok Man, Nome King et al are useable. In fact only the latter Ruth Plumly Thompson books and a few others after her are still under copywrite to the best of my knowledge.

Updated On: 6/22/05 at 01:10 PM

I love all 14 of Baum's books, even though he wasn't totally great about continuity. There are continuity errors through all of the books.

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Supposedly, it is true. Baum's widow confirmed that the coat was his.

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I know how Elphaba got her name, but is Liir a name invented by Maguire as well? I always think of the LIRR trains for some reason.

~Jessica

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