Disney & Oz

Hello  & welcome back to A Look at Disney and for the past couple of days,  I've had Oz on the brain.  I attribute this in part to  Oz being featured on Once Upon A Time  but  I didn't know what to talk about.  I do talk about  the 1939 movie,  what's left to say.  I do talk about the different film adaptions,  there's too many to cover in one article. That's when I realized that Disney has had quite a history with the works of L. Frank Baum.  And that's why today,  I'm taking a look at the various  Oz related stuff from Disney. Side note,   most of my familiarity with Oz is through the 1939 movie, which I love dearly, perhaps even more now that I'm older and  Oz to me is the greatest fictional land ever imagined.  As I said last Friday,  this is a land that I would love to visit, if it were real. With that out of the way, let's begin.


Interestingly enough,  our article starts with the 1939 movie as Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs was a great influence on the movie and  before Samuel Goldwyn had bought the rights and sold them off to Louis B. Myer,  Walt  wanted to make an animated Oz film.  An animated Oz movie from Walt Disney. I wonder what would that would be like.  I imagine, he'd  only use the first book but it's hard to imagine someone  doing a movie Oz from that time, when the MGM movie is ingrained to the public conscious.     Speaking of,  two Disney voice actors actually lent their voices to this movie.  Pinto Colvig,  best known for voicing Goofy helped contribute to the sound of The Munchkins and Adrianna Castelotti's  voice can be heard during The Tin Man's  If I Only  Had A Heart.  Who is that you may ask?  Why Snow White?  

Her voice is heard delivering this line.

Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

The people behind this movie even considered at one point bringing Walt on as a consultant for the film but that never came to pass.


The studio  would later go on to purchase the film rights in 1954 to the 11 of the14 books set after the original story but still, nothing came to pass.  However,  Disneyland Records would release several records set in the land of Oz.   I didn't know about these I looked up Walt Disney Pictures on the Oz Wiki.

In  1957,   Walt attempted to make a film  titled The Rainbow Road To Oz, which would've featured the Mousetkeers in the various Oz roles such as Annette Funciello as Ozma and even promoted it on the Disneyland TV show.  This D23 article  has a video that goes into more detail but  it rubs me the wrong way as it ignores a certain Oz film that even though, I've never seen, many people regard as a classic.   When Walt shelved this film,  he later went on to work on another live action musical that would star Annette Funicello.  That being Babes In Toyland.

There were even plans for an attraction based on Rainbow Road To Oz to be installed at Disneyland,  called  Rock  Candy Mountain. And the main villain,  Barnaby  in this film was played by Ray Bolger.   that?  Why The Scarecrow.

There were even plans for an attraction based on Rainbow Road To Oz to be installed at Disneyland,  called  Rock  Candy Mountain.  Who's  Scene would've included our Oz heroes celebrating a birthday for Dorothy  and the ride was originally going to look like it was made out of rock candy by using crystals but Walt realized how difficult, this would be and at one point decided to use other types of candies.   Walt ultimately  scrapped the attraction as he felt there was something off about the ride.

It wouldn't be until almost 30 years later, when Disney would finally get to tackle Oz because in 1985, they released Return To Oz.

 



















Now as I mentioned up top,  I've  actually never seen Return  To  Oz.  I need to fix that one of these days as I've only heard good things about it.  Now at the time of it's release,  it got mixed reviews from critics with some saying that it was too dark and intense for children but it has since gone to gain a cult following  and  the character of Tik-Tok  is  Epic Mickey 2 as one of the Beetleworxs Basher. that you have to go up against.  Here is some concept art of  Tik-Tok from the game.

And this version of Oz  is featured in the Disneyland Paris Storybook Canal. 

And  for a brief period,  Return to Oz was featured in the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Then in 2005,  we would get our  second  Oz movie from Disney, this time featuring the Muppets taking on The Wizard of Oz.

This isn't easy to talk about as this is often considered the worst Muppet movie ever made and I'd have to agree.  Unlike the previous adaptions that  the Muppets did,   it seemed more like they were making fun of the source then rather celebrating it and there were just so many odd cameos such as the one with Quentin Tarantino  that stopped the movie to make it more like one of his films and  have the Witch go out in a violent manner.  What?   And  I have nothing against  Ashanti  but she could not keep up with the Muppets at all.  The Muppet casting wasn't bad but  did the Flying Monkeys really need to be a biker gang?

Who came up with that idea?  This is just perplexing?   And   I have nothing against Miss Piggy as The Wicked Witch but it is a little jarring to see Miss Piggy play a villain and  again, what is with the biker get up?

This  could've worked but it had so many things working against it  and I'm sorry putting  a American Idol type show in your movie as Dorothy's dream really dates the film.

Ultimately,  I'm  just left asking why?   As in why does this exist?   Ah well,  five years later, another Disney property would give Oz, the parody treatment as Phineas and Ferb did an Oz titled The Wizard of Odd.

This episode was cute and I like how it was dream brought on  by Candace reading the Oz book and   just  like Dorothy,  she sees people she knows  as the inhabitants  such  as Isabella  being the Glinda   in this version  and the Munchkins  are called Patchkins,  which ties into the Fireside Girls from the show and how they are always trying to earn patches.

 







And  instead  of The Lion,  Scarecrow,and Tin Man, you have Baljeet  as a Nerd Crow, who wants to be cool,  Jeremy, who is a tree and Buford, who is some sort of mix between a lion, tiger, and bear.  Oh my.    And probably my favorite part is that Doof  is The Wicked Witch.

And  just last year brought us two Oz related items from Disney released in the same month at that.  First, there Minnie's The Wizard of Dizz.    Which  was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse special that was a basic retelling  with Minnie in the role of Dorothy,  Goofy  as The Scarecrow,   Mickey as The Tin Man,  Donald as The Lion,  Pete as The Wicked Witch,  Clarabelle Cow as the Glinda  character  and Ludwig  Von Drake as The Wizard.  And the one thing,   I don't get is they changed the Emerald City to the Pink Crystal City.  Haven't seen it but it sounds cute and  it's meant for a younger audience,  I'm sure they'll like it.

And  then not to long after this came out,  Oz: The Great and Powerful was released to theaters.  This film tells the tale of how one Oscar Diggs became The Wizard of Oz and saved it from the Wicked Witches.   And if you want my personal opinion, go read my review, which I'll link to here.    But  in short,  I really liked this movie save for maybe Mila Kunis as The Wicked Witch but other then that,  this movie is one that I greatly enjoyed.

I really enjoyed James Franco as The Wizard and if you'll recall my Top 6 Witches List, Evanora was # 1.   Oh,  and China Girl is awesome.

 

I loved this film from the visual look of Oz, which  was gorgeous to Oscar's growth over the course of the film to the final battle between Glinda and Evanora.  

Again,  really the only thing that brought it down for me was Mila Kunis as The Wicked Witch.  She wasn't scary, threatening, or intimating.

And  I'm sorry, even though  I loved everything about this film, The Wicked Witch should not be my biggest complaint with the character.  They just really dropped the ball here.



There you have it,  my look at the relationship  between Disney & Oz  and it still continues as The Wicked Witch of The West is the main villain in the second of the third season of Once Upon A Time.  But if you want to know my thoughts on that, read The Magic of Storybrooke.   Looking at everything else, it's interesting to see how much Oz material there is from Disney and also to look at how the Oz things that Walt wanted to do but never got the chance to.