How about we play another round of Oz Connection! The mind-bending challenge where I give you three names, and you, the readers, tell me what each person's Oz Connection is! Eric Shanower and I developed this little amusement to entertain ourselves on long car trips. Here's how it goes:You look at the three names below and suggest the closest possible Oz connection to each name you can think of. Sometimes you can do it easily! If I say "Sean Connery" you might reply, "Sean Connery starred in the film Zardoz which is a sci-fi movie about a world ruled by an Earth man hiding behind a gigantic head named Zardoz, a contraction of wiZARD of OZ." This is two degrees of Ozzy separation.
If I said "Roddy McDowall" you could say, "Roddy McDowall starred in Planet of the Apes with Maurice Evans who played Dr. Zaius. Evans also played Samantha's father on the TV series Bewitched! where he was married to Samantha's mother, who was played by Agnes Moorehead. And Moorehead played Mombi in the 1960 Shirley Temple television movie The Land of Oz." This is four degrees of Ozzy separation.Post your answers in the blog's COMMENTS section - not on Facebook. Just click the "comments" link at the bottom of this post.
I will not publish or post any of the proposed Oz Connection answers until Thursday morning. This will give everyone a chance to answer. Remember there is no single answer - there are many different ways you might connect these three to Oz. There is also no prize beyond the fact that it's a great way to show your own obsessive geekiness and superb cultural knowledge! Have fun!
Give me your best Oz Connection for the following three people:
Christopher Plummer
1. Christopher Plummer was in Nicholas Nickleby with Anne Hathaway, who will likely be playing Judy Garland in the upcoming biopic, who in turn played Dorothy in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz.
ReplyDelete2. Bruce Dern was in The Great Gatsby based on the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was also in Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood with Sterling Holloway who played Jack Pumpkinhead in Shirley Temple's The Land of Oz.
3. A piece of music by Ludwig Von Beethoven was used as the theme music of Zardoz.
I promise I didn't cheat; I only used the Internet to check my answers. I'm sure there's a better connection for Christopher Plummer out there somewhere.
There are probably better connections than these, but here goes -
ReplyDeleteChristopher Plummer starred in The Sound of Music, with Eleanor Parker (the Baroness). Eleanor Parker's biography was written by Doug McClelland, who also wrote Down the Yellow Brick Road, The Making of The Wizard of Oz.
F. Scott Fitzgerald contributed to the script of Gone With the Wind, which was directed by Victor Fleming, who directed The Wizard of Oz (1939).
I haven't come up with a Beethoven yet - my first thought was that some of his music was used for underscoring the film, but I don't think it was...
Christopher Plummer was in Star Trek VI with Kim Cattrall.
ReplyDeleteKim Cattrall was in Sex and the City 2 with Liza Minnelli.
Liza is Judy Garland's daughter.
Christopher Plummer starred in The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers who was portrayed in Words and Music by Tom Drake. Appearing with Drake were Wizard of Oz's Judy Garland (who shares the same first name with F. Scott Fitzgerald) and Janet Leigh. Leigh starred in Psycho with Anthony Perkins (whose son is named OZ). The sequel, Psycho II, incorporates Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in its score.
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