Into OUT OF OZ

Today we have a guest blogger: Eric Shanower, cartoonist of Oz comics and other stuff.

OUT OF OZ
By Gregory Maguire
Illustrations by Douglas Smith
Published by William Morrow, 2011
A Review by Eric Shanower

Back in 1996 I had a mixed reaction to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. The first half was fascinating, but the second half puttered on to a limp conclusion.  In the early 2000s I enjoyed its sequel, Son of a Witch, although I seem to be in a minority holding that opinion. My favorite moments in Son of a Witch include the visit to the Emerald City prison called Southstairs, and the tryst between Liir, son of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Trism bon Cavalish. After that I felt let down in 2007 by A Lion Among Men, a tedious slog I had to force myself through. Then I recently finished the fourth book in Maguire’s Wicked Years series, Out of Oz.

I loved it.

Do not read Out of Oz unless you’ve read the previous books. (Well, you can skip A Lion Among Men if you want.) Out of Oz is the perfect final act. Maguire has said that he wrote each book intending to go no further (although I might be wrong about A Lion Among Men - he may have been planning Out of Oz by the time he got to that one.) If that’s really so, then what he’s done with the Wicked Years series is an amazing and lovely example of flying by the seat of your pants and having it end up not only working, but having it end in triumph.

There’s lots for Oz fans to especially love about the surface of Out of Oz. References large and small to past Oz works abound. Out of Oz begins with Dorothy Gale’s trip to San Francisco being interrupted by the 1906 earthquake. That clearly intended parallel to L. Frank Baum’s fourth Oz book, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, hooked me into Maguire’s continuation of his story right off the bat, all trepidation after A Lion Among Men cast aside. A further parallel to Dorothy and the Wizard is a trial as full of sense and sensitivity as that of Eureka the kitten, but it’s not Eureka on trial this time. It’s Dorothy - for the murders of the Wicked Witches of the East and West.

Less plot-centric Oz references proliferate delightfully - from Oz books by Baum and Thompson and illustrations by Denslow and Neill, through Baum’s non-Oz writings such as John Dough and the Cherub and Father Goose: His Book, to stage and screen versions such as The Wiz and Return to Oz. Even Judy Garland impersonators get a false-eyelashed wink. When the characters start conversing in lyrics from the stage version of Wicked, it’s so self-referential in such a sideways manner that I just want to hug Maguire for the clever mischief of it. On top of the Oz references there are plenty of nods to other fantasy literature for children.

So there are parallels between this fourth Oz book by Maguire and Baum’s fourth Oz book. But it’s Baum’s second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, that Maguire riffs on most closely here, with appearances by Mombey, General Jinjuria, and even Jellia Jamb. That’s not to say Maguire copies Marvelous Land. He doesn’t. It’s more of an underground exploration. Once readers twig to what Baum material Maguire is exploring most intently, there’s the question of which way he’ll go with it. And either way, how will he make it work?

Maguire makes it work richly. The climactic scene plays out so inevitably I can’t believe Maguire didn’t have at least the kernel of it in mind way back when he was planning Wicked. I think it will prove highly satisfying to anyone who loves the Oz books. Which is not to say that the characters end up satisfied. Out of Oz wouldn’t be the deeply human work it is under the surface if everything turned out happily ever after. For the reader, however, this book is perhaps the happiest end to the Wicked Years that could possibly happen. What a treasure Maguire has given us. With the understanding that the first two books (at least) should be read before this one, I whole-heartedly recommend Out of Oz.

All the important characters return. Well, at least those that didn’t die in the earlier books, such as Elphaba, Fiyero, Princess Nastoya, the Glass Cat. Here are Glinda, Liir, Nor, Candle, firmly entrenched within their lives once more. I was glad to see the formerly Cowardly Lion, Brrr, again, despite A Lion Among Men. And many of the minor characters are back, too. Nanny, Shell, Cherrystone, Iskinaary, Mr. Mikko, Chistery, even Dosey the Wren. One character I was longing to see again shows up near the end, but I won’t reveal which one that is. Ah, what joy to be in their company, even though through much of the book most of the characters are suffering from one sort of heartache or another. However, it’s not so much that they’ve all “returned” or “are back.” Out of Oz is simply a continuation of their collective story. With this fourth entry to the series, the first three books become no longer standalone stories, but chunks of a single saga that can no longer stand separately. Out of Oz forces the Wicked Years series into a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

The most important character in Out of Oz is Rain - daughter of Liir and Candle - granddaughter of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. A singular child, not hard to love, but a bit painful to love - a bit painful for her own solitary sake, a bit painful for the sakes of the characters who are bound to her in love, and a bit painful for the reader. Rain is like so many of the children of the Oz books - she’s an independent child who, if not actually an orphan, might as well be one. This story, no matter how much time is spent with other characters - and plenty of time is well spent with Glinda, Dorothy, Brrr, and Liir - this is Rain’s story, Rain’s journey, both physical and emotional. When it begins, her green complexion has been disguised, her capacity for magic has been suppressed, and her best protection is neglect. Rain’s got a lot to deal with in her - Maguire’s - world of Oz. Her relationship with her parents, her relationship with the lion Brrr, her relationship to her grandmother Elphaba, and most movingly her relationship with the boy Tip. Yes, that Tip. Rain deals with everything Maguire throws at her. And by the end of the story she’s grown. Grown, if not up, then within. And out. Out of Oz.

Memorable scenes include the return to the castle of Kiamo Ko, Rain’s discovery of a stone with a seahorse carved into it, Glinda’s farewell to Rain before bowing to an unexpected but logical fate, and a marvelous secondhand shop in the city of Shiz. Humor is spread around generously, even as the characters face bleak situations: the Grimmerie disguising itself as an unexpected twentieth century classic novel, the purposes Little Daffy has for the baking ingredient she collected in the poppy field, and the general reaction to Dorothy Gale’s unabashed Midwesterness and tendency to break into song at the drop of a hat.

Dorothy Gale is an odd element in Out of Oz. She’s neither Baum’s Dorothy nor Dorothy as played by Judy Garland. Flashes of these other Dorothys appear, but Maguire’s Dorothy is his own. Most of the time she’s not really likeable, but the reader, like the rest of the characters, can’t quite dislike her either. Maguire has successfully transformed Dorothy into a foreign object, which is exactly what a Kansas girl would be in Oz. When the prologue ended, I didn’t know whether Dorothy had been killed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake or not.  I was happy to find that she survived - to become a victim, an annoyance, and a key player when she performs a well-known song for Emperor Shell in one of the most amusing and poignant moments in this amusing and poignant book.

Maguire’s prose style remains as dense as ever. Where a two-dollar word will suffice, he chooses a ten-dollar one. In a single page I came across two words unknown to me. I wondered whether Maguire simply made them up. Fulguration. Chuntered. From root and context I basically understood the first. But “chunter” was still pretty opaque until I looked it up as I was writing this. Mumble, British origin. Actually, there are many instances where words and phrases Maguire uses smack of British origin. I find this a little uncomfortable in a book set in Oz, the quintessential American fairyland, even if it’s a version of Oz that’s unquestionably a different facet of the Ozziverse than the Oz of L. Frank Baum. I could excuse Maguire’s Britishisms as some sort of reference to Merry Go Round in Oz by the McGraws, that series capper featuring nannies, heraldry, and roundabouts to the discomfort of many Oz enthusiasts (not to this one). But I really don’t think Out of Oz contains any homage to Merry Go Round.

The only other place Maguire’s prose firmly ejected me from the story was when “Rain slumped in the Lion’s forearms and noodled herself toward sleep.” Noodled? Really? I don’t know how one manages to noodle oneself toward sleep or anywhere else.

Are these quibbles? Perhaps. Despite these occasional stumbles, Maguire’s prose spins itself in musical phrasing, and while blatant in its advanced vocabulary, flows gorgeously along. I’d guess Maguire’s style is a matter of taste. If it’s to yours, it works beautifully. If not, then maybe you ought to read above your level more often.

But Out of Oz isn’t about improving your vocabulary - although the ability to comprehend a particular book is a thread of the story. Out of Oz is about finding your place in the world. It’s an echo of Dorothy’s goal in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It also turns Dorothy’s goal inside-out, repeating the phrase “There’s no place like home” with a different meaning. Out of Oz encourages me to cast aside any concerns that my adult love for Oz is simply a nostalgic inertia for a phenomenon that impacted my childhood. Sure, it’s fun to recognize the arcane Oz references strewn through the story. (I know exactly where Maguire got the keys that Mombey uses in a magic spell.) But Maguire’s story is far more than a guessing game to make use of all the Oz trivia that’s accumulated in my head since I was six. Maguire’s Oz deals more deeply - and starkly - with the details of what it means to be a mature human being than Baum’s Oz could. Baum’s Oz speaks directly, openly, to the heart of a child. Maguire’s Oz touches the heart of what it means to become adult. I decry those who accuse Maguire of tearing down what Baum built. Quite the opposite. Maguire has added his own strength on top of Baum’s foundation. As an Oz lover with an adult brain, an adult heart, and the courage to explore them both, I gratefully embrace the journey Out of Oz maps. I welcome Out of Oz into the world.

Adolf Hitler in Oz - A Review

Today we have a guest blogger: Eric Shanower, cartoonist of Oz comics and other stuff.

Adolf Hitler in Oz: A Children's Book for Adults
by Sam Sackett
Published by Xlibris Corporation, 2011
To order: www.Xlibris.com
A Review by Eric Shanower

Talk about high concept! You can’t get much higher than a mash up between one of the twentieth century’s most infamous monsters and America’s favorite fairyland.

If you think that the title is a joke or that author Sam Sackett won’t deliver on the premise, you would be wrong. The story - set, of course, during World War II -  begins in the final days of the war in Europe. Hitler, realizing that the end is quickly approaching, tries to hide that fact from Eva Braun while secretly commissioning construction of a time machine he believes will let him escape.

The tense atmosphere is well defined in Sackett’s clear and comfortable prose, but some of the nuts and bolts aren’t so clear. Whether the time machine can do what it’s supposed to is a question never answered. At first it seems to work, but the German Colonel that Hitler uses as a guinea pig is revealed to be lying about his experience using the machine. Later, Hitler successfully uses the machine to reach the Land of Oz, but this result is clearly not what he expected. No matter, the adventure is off to a fine start.

The first people that Hitler meets in Oz are two bumbling oafs named Stanley and Ollie, who quite convincingly reproduce the familiar screen personas of the twentieth century film stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. But when Stanley and Ollie are revealed as residents of Oogaboo I wondered why their names aren’t Jo. I expected Sackett, author of the seminal Oz essay “The Utopia of Oz” (The Georgia Review, vol. 14, p275-91. [Fall 1960]; reprinted in The Critical Heritage Series edition of The Wizard of Oz, Schocken Books, 1983), to hew closely to the Oz established by L. Frank Baum. But Sackett doesn’t.

The story proceeds to raise more questions for anyone familiar with Baum’s Oz. Why is Oogaboo located in the Gillikin County instead of the Winkie Country where Baum placed it in Tik-tok of Oz? Why has Jo Files married Queen Ann instead of Ozga, who isn’t even mentioned? I kept waiting for a big reveal of why things had changed so much in Oz between 1914 and 1945. More than halfway through the book no reveal had been revealed. The story only raised more questions by introducing more inconsistencies with the Oz books. But I’m in the camp that says that inconsistencies are part of the Oz experience, so I was content to continue reading because by that time I was heavily involved in the story of Hitler’s plan to conquer Oz.

Hitler quickly maneuvers into becoming Reichschancellor of Oogaboo. He gains allies from Runnymead, where the inhabitants run races all day long, and he sets the people of Flame City – led by the Red Hot Mama – to making rifles. Hitler’s interactions with the inhabitants of Oz are all very delightful, especially when Hitler's inhumanity bumps up against the innocent natures of the Oz residents. I don’t quite buy Sackett’s characterizations of familiar Oz characters such as Dorothy and the Wizard (no other author has ever quite matched Baum in this, either), but this is a minor quibble since the story doesn’t spend much time with them, instead focusing on Hitler and Oogaboo. And to a great extent the book strikes the right Ozzy tone of gentle humor.

At the last moment Hitler’s plans go awry. And this is where I have a major problem with the book. Hitler is foiled because he lacks knowledge of a significant detail long ago established in the Oz books. I didn’t lack knowledge of the significant detail, but Sackett fails to introduce it at the logical place in his story. As I read, I wondered why he didn’t mention it. Since so many of the other details in the book don’t match the details of Baum’s Oz books – and because this particular detail would so obviously prevent Hitler’s plan from succeeding – I assumed that Sackett had eliminated that detail from his version of Oz. My assumption was incorrect. In fact, Hitler is stopped because of that very detail and I felt cheated by the author for first playing fast and loose with the Oz “facts,” then solving a major problem with an Oz “fact” he’d left previously unmentioned. Not fair, Mr. Sackett. Was Sackett’s intention to mimic Baum’s frequent use of deus ex machina -  such as introducing previously undiscovered powers of the silver shoes, convenient use of the Magic Belt, water that wipes minds, etc.? If so, Sackett’s attempt doesn’t work. It feels like a cheat, whereas I never felt cheated by Baum.

Fortunately Hitler’s failure isn’t the end of the story. The book goes on to relate Hitler’s “incarceration” in Tollydiggle’s jail. I was quite interested to see how that situation would play out, how the Oz system would deal with such a man as Adolf Hitler. I can’t say that Sackett’s conclusion is altogether convincing, but it’s a good try in the face of formidable odds and it brings the story to a satisfying end.

Another connection between Oz and Hitler! An illustration by Frank Kramer for the article "On a Limb" by Anthony Boucher, Unknown Worlds, October 1941. Kramer also illustrated The Magical Mimics in Oz and The Shaggy Man of Oz.

Overall, I found the book an enjoyable and comfortable read. The only thing that keeps me from recommending it more strongly is that Sackett’s garbling of the established Oz mythos creates problems for the story itself. But if the title Adolf Hitler in Oz intrigues you at all, I’d say give it a try.

So what’s next? Idi Amin in Oz? Pol Pot in Oz? How about Jim Jones in Oz?—I’d be first in line to read that one.

The Wiz and Me

Continuing along with these Ozzy memories from the 1970s, one of the most influential events in my life has to be seeing the national roadshow of the original Broadway production of The Wiz on February 24, 1979.

I had just seen the film version starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson a month and a half earlier when it had opened in December 1978. I had liked the film version well enough and was playing the double-LP soundtrack album a lot at home. After seeing the film I started playing the original Broadway cast album a lot, too. And I was now eager to see the stage show which was coming to town to play at Popejoy Hall on the University of New Mexico campus. This is where all the big touring shows and concerts played.

I bought two tickets to the show. I was going to see the matinee by myself, and my mom, sister, and I were going to see the evening performance that night. Somehow I felt a deep connection to the show - even though I had yet to see it

This was the first Broadway tour I'd ever seen and the magic and intensity of the performance were incredible. The brilliance of Geoffrey Holder's making the Tornado a human dancer, the faithfulness to Baum's story, the fact that Dorothy was such a believable little girl . . . well it all uhm . . . utterly blew me away!

The program book said Dorothy was to be played by someone named Debbie Malone. But there was a photocopied insert in the program saying that the role of Dorothy was NOW being played by Lillias D. White, and let me tell you, she gave and sang a performance for the ages! For those that might not know, Lillias White has gone on to become a legend and Tony Award winning Broadway star. You can read a bit about her here.

I loved the second performance just as much. I had really never seen "magic" happen on stage before. I don't mean tricks, smoke, and flying monkeys; I mean the stage disappeared and I was sucked into the show. Like when reading an Oz book and the words fade away and you're just absorbing the adventure. It was so wonderful and magical that I knew I had to be a part of it and try to make that happen for other people.

So I decided I must work in the theatre, and eventually I did. And that is why seeing a touring production of The Wiz was so influential to me.

Read like an Egyptian!

Our latest Pawprint book, Sam Steele's Adventures - The Treasure of Karnak has gotten more than the usual amount of publicity. The latest is a nice review in the glossy British magazine Ancient Egypt. It just appeared in their August/September 2010 issue.

It's a very good review and I will quote the last few paragraphs:

"Written for teenage boys, it is perhaps surprisingly violent for its time, and its historical accuracy is of some dubious quality; but having said that, it is no worse than many novels set in Egypt written in the last one hundred years, when authors should have known better.

"This edition has an excellent introduction by Egyptologist David Moyer, who provides some background on the author, on the Egypt of the early 1900s and on the ancient period relevant to the novel. This is supplemented by extracts from Baum's own account of a trip he made to Egypt in 1906. 

"The Treasure of Karnak is a great historical thriller, designed to quicken the pulse of any red-blooded young male (and possibly even older ones too!)." The full review can be read on-line at the Ancient Egypt website.

If you've never read one of Baum's Sam Steele books - why not give this one a try?

Eric and Skottie and Oz - Video

Today we share a 10 minute video treat from Brick and Tiger at One Shot Presents - an interview with Eric Shanower and Skottie Young on their double Eisner Award-winning Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Marvel Comics. It's a great little interview.



If you don't have a copy of the hardcover edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz yet, well don't delay!  Order one today! Marvel may not be keeping the hardcover edition in print after the paperback comes out next month. We still have about ten copies in stock at our on-line store. If you'd like to get an autographed copy, just let us know in the "special instructions" field when you're "checking out" and Eric will be happy to sign your book for you.

Oz about it?

Welcome to Ozopolis!

One Ozzy project I wanted to track down at Comic Con last weekend was the new comic Ozopolis.

I had seen the cover and a short preview on-line, and it looked "promising." I usually pay little attention to new Oz comics as there are so many these days and sadly most are "revamps" and "updates," many of which turn Oz into a dark, psychotic land of mayhem and bloodshed. But when I looked at the online preview and saw the depictions of the Wizard with his typical Neill temple curls and saw the Woozy had a starring role, my curiosity was piqued.

Happily, Ozopolis has exceeded my "promising" expectations and is an utterly charming new Oz story. Writer Kirk Kushin and artist Gonzalo Martinez have produced a very engaging story. It feels fresh, new, and absolutely right. It is the Oz we all know and love. Ozma sounds like Ozma, the glass cat behaves like the glass cat, and Kushin clearly knows and loves Baum's Oz books very much.

One of the few bows to modernity is a clothing update for Dorothy and Ozma. Dorothy gets shorts, t-shirt, sneakers, and a little Ozzy jacket; and Ozma has traded in her flowing negligee-style gown for a slightly General Jinjuresque uniform. But uniform aside, Ozma's character is right on target. She's lovely, has a fondness for protocol, very warm, but a bit opaque.

The plot in this issue revolves around the Queen of the Field Mice asking Ozma for help dealing with some unusual wildcats. Since the problem is occurring in the deadly Poppy Field, Ozma sends three non-breathing Oz folk, Tik-tok, the Glass Cat, and the Sawhorse, on the mission. All three are smack-dab in character and are very funny. And when the Woozy is sent to rescue the rescuers, a hysterical moment occurs when the field mice can't remember the right word to make the Woozy's eyes flash fire.

In typical Baumian fashion, the "villain"of this issue is not as black as he seems. And while this issue has nice closure, a bigger threat remains to carry us on to future issues. I hope there will be many more to come.

Martinez's art for the issue is very good. The characters feel fresh and new, but will be wholly recognizable to Oz purists. It's a little cartoony (in a good way), yet advances the story, as good comic art should.

The one real blemish to the book is the number of typos and missing articles in the word balloons. Even a cursory proof-reading should have caught them. If the series continues and a trade is ever issued, I hope they will be corrected.

So, if you're hankering for a new Oz adventure, I happily suggest you try a short visit to Ozopolis!

You can see more previews and order copies at:

www.ozopolis.com

If Ever, oh Ever, a WIZ There Was

The film version of The Wiz is probably few Oz fans’ favorite film. Yet in 1978 the release of the film was very exciting. The Wiz was the first major-studio Oz film since the 1939 MGM Wizard of Oz as well as a film version of a mega-hit Broadway musical of the same name. But despite the record-breaking twenty-seven million-dollar budget, the film flopped in the United States (it did very well in France) and it flopped even bigger with most Oz fans.

Critics have often blamed the failure of this film on the casting of thirty-four year-old Diana Ross to play a twenty-four year-old Dorothy. They have blamed the choice to set the entire film in a nightmarish New York City-inspired fairyland. But the real villains in the film version of The Wiz are not Diana Ross’s Dorothy or the multiple green Chrysler Buildings, but Joel Schumacher’s illogical and anti-musical script and Sidney Lumet’s direction.  Neither Schumacher nor Lumet seem to understand how a musical works as a drama; and on this film they each continually mistrust - and in the end sabotage - their material.

Why does Aunt Em sing “The Feeling We Once Had” to a cousin of Dorothy’s who doesn’t even have a speaking part in the film? It should have been a tender moment between Aunt Em and Dorothy. Why discard the Scarecrow’s “I was Born on the Day Before Yesterday” (explaining the Scarecrow’s origin) for a new song, “You Can’t Win,” which tells us nothing about the Scarecrow and instead serves solely as a pop song for Michael Jackson. Why did Lumet cut all of the Wizard’s music? “So You Wanted To Meet the Wizard” could have been an eye-popping showstopper halfway through the film. The Wizard’s version of “If You Believe” was also cut. Presumably Richard Pryor, who was cast as the Wiz, couldn’t sing - but if one simply must cast Richard Pryor, one could always dub him, no?  When Lumet eliminated all of the Wizard’s songs and Schumacher wrote a script where the Wizard is no longer even the person to present the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion with their just rewards, well, the Wiz himself becomes rather superfluous. Viewers cease to care, and in the end, the film falls apart. 

There are certainly a few good moments. The film preserves Ted Ross’s Tony-Award winning Broadway performance as the Cowardly Lion. And Mabel King (also from the original Broadway cast) offers up a fabulous performance as Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West. Michael Jackson is entertaining and empathetic. He does a fine job only a couple years before he became a superstar.

But so very much doesn’t work at all. Why does the Emerald City turn red and then gold?  Lumet obviously wanted to put over the idea that the Emerald City is populated with a gaggle of empty-headed, fashion-following hipsters, but couldn’t find a way to do it without violating the story. We get the same mediocre production number three times in three colors, two of which are not green. The New York City joke about not being able to catch a cab is badly overused. Why does the Cowardly Lion live in a statue? What does it mean that Glinda seems to have created the blizzard that blew Dorothy to Oz? Why did Lumet think it clever to have the Wiz unmask himself to the audience by peeking out of the giant head as Dorothy and her friends set off to kill Evillene? It is dramatic mistakes like this that sank the film version of The Wiz. Not even the few lovely moments - Dorothy singing “Be a Lion” to the crying Lion, the second half of “Brand New Day,” and Dorothy singing “Home” at the end - can save the film from the blizzard of confusion wrought by Lumet and Schumacher.

Which brings us to the latest 2-Disc Thirtieth Anniversary DVD edition of The Wiz. The DVD comes in a typical plastic snapcase with a thin cardboard slipcover. Both are adorned with new artwork. The slipcover has the added spiffiness of yellow glitter for the title lettering and silver glitter for Dorothy’s silver shoes. The Emerald City is printed over a holographic green background adding still more pizazz to the packaging.

The contents of the DVD itself are not quite as pizazz-filled. The film has supposedly been “Digitally Remastered for Optimum Picture Quality,” yet it is only marginally better than the previous DVD reissue. I compared multiple scenes, multiple times, and found little difference. The new DVD is perhaps a little brighter and sharper - but not much. The colors are muted and sometimes downright drab, an example being the green-apple sunrise over the Emerald City. This scene was stunning in the movie theatre - the Emerald City even looked green as I recall. In this DVD release the predominant color seems naturalistic cityscape gray.  The Munchkinland scenes are very dark. During much of the “He’s the Wizard” production number it is hard to see any of the detail. Granted it’s a dark scene - but it should be saturated blues and show some subtlety - here it is just dark and murky. The remastered sound is quite decent. I was not able to play the sound in a 5.1 Surround Sound setup, but  running it through my two-channel stereo sound system it sounded vibrant and fresh and as good as ever. The film comes with an alternate French language track, and English and French subtitles.

The “Special Features” include a 1978 featurette called "Wiz on Down the Road," which runs about ten minutes. While it is mostly a typical publicity piece, it does include some interesting behind-the-scenes footage. Also included is one of the less-interesting theatrical trailers for the film. I was hoping this DVD would include the “History of Oz” Wiz trailer that began with a shot of a George M. Hill edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and quickly worked through a history of Oz on stage and screen before exploding into the colorful, soulful “brand new Oz!” That much more interesting trailer was written by Oz club member and Oz film historian Aljean Harmetz. It’s a shame they didn’t include it. The extra disc in this set is a music CD featuring eight songs from the soundtrack. The selected tracks give a good sampling of the score, but many songs are omitted and none of the orchestral music is included. Indeed the eight tracks don’t even really function as a simple retelling of the story since such choice numbers as  “The Feeling We Once Had,” “Soon as I get Home,” and “No Bad News” are not included.

This DVD release is certainly a satisfactory preservation of the film. But as a Thirtieth Anniversary celebration its charms are limited.