] c/ \ /___\ *** THE OZZY DIGEST, AUGUST 30 - SEPTEMBER 2, 1999 *** |@ @| | V | \\\ |\_/| | ;;; \-/ \ ;/ >< ] ===================================================================== = From: OzTime@aol.com Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 19:11:03 EDT Subject: Ozzy Digest I was wondering if anyone from this list would be at the Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton, Indiana on September 17-19. Please E-mail me if you would be going so maybe we can meet each other at the festival!! Thanks! Don Davis Oztime@aol.com ===================================================================== = Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 19:53:14 -0500 (EST) From: Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-29-99 Could the SF writer referred to be L. Ron Hubbard? I saw a segment on _Entertainment Tonight_ featuring parodies of _The Blair witch Project_, one of which was _The Oz Witch Project_ (MGM based), but there is no web page for it that I could find, nor is there an IMDb entry for it, either. At bunk Films, we're working on _The Bunk Witch Project_-- a bunch of us (a lareger group than in the Myrick/Sanchez film) are going to go to Brown County wth our parody script. The map gets eaten instead of thrown into the river. Steve Meyer, who has seen _The Blair Witch Project_ nine times as of this writing, wrote it. Nikki Hunter will probably play the lead. I might be in it, too, probably cast as the guy who eats the map. If Aubrey Donaldson hadn't moved away, I'd try to get her to do _The Quadling Witch Project_, in which Queen Aubrey leads a documentary film crew (with Tip as the camera operator and Peter Gregory on sound) on a quest to find Blinkie. Of course, Tip and Peter would be too old (and Aubrey would be a little too old--she's 21 now), but Dorothy is usually played by someone too old, anyway. Scott ======================================================== Scott Andrew Hutchins http://php.iupui.edu/~sahutchi Oz, Monsters, Kamillions, and More! "Love is not a positive emotion that begins in us and ends in the positive response of someone else. Love is divine energy that comes from God and has no end." --Eric Butterworth ===================================================================== = From: "Jeremy Steadman" Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 21:34:22 EST Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-29-99 David Hulan: I hope your eye continues to get better. Where is Yew? (ouch!): Personally, I don't know that there's enough evidence either way to place the Isle in the same ocean--or not. <<"Invalid Page Fault in KERNAL32.DLL" GRRR.>> Hey, now that's getting to the kernal of the problem! I think I'd better end my post before I'm expelled from the Digest permanently. Ozzily yours, Jeremy Steadman, Royal Historian of Oz kivel99@planetall.com http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9619/ ICQ# 19222665, AOL Inst Mssgr name kiex or kiex2 "A good example of a parasite? Hmmm, let me think... How about the Eiffel tower?" ===================================================================== = From: Ozmama@aol.com Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:49:37 EDT Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-29-99 From: "David Godwin" David Godwin: <> Much of the original Neill Oz art is in the hands of individual collectors. Some is probably lost in the piles of stuff owned but not cared for by the publisher. In other words, it's all over the place. Ken S.:< GRAMPA is also a very tightly plotted book, and there's very little in it that is not relevant to the plot.>> I like the book, too, except for the Playfellows section. Jim Haff hated it, but that was because he looked at it from a GeOzifer's point of view. The journey and its descriptions don't tally at all, apparently, so it drove poor Jimbo nutso. He and Dick had a heckuva time figuring out where to put places from that book. I'm glad I didn't have to make those decisions. I couldn't have done it! But I do find the characters very satisfying. I like curmudgeons, and Grampa's a lovable one. Urtha is a delightful, gentle character. She's well- delineated, and I've always been very fond of her. She's quite different from most other characters in the series, too. I think she's one of RPT's most original characters. Bill is a somewhat irritating zany/mechanical, but lots of kids like that sort of thing. I just wasn't one of them. Tatters is, I think, better drawn than Pompa or Reddy or even Randy. He's also a bit different from most protagonists in that he's so serious. (I know Bob Up is serious, but...). One thing that I loved about this book when I was a child was the trail of flowers left by Urtha. I thought that was a terrific detail, and I still find it charming. And the game leg is a great idea, although when I first read about it I didn't understand the pun. I'd like to visit Gorba's Garden someday. Soo-ooo, there you have my two centavos' worth for now. --Robin ===================================================================== = From: "Warren H. Baldwin" Subject: Ozzy Digest 8/29 Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:38:19 -0500 I didn't get the resend 2 Ozzy Digest of 8/27, so if I'm guilty of "ignoring" anyone's response, it's unintentional. I'll try to keep it brief, as this isn't an Ozzy topic, really. David G.: >The bottom line is that, yes, I have noticed a certain cliqueishness (if there's such a word) about the Digest, and I have seen it directed at a few other people much more so than toward myself - but, what the hey, it's kind of unavoidable< Exactly. I believe that's what I said, but you have, as usual, cast your thoughts in a much more logical manner. You wrote the post I would have written if I had possessed the ability. Thanks for the response, all of it. D. Hulan: Odd that you should remark on the tone of my post. I had been thinking along these lines for some time, but there was something about your first post of 8/22, I believe it was, that triggered me. Probably you were upset about your eye problem, and I can fully understand that. You have more fortitude than I: not for anything would I have attempted to drive with impaired depth perception. >Or do you have some theory as to how a dozen or so people on the Ozzy Digest might threaten anyone with their nit-picking analysis of the fine points of the Oz books?< No, no theory. But you skirt the border between humor and ridicule here. This is the kind of thing I referred to, rather than overt raillery. Ridicule in its aggressive form has not, fortunately, occurred on the Digest for months. And I hereby admit to succumbing to a temptation to provoke, some way, any way, a response. I succeeded to the extent of two reasoned, restrained answers from two reasonable, civilized men. But the remainder of my post fell under the "ignorance" I mentioned. My AV was ignored, my allusion was ignored, my question was ignored. I will not speculate as to the reasons for this. It's the feeling of dropping something into the well of the Forbidden Flagon which annoys so, but perhaps the Digest member base is not big enough to reach someone who will respond. Precisely. I deliberately mentioned some of those perceived as the least desirable. Also deliberately, I drew no comparison between those and the Digest since none was intended, but apparently this absent connection was spontaneously generated by some. It's difficult to write, else we'd all be writers; sometimes it's also a challenge to read correctly. Thanks for the comments. Unless there are some in the resend2 of the Digest, that's all I intend to say on the subject. Personal correspondence or not, your con report was great. Posts like that are what keep the coterie loyal! W. Baldwin (coterie outsider) ===================================================================== = From: RMorris306@aol.com Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 00:06:09 EDT Subject: Ozzy Comments In a message dated 8/28/99 10:52:51 PM, Dave Hardenbrook writes: << That assumes Nikidik and Pipt are the same person. All we know about Nikidik is that he invented the wishing pills. My theory is that Pipt got the wishing pills from Nikidik or from abother source, but that he had nothing to do with Mombi. >> Which could also explain how Dyna in ROAD got hold of the magic powder...maybe Nikidik was her relative who died (back when Oz people still *could* die) and left her some of the powder HE got from Pipt... Scott wrote: <> Has anyone ever done a list of all the characters in that scene? I didn't even know Disney had the rights to the Thompson books; I'd though he'd just licensed Baum's 14 (or 13, since WIZARD was by then in public domain). Then again, Eric Shanower included characters in WICKED WITCH that technically were still copyrighted, too... > COWARDLY LION: > Call me an un-American pinko, but I've always hated clowns, which > probably explains why I don't like _Cowardly Lion of Oz_... Just like Tim Burton. I don't like clowns much, either, even though there was one in my last class who is an okay guy. Clowns are scary. Clowns are inherently evil. :)>> A lot of children are afraid of clowns...a lady I've dated mentioned that she was afraid of them as a girl, and still can't stand them at the circus. Bob Kane was also afraid of clowns as a boy, and used that ambivalence when he created The Joker as a villain for Batman (though with a lot of input from Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson), or at least so he told me the one time I talked to him. (Is it any wonder that Burton wanted to do a movie about Batman and The Joker, with the latter getting top billing?) Kabumpo wrote: <<(Perhaps you are thinking of Otto the Gnome Prince from the Oz Kid movies) Otto is also T O T O reversed! But I really don't know.>> How many of the "Oz Kid movies" were there? I rented them on a whim and they were better than I thought they'd be; obviously they were written by people who at least knew something about Oz beyond the MGM movie (with relatively little-known characters like the Ork and the Woozy showing up), even if the characters having children of their own seems a bit more Laumeresque (March, not Keith). I almost *could* believe that (a la Laumer) Button-Bright was the father of Glinda's brat of a daughter...and they seemed to hint that Dorothy's husband was her distant cousin Zeb (from DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD) and that the Scarecrow's wife was Scraps the Patchwork Girl (a la Donald Abbott). But what about the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead...and, for that matter, how could they (and the Scarecrow) physically have children, anyway? The mind reels... <<"QUESTION OF THE MONTH: What is your favorite Thompson, Baum, Neil, Snow, etc book in the famous forty?>> Baum: The Lost Princess of Oz Thompson: The Wishing Horse of Oz Neill: Lucky Bucky in Oz Snow: Magical Mimics in Oz Other (since Cosgrove/Payes and McGraw & McGraw/Wagner had only one FF book each): Merry Go Round in Oz Counting the IWOCC books by FF authors, I'd still place Merry Go Round above Forbidden Fountain, but I liked both Wicked Witch of Oz and A Runaway in Oz more than the actual FF books written by Payes and Neill. (And both Yankee and Enchanted Island were rather disappointing compared with most of Thompson's original Oz books...MAYBE better than Cowardly Lion and a few other less than stellar efforts, but not anything in the league of Wishing Horse or Jack Pumpkinhead or Royal Book.) J.L. Bell wrote: <> I know that confused me a great deal when I first read THE SCARECROW OF OZ, since of course I had little chance to read most of Baum's non-Oz books until many years later, and wondered how Trot knew who Button-Bright was or what the "Magic Umbrella" was that he referred to. But of course, that umbrella might also have explained how he got to the outskirts of Foxville in ROAD, which was never explained in that book or elsewhere. (How he got the umbrella back is hard to explain, though, unless we assume Santa Claus located it and sent it back with him...) David Hulan wrote: <> Unless s/he happened to be a fan of the 1925 silent WIZARD OF OZ movie (with Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, and Dorothy Dwan). King Krewl not only appears in it (as the main villain) but is in the very first scene! Any chance you could send through a copy of your Oz quiz and see how well we do at it? Rich Morrissey ===================================================================== = From: ZMaund@aol.com Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:39:30 EDT Subject: Santa Claus Greetings: I am working on a bibliographic article for The Baum Bugle, and would appreciate hearing from anyone who has access to a copy of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus published by Donohue. Thanks in advance. Patrick Maund ZMaund@aol.com ===================================================================== = Date: Mon, 30 Aug 99 10:58:37 CST From: "Ruth Berman" Subject: Neill in Oz David Hulan and Robin Olderman: Thanks for the Winkieconcomments. Enjoyed. David Godwin: The idea of an Oz calendar of Neill art -- might be fun, but some difficulties occur to me. One is that the material would be repeating what's already been published in the Oz books, and so would be work that many of the potential buyers already have (entirely or in part). You specified reprints from Neill's originals, and there might be a significant difference in the quality of the reprint (especially for those whose copies are late reprints from plates getting worn out), but I'm not sure if there would be enough originals available. There might also be a problem in getting permissions from Neill's estate. (I don't think that calendars would be covered by the special permission that lets the "Bugle" reprint artwork from the Oz books.) There might be a special interest if a calendar could be done in color, and if calendars could be done covering the color plates from the books that aren't going to go into public domain for a long time. Or Neill's colored illos (it didn't have full-color plates, but had limited color) from "John Dough" might make an interesting calendar. Have you been getting the Tiger Press "Oz Magazine" issues? They've been reprinting a good deal of Neill art from non-Oz sources, including recently a gorgeous color cover from Carl Grabo's "Peter and the Princess," which had some of Neill's most ambitious work. (And I reprinted Neill's b&w artwork from a 1904 newspaper serial, "The Real Robin Hood," in two of my Dunkiton Press pamphlets.) The "Bugle" would also be a possibility for more reprints of artwork, but Bill Stillman likes to have specific connections between the contents and the illos, and that often means not using artwork that it would otherwise be nice to have. (If you'd like to drop him a line along these lines, though, maybe at some point the expressions of interest would add up to enough to encourage him to do more of the old plates.) Past issues of the "Bugle" have included a lot of Neill's work in connection with articles about him, but we're perhaps overdue for another Neill issue. It's been over 20 years since an updated checklist of his work appeared, and even several years since the last issue with a Neill focus. Coming up with new articles on him that wouldn't overlap too much with previous ones might be a problem, perhaps. Kenneth R. Shepherd: Thanks for the "Grampa" day-count. We seem to have segued into discussing it without actually having had a start- date set. I think I'll delay adding any comments on it until I have re- read it. Ruth Berman ===================================================================== = Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 12:16:37 -0400 From: "J. L. Bell" Subject: Otto know better On my "Otto in Oz" question, Justin Richards wrote: <> Sharp as you (and David Hulan) are to think of this possibility, I can rule it out. I've never watched those cartoons. Robin Olderman wrote: <> Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! That's who I must have been thinking of. I never met Fred Otto, but I've seen his name associated with Oz art and fiction for over two decades now. About the Winkie Convention, David Hulan wrote: <> I'm curious--what defines a Master at the Winkies? Also, do you sense a slight breakdown in the quiz tradition at conventions? The Munchkins have stumbled a bit these past two years, and 1998's Winkie winner didn't write a quiz for 1999. Have the Ozmapolitans experienced such bumps? What's planned for 2000? Thanks, incidentally, for your clear-headed (and now clear-sighted) description of your eye problem. If I'm ever unlucky enough to experience the same thing, I hope to be a bit calmer by recognizing the problem. Glad you're back to normal. Lisa Marie wrote: <