Journey Back to Oz (Musical Hell Review
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2022
- A direct-to-video movie before direct-to-video movies were a thing.
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Развлечения
For two decades, the line, "There's a saaaad little feeling you feel. when you stub your toe, OOOOOooooh, OOOOOOooooh," has been haunting my brain like the drumbeat the Time Lords implanted in the Master's head.
For me it's "an elephant never forgets"
I am shocked this one wasn't memed to the hell and back
He looks like George Jetson turn into an arrow standing stick figure 4:56
Her death did make me almost feel sorry for her besides being evil & all that 17:15
It’s such a beautiful, beautiful song. But that stub your toe lyric…
This movie hired Liza Minelli, Ethel Merman, Margaret Hamilton, and the lady who sang for Glinda, and didn’t do anything with them. That is a criminal misuse of their talented cast.
You saying Mombi is the two previous wicked witches cousin gives me the same energy as Sebastian the crab screaming "URSALA'S CRAZY SISTER!!!" in The Little Mermaid 2.
Yep such a weak ass excuse for a villain’s backstory Mombi in the book is whole lot more interesting character especially with how she’s more interesting then the East and West witch’s and is more conniving and snarky
At least Mombi was a lot more affectively terrifying in Return to Oz.
@@willlyon7129it was also cool that she was turned into a Composite Character.
She was a collection of heads just like Princess Langwidere from the books.
Guys, imagine if Filmation and/or Hanna Barbera adapted “Dune” into an animated musical television special in the 1960s or 1970s.
I love this idea of the lost 1970s HB version of Dune. The Reverend mother would have a green face, Duncan Idaho would be a half dog alien who constantly barks ”Zoinks, it’s the Harkonnens!” and the sandworms close out the movie by singing the musical number “Sand“
@@johnanderson5558 See also: One of my other “imaginary media” ideas is “If ATLA and/or ‘The Owl House’ were based on books, what would those original books have been like compared to their adaptations?”.
@@johnanderson5558 Imagine if 1970's Hanna Barbera was capable of making anything that wasn't a Scooby-Doo knockoff, at the behest of the network heads, or anything not clinging to an at the time fad (C.B> Bears, anyone?) Now, imagine if 1960's action Hanna Barbera (Herculoids, Johnny Quest, Fantastic Four) took that on instead.
Imagine if they tried to be book loyal as well with that kind of budget so most of the runtime is just characters talking about socioreligious ideas with that nigh expressionless, mouth flap look you see in the old He-Man.
@@johnvinals7423 I would love to read those series, that for sure.
ATLA could be a Percy Jackson style multi-series, with Legend of Korra (and the comics) as sequel/spinoff books. I imagine it'd be one season for every book.
The Owl House, I'm not sure. Maybe we'd have more detail on Luz's life on normal world and the casual living/culture of the Boiling Islands. And maybe even more body horror and graphic biolence. Kids books are suprisingly gory, after all.
(We'd get more content, that for sure. Seriously, fuck you Disney!)
What do you think Gravity Falls would be as a book? Or what would if it and TOH had live action adaptations? (I got overcome with dread just by thinking about them)
Man, Dorothy has just been knocking off the Wicked Witch family one-by-one. Dorothy-the Last Witch Hunter.
Anybody remember that movie about adult Hansel and Gretel and their career as Dungeonpunk witch hunters? Do THAT with Dorothy!
@@PassTheMarmalade1957 I do, mainly because it had Hawkeye as Hansel.
@@PassTheMarmalade1957 Yes I remember that. Did you happen to see a movie where the descendants of Little Red Riding Hood (the current one being played by Felicia Day) are werewolf hunters?
you know they did way too many of these Wizard ofOz movies & shows
Considering I liked Abraham Lincoln Vampire hunter that sounds awesome. Make it super campy too.
I think L. Frank Baum himself had the right idea when he made the first Oz sequel without any appearance by Dorothy whatsoever. Dorothy has a pretty complete character arc in the first book, there's not much else you can do with her. Better to expand and develop Oz itself.
She comes back in Ozma of Oz.
@@colleen4ever I think that’s what Cooper meant by FIRST sequel
@@thejman5683 Yes, but they also said "there's not much else you can do with her" and yet she's used in other sequels so obviously you can.
@@Amanda-kd1zr i assume that's when she's older
"Scarecrow is in charge again until a nice transgender girl can come in and take over"
I absolutely love you for that deep cut and way you worded that
Ozma technically de-transitioned since she's originally born as a girl
so it was a reference then
@@KaminoKatie Did she detransition, or did she transition twice? Two very different processes.
@@timothymclean Prb detransition
Have to admit, the casting was fun with Liz as Dorothy and Hamilton as Aunt Em. Too bad not a better movie.
I like it more than _Legends Of Oz_ which scammed people and _Return To Oz_ which has a huge plot hole of Dorothy wanting to go back home where she’d just be locked in a psycho house.
This channel doesn’t get nearly the amount of love it deserves. It’s an opposition damn tragedy.
Agreed.
I was actually thinking of nominating it for Channel Awesome a few years ago before that channel went downhill
I find it hilarious that this is supposed to take place AFTER her first trip to OZ, and may as well be a sequel to the '39 movie, and yet she (Dorothy) somehow looks younger in this then in that.
I first saw the movie when I was around twelve and even back then I wondered why a grown woman was playing the role of a girl who was supposed to be my age 🫤 I loved Judy Garland but I never bought her as Dorothy sadly
They might as well have replaced all the dialogue in Mombi's songs with "I AM EVIL, I DO THE SORT OF THINGS WHICH ARE WIDELY CONSIDERED TO BE BAD, WHICH IS TO SAY, NOT GOOD."
The Wicked Witch of the East pretty much had a song just like that in the animated adaptation of "Lion of Oz"...but her song was actually pretty catchy.
Good Villain Song: The villain reveals their characterisation by explaining their scheme or setting their scheme into motion or celebrating the fulfilment of their scheme.
Bad Villain Song: I’m mean! I’m bad! I’m evil! I fart in the general direction of the generally nice! This is the beginning and ending of all my characterisation and character arc!
@@johnvinals7423"i fart in the general direction of the generally nice"
The Land of Oz seems like it has such potential for adaptations. It's kind of tragic most everything seems to fall so flat.
And I'm so excited for next month already: The awful Kim Fuller pop-song musical trilogy will be complete (for those playing at home, "Seeing Double" was written by the same "writer" who also wrote Spice World and From Justin to Kelly.)
By all accounts, Baum's later novels set in Oz expand on teh story and setting in some really neat ways. It's such a shame that nobody bothers to adapt those, because of how different they are from the movie everyone knows.
Oh dear. Looks like we'll be coming full circle next month in a sense. From Justin To Kelly was the first case to get 10 sins and a few months ago we got the first 11 sin case. Now we're heading back to the last pop musical Kim Fuller worked on. Better make sure to have popcorn on standby.
Wait, wait: she wrote both of those movies, and yet she STILL has a career?
@@Adamguy2003 First point of order, I just realized "Kim" is a man. Oops. Mea Culpa.
Second, it helps that his brother is Simon Fuller, the producer that created most of these bands like the Spice Girls and S Club 7. Think of him as the British version of Lou Perlman at his peak of cranking out boy bands and pop stars at the Turn of the Millennium.
I chock it up to the '30s film being just too well known. Any adaptation know it'll be weighed against the old film, so instead of trying to do its own thing, they put on the '30s film's clothes, which end up looking bad on them.
18:59 so, does this mean that Dorothy's aunt and uncle just left her outside and unconscious during a tornado?
At least she didn’t have to endure shock therapy.
@@MovieFan1912 Return to Oz had no right being that dark... I love it.
The one thing this movie did right was casting Eliza Minelli. She sounds so much like Judy garland.
Back in the day, that must have blown thousands of little minds!
Having Margaret Hamilton voice Aunt Em is clever, too.
Her and Grey DeLisle give the best Judy Garland impressions. :)
@@rogue7723 Liza Minelli was one Garland's daughters.
@@jstevinik3261 The angelic voice runs in the family
"Why is so hard to find a decent Oz sequel?"
1985 Princess Mombi: DIIIIIIIVAAAAAAAAAA DIIIIVAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *heads screaming*
She did bring up Return to Oz as one of the better Oz sequels not long after she said that.
as soon as I saw Filmation, I knew this was going to be godawfully entertaining. But Paul Lynde deserved so much better
Agreed
I loved him better in Charlotte's Web which leagues better than this. It's a shame all this talent was wasted cause I think this can work with a better story.
@@Rabbitlord108 Same with Lizi Mielli, Milton Berle, Mickey Ronney, etc.
I legit thought I just imagined this film as a kid, seriously the green elephant, Glinda's design and the Cowardly Lions shadow against the rocks have been in my mind since I was a little kid and couldn't find where they came from. So glad to finally know that I didn't just dream this all up while bored.
I remember this movie existing, that elephant song ensured that it would occupy valueable storage in my brain to this day.
Sometimes it feels like when MGM did the Wizard of Oz movie, a cosmic curse made so that no othe adaptation would trive! Heck, even the creators of Alice Madness Returns wanted to do a game based in Oz called Ozombies but its pretty much stuck in limbo!
Fred Ladd, co-writer, is the guy who produced the dubbing for Astro-Boy, the first anime imported to the US, and for commissioning "colorization" of Looney Tunes by having South Koreans re-draw (over the original but failed at it) and over paint the black and white animation while skipping some frames (hence the odd colour pallet and ruining the animation).
Norman Prescott is the guy who co-founded Filmation.
Ah, Filmation. The studio that used to make non official sequels to some iconic films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Wizard of Oz and Pinocchio.
That promptly got them in trouble with Disney for plagiarism.
@@MovieFan1912 Filmation would pull the "well, it is closer to the PD source material than the Disney's versions and being sequels to material that happened to be Disney films is coincidental".
@@jstevinik3261 Even though it’s obvious to anyone with their eyes open that their excuse was completely phony.
@@MovieFan1912 I remember staff would joke that they make sequels to PD properties "that happened to be adapted into Disney" films.
I remember they did a Snow White sequel where the dwarfs are "cousins".
And now, that Diva has reviewed all three, Are they other Filmation sequels that we should know about ?
I’ll be honest, I also think this directly rips off Alice in Wonderland and Sword in The Stone in some places too. Like I just get strong vibes in certain places
I just want to see Ozma in an Oz movie one day!
It's actually surprising to me that Disney haven't tried to do a proper Oz sequel considering how many Princesses there are in the Oz canon!
She briefly appears in "Return to Oz" but definitely needs a proper movie!
If I'm remembering correctly, Disney did briefly own the rights to the books back when Walt was alive. But, when the rights were about to expire, they made "Return to Oz".
It's tricky. The Oz books are public domain (I believe, it might only be part of them,) but the 1939 movie isn't and is currently held by Warner Bros. Which means, any attempt to use any of the famous iconography that people would be furious if it were excluded is very tricky. This is why Oz The Great and Powerful and Once Upon A Time had Wicked Witches that were those unpleasant shades of green.
@@Eviltwin531 I can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't be furious if the famous iconography was excluded.
@@Kahran042 Neither would I, but people get defensive of things like that. I mean, when Legend of the Seeker was made, fans of the books were ridiculously pissed off that the main villain wasn't blond.
Nothing screams Independence Day like a bad Wizard of Oz "sequel" that wasted its talented cast, especially the original Dorothy's daughter, Liza Minnelli! 😂
Yeah I love the clever bit of casting. But MAN is she wasted.
@@Rabbitlord108 Who Minelli? Her mother, Judy Garland, had issues with over-the-counter speed and sleep pills and alcohol.
@@jstevinik3261 Okay.
This video has convinced me that I need to watch this every day forever.
Which this? Because I DID watch The Wizard of/Return to/Journey Back to Oz EVERY SINGLE DAY for 20 years.
I turned out surprisingly okay lol
15:31: Then again, the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie also had Glinda save Dorothy from a spell of a witch, being the Poppy Seed Flowerbed. If Diva’s gonna nitpick about Glinda’s motives, I’m gonna do it too.
I can’t believe anyone else has ever seen this. The vhs tape was rented for me by my parents when I was a small child, sick with measles. I genuinely thought this was a fever dream. I distinctly remember the rampaging elephants and the bizarre endless trumpeting. I found the film sooo tedious, even at the age of five. The pumpkin headed character creeped me out something fierce.
And Jack Pumpkinhead was an actual character in a few of the Oz sequel books.
You think the design is creepy here, you should see the live action design.
I vaguely remeber watching this and another animated Oz abomination on Cartoon Network waaaaay back in the late 90s/ early 00s
Yeah my mom got me this VHS tape when I was a kid and that stupid elephant song still lingers in some dark corner of my brain to this day.
@@bigbearkat2010 Well, you know what they say:
🎶An elephant never forgets!🎶
Five minutes into the review and this movie makes Tom and Jerry Return to Oz look like Singing in the Rain.
Yeah. I mean for crying out loud. Tom & Jerry Back To Oz decided to retcon the film the last one was a rehash of. Most interesting thing is the inclusion of the jitterbug song which was cut from the OG MGM film.
You know it's sad when I have to say that Ethel Merman was better in Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July...
I just cannot get over how much Liza sounded like her mother. I've heard it before, but not at this level. I will say though, Filmation did put effort into fluid and interesting animation, and for the most part the actors didn't phone it in. Except Paul Lynde, he sounded like he didn't want to be there at all.
I wish Oz movies would be done by people who genuinely love and appreciate the source material, tweaking only enough to make it suitable for the medium while maintaining the story's integrity. No backstories, no pop references, no dumbing things down to the mentality of a five year old, and stop making Dorothy such a damn Mary Sue. As horrific as it could get, I thought _Return to Oz_ was at least on the right track, although it still implied that Dorothy only imagined it. I mean FFS we can go to Narnia and the Upside Down, we can go to Oz for realsies too without it having to be edgy and sexualized.
Honestly this one isn’t bad, it’s just kinda underwhelming. Ethel Merman’s singing is _amazing as usual,_ and she’s trying to make Mombi a fun villain but the lyrics and melody of her songs and her dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. The animation is fluid for a _Filmation_ movie and the backgrounds are colorful, but there’s not much in the way of the Oz uniqueness in the character designs. I feel like Hollywood can do _so many amazing_ things with Oz in animation that can’t be done in love action but they keep screwing it up.
That's wierd; I'm only 2 minutes in and I'm baffled. It's usually Auntie Em being the more down-to-earth one compared to her husband who seemed more naive in both film and books. The "God-given hands" line should've been from her.
And hold on! You got Pumpkinhead but no Ozma/Tip in sight? It's times like this I wish the 1930's did an actual sequel...Shirley Temple would've been great as the Princess of Oz as she does go on to play her in her TV show.
Well, this is still better than Legend of Oz: Dorothy's Return. Then again, a remake of the original done with kindergarten-level finger puppets is better than that nightmare.
Puppet Glinda would make someone like Malum Kranus to erase her from existence......
......PERMANENTLY!
At least there’s no puppet Glinda here.
@@MovieFan1912 Thank goodness there isn't.
@@tylerfish2701 Diva had Animat freak out over that puppet.
@@jstevinik3261 I saw that video and his cameo was hilarious.
And why do both this and “Legends of Oz” feel the compulsive need to make their bad guys relatives of the original Wicked Witch?
Because it's a cheap way to give them a reason to have beef with the main protag. I've lost count of how many times Disney has used this same gimmick in their sequels.
@@cartooncritique6625 Well, let's see:
We got Ursula's crazy Sister.
Scar's Mate.
And the Swan Princess Movies had two(!) Villains with a direct connection to the evil Sorcerer from the first Film.
(But The Swan Princess isn't actually from Disney, so that does not really count.)
@@johannesseyfried7933 You also had Jafar's sister from the Aladdin PC Game and Clayton's sister from the Tarzan animated series.
@@cartooncritique6625 Oh! Right! Those were Things that happened.
Honestly, I hate Villains with Relatives at this point.
@@johannesseyfried7933 Oh, and I completely forgot about Cruella's family reunion in the 101 Dalmatians series. Also it's been rumored that Mozenrath from the Aladdin animated series was originally going to be Jafar's son (however that is unconfirmed).
You of all demons should know that Mombi was a saving grace. Witch populations everywhere have skyrocketed ever since her revolutionary advice „If u wanna be a witch, 🐝 a 🧙♀️.“
Yeah the designs look more like they're from a budget tv special than a movie.
I recall from Don Bluth's memoir that he worked on this movie. During a test screening, he recalls most of the children were not even paying attention to the movie at all. Once the herd of elephants came, the kids had their attention turned to the aisle....Bluth left Filmation after that.
Auntie Em looks like Granny from the Looney Tunes
Well, Pumpkinhead, Woodenhead, & Mombi were all adapted cast from Baum's sequels. If Filmation used the Woggle Bug, he'd have become "Wogglehead".
Were they better characters in the book ?
@@phonybeautrain6520 Yes they were
11:13 Blues Brothers? That scene is straight-up stolen from Disney's "Jungle Book".
12:33 Considering the Cowardly Lion in the book fought a giant spider, TWO bear-tiger chimeras, and sent the Wicked Witch's entire army fleeing with a single roar a bunch of mere elephants shouldn't even phase him.
11:33 I guess one of them forgot to say “Halt.”
Seeing how nearly every Oz film/TV venture has failed one way or another makes me wonder how the film version of "Wicked" will fare at the box office when it gets released. For one, the Wicked film is coming more than a decade too late and I can already hear people calling it "woke" just because Cynthia Erivo (who's wonderful and I'm sure will sing the sh*t out Defying Gravity) is playing Elphaba. The fact that, apparently, the film is to be released in two parts á la Deathly Hallows, also seems like a huge risk.
Right - makes me wonder if the film's gonna try and incorporate more elements from Gregory Maguire's book.
@@ryanschwartz4959 Stephen Shawartz (the composer) says that the only reason they're doing this is because he doesn't think anything can follow "Defying Gravity" because it's the act one closer and it's written to have intermission follow it. That's the reason why there's going to be two parts.
@@JossSCarlisle I mean, if that’s the case, then why not make the film one part and add an intermission in the middle, like with the film adaptations of the Sound of Music, West Side Story, or Oliver?
@@ryanschwartz4959 That's a logical solution but maybe they want a larger gap in between DG and Thank Goodness? In my opinion, they shouldn't be making the movie in the first place. The musical is inherently theatrical and there's no way to capture that on film.
How will it be woke if the witch's skin is green? Does it matter who's playing her at that point?
Mombi was played by Jean Marsh in Return to Oz, and she was more sinister than a Halloween decoration!
So much more frightening! I mean, that version had an entire hallway lined with decapitated heads!
What’s even scarier is that they are still alive!
I can still hear that infamous shout of “DOROTHY GAAAAAAAALE!”
@@MovieFan1912 Well she was merged with another character from Baum's Oz stories, Princess Langwidere.
5:40: I wouldn't have expected this movie to portray Dorothy as a stone-cold witch-killer, but it's a neat idea. That the movie stumbled into on accident while contradicting it at every turn, but still.
12:17: I never thought I'd see any sequel find a proper compromise between ignoring the original's characters and giving them too much screentime, but Filmation has done the impossible-they've managed to combine the worst of both worlds!
20:10: You know, sometimes I forget that Diva is a demon. Then she assigns a punishment like _that._
I can't help but think that some people who've worked with Chuck Jones animated this film. It's the vibe I'm getting.
Well, Mombi's crow was voiced by Mel Blanc who practically voiced all the Looney Tunes back in the day, so it's entirely possible some of the old Looney Tunes animators were brought on as well.
@@cartooncritique6625 This was becuase most animators who worked in the iconic shorts moved to TV, but mostly Hanna-Barbera. Preston Blair, Disney and Tex Avery Animator, co-produced the film.
I have never seen this mess of a prehistoric direct to video sequel, but.....
Thanks to Todd in the Shadows and One Hit Wonderland, I'm actually looking forward to your next review, he did also tackle Glitter, Burlesque and From Justin to Kelly, and had the same reactions as you.
I guess one reason why there are so few Oz movies that try (let alone succeed) to adapt the various sequel books is because of the 1930s movie. That movie is so different from the Oz book series, but at the same such a defining hallmark of American cinema, overshadowing the books so thoroughly that sequels that try to stay faithful to the books end up causing a mood-whiplash in the audience who expect a colourful musical like the 1930s movie. I guess that's why a lot of sequels try to just rehash the plot and tone of the original movie.
I, personally, had the opposite experience, I saw Return to Oz as a kid first and didn't see the 1930s movie until my 20s (it's not that popular where I grew up) and was pretty put off by how "saccharine" and "cutesy" the Wizard of Oz movie was.
As someone who loved the Oz books as a kid, it’s amazing to me that you can have so much material to work from as still come out with something so mediocre at best
At least there are some decent adaptations like Wicked and Return to Oz in this sea of mediocrity.
The Oz series was my favorite as a child. I loved the world and stories and in many ways still do. If you engage me in a conversation about it then prepare to have your ear talked off for hours lol.
I feel like the world of Oz has never fully been done justice in film, even though return to Oz still has a nostalgic place in my heart. I think it’s like you said: the original movie has usurped the books almost entirely. And while I love the movie and think it’s great like most people on the planet do, it still makes me kinda sad that something so near and dear to my heart has yet to be really recognized by the public.
As someone who hasn't read the books, even I feel the problem lies with the 30's movie. Anything that would do the series justice would have to start all the way at the beginning with a completely different film. Something every other film or film series has done, like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, but somehow lies an unspoken rule that we can't have that with Oz. I can see the uninitiated calling it a "reboot" and it constantly having to measure up to that old film. I'd tend to think everyone's too afraid of audiences failing to embrace the new take, and killing any movie series adapting any of the books and having to start over yet again. Even when they tried to turn it into a TV series, twice did they use the movie as a template (the 90's DIC series and the "Dorothy in Oz" cartoon produced by Warner Bros from a few years ago). Best we have is some 80's anime series that appears to be more based on the books. I think it's on Retro Crush if anyone cares to check it out.
Mind for a test of knowledge?
@@VideoGuyIdiot22 No go ahead
@@maristiller4033 What color are the shoes that Dorothy wore in the first book?
@@VideoGuyIdiot22 silver!
Thank you diva for putting out the videos it keeps me distracted from the negativity that’s going on in the world this is my little get away from the real world I like your videos keep up the good work and I’m getting more education about musicals thanks to you
Whoever designed the Cowardly Lion for this film was cribbing pretty hard from Bedknobs and Broomsticks~
Wouldn't be the first time Filmation "borrowed" from Disney.
@@cartooncritique6625 Just look at Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night and Happily Ever After.
@@MovieFan1912 ...and "A Snow White Christmas". The plagiary is even more blatant in that one.
@@cartooncritique6625 I’ve never heard of that.
@@MovieFan1912 It was a holiday special Filmation produced back in the early 80s. It seems not many people remember it. I actually did a review of it on my channel (if you'll forgive me plugging my own sh1t).
"Scarecrow is in charge again until a nice transgender girl can come in and take over."
That may happen soon than you think.
Wouldn't Ozma be a trans boy though?
@@KaminoKatie Nah, if she was forcibly turned into & raised as a boy but then realized she was a girl, she'd be a trans girl...with a magically-complicated backstory
@@cam4636 my memory might be hazy (been a while since I’ve read the book) but when Tip changed to girl after discovering actually being female originally didn’t he (Tip) have to be super convinced by everyone else to change back to a girl/Ozma? Like Tip didn’t independently think “I’m a girl so I need to change back”?
@@cam4636 She didn;t realize it, she honestly never knew until Glinda told her the truth and changed her back. She was changed into a boy against her will.
@@ZoeKitten84 Yeah, that's right cause he was raised as a boy his whole life and liked being a boy. Glinda had to tell him that he was changed and decieved
Honestly, we don't need a sequel... We need a REBOOT! One more faithful to the original L. Frank Baum source material.
I'd watched that
@@KaminoKatie Though it would be a much shorter film. 1939 did a good job with improving the story to point any good adaptation attempt would palgerize the film.
@@jstevinik3261 It's not an excuse to have such a death grip on Oz adaptations in the US
I kinda want to request Tom & Jerry: The Movie, but I don’t know if there’s enough for it to be legally called a “musical” so I guess I’ll just request Raggedy Anne & Andy: A Musical Adventure and/or the Oogieloves (whichever comes first)
Okay, I gotta talk about this fuckin movie. For a good year, I was *obsessed* with Wizard of Oz. The books, the plays, the movies, the shows, the songs... everything. Over the course of a year, I indulged in almost *thirty* different Oz adaptations. Everything from a 52-episode long anime, to multiple musicals like The Wiz and Wicked, to several of the books, to... okay, you get the point. Most of it was 'meh' at worst, with a surprising amount being surprisingly good.
But there was something about *this* adaptation that actually pissed me off. I love seeing movies/cartoons that are based on the sequel book(s) more than the first, but this one... Seeing characters like Mombi (who hardly EVER gets to appear in adaptations) and Jack Pumpkinhead get wasted was aggravating enough, but the way it absolutely ruins Tin Man and Lion as characters made me mad. Especially Tin Man; he's supposed to be so sweet and caring that he feels bad for *mosquitos* but this movie depicts him as a complete jerk. Even Tales of the Wizard of Oz, which made Rusty the Tinman a grumpy dickhead, managed to make their Tin Man far more likable.
Also, it was GENERAL JINJUR who was scared of mice, and her whole gimmick was that she was kind of a lame villain (and a lighthearted poke at feminism, which the author was totally in support of). The actual Mombi was kinda evil but more of a 'plays the winning side' kind of villain. Writing a 'Marvelous Land of Oz' story without Tip is also a baffling choice, but he is almost NEVER included in adaptations like this. Maybe because it's hard to tell his story without bringing transgender metaphors into it.
There's so much that you can do with the sequel books and this movie just...! I could ramble on a lot more, but maybe I should stop before I find out if RUclips comments have a character limit. If you want a good adaptation of any of the sequel novels, the Chronicles of Oz podcast is probably your best bet.
Oh man, I remember this. I loved watching this movie as a kid. I remember adoring this, and would watch this almost every day.
The 1939 film has such a death grip on Oz adaptations in the US
Well, at least we have the anime adaptation.
@@cartooncritique6625 There is an anime adaptation out there? I hope it is not as bat sh!t as Girl und Panzer.
@@jstevinik3261 There are actually 2 anime adaptations. The first is a film that was released in 1982 (which sticks closer to the book than most other film adaptations) and the 2nd is a TV series released in 1986...I have not yet seen that series though.
It's a real shame we have never seen a proper Mombi adapted from the books for film. I love "Return to OZ", but really she was a more malicious Langwidere with a name change there. Mombi was one of the few recurring villains in the books, and it would be nice if she was given her due. Especially since she managed to outlast the other three Wicked Witches.
She doesn’t return in any of the Baum books, so I never think of her as recurring. But she’s pops back in Ruth Plumly Thompson’s
At least Lost In Oz (which may not be as good as I think it is, I just happen to really like it) had the decency to set up a magic system around the tornado transport
I think Bobsheaux covered that at some point.
Also does anyone else think that the complete extended Oz cannon would be very good to adapt into an RPG?
There’s a couple of rpg adaptations, actually! The two come to mind immediately are both called Adventures in Oz (developed by two different groups using different rpg systems years apart). I believe there are several others though
@@ZoeKitten84 Have you played any of them? Were they any good?
I remember having the tapes of all the books when I was little, but I don't think I ever got past book 2. And even so, I don't remember it as well as the movies.
I've had a really horrible day. So to come home and find this video waiting for me is more than welcome, it is ecstatically appreciated. Thanks so much, Diva.
I thought bullies usually picked on the cowardly, not the brave!
Generally yes, but sometimes people will try and take on the "tough guy" to try and assert dominance over everyone else. It's a way for them to show everyone how big their balls are.
@@cartooncritique6625 that nearly always backfires for the bully
@@cartooncritique6625 that nearly always backfires for the bully
@@SpamEggSausage More often than not.
Although I do have a soft spot for this film, this is yet another movie in Filmation's history that leaves me wondering why they always seemed so obsessed with making "sequels" to IPs they didn't own.
Thank you so much for putting this video up Diva!!! I hope you have a good day and as well to everyone watching this ♥️
Oddly enough, it seems Filmation took cues from the first Wizard of Oz sequel. They just shoehorned Dorothy into it it seems.
Its been AGES since I last saw that movie! All I could remember about it were the green elephants!
Your channel rocks so much (pardon the music pun), and you cover stuff that is so crazy nostalgic for me! Thank you!
This...is a surprisingly both faithful and unfaithful version of Marvelous Land of Oz...Only the book makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE!
I've seen this film when I was A kid, and for A Filmation cartoon, especially one from the studio's early days, the animation isn't half bad. Not great, mind you, but they don't rely on reused stock animation like what you normally see in Filmation cartoons from that era.
I’d think I’d rather watch Return to Oz than this.
Can’t argue with that.
#JusticeforOz I hope that in my lifetime someone will have to courage to do this series right and correct the confusion associated with this series in a new adaptation of all 14 books
As much of a mess as "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return" was, I feel like an animated anthology series would be pretty awesome. Maybe give it the Road to Avonlea treatment and do a little tweaking to tie it all up together a little more tightly.
I would be happy if they adapted the first six. The first six books in the series effectively cover Dorothy's entire story, and it's a nice, decent length for a film series.
No we don’t. We had one. It sucked.
I love the Dr. Forester and TV’s Frank Cameo
My main interest here was whether they had the guts to include the source material's notorious gender swap. Yeah, not very surprised they didn't.
I just read that they were going to include Tip... but claim that he wasn't actually Ozma, Ozma never existed.
Good call removing that, it would've been such disrespect to the character.
Practically nothing from the source material made it into this film. 'Cause if I remember right the threat in the book wasn't elephants, but a militant group of radical feminists.
Happy 4th Of July! I'll get you yet, my Devil Caked Mistress!
you can almost make a small garden of defeated villians converted into plants, repeat, Almost
Now do that trippy Raggedy Anne movie!
OMG Diva I got The Marvelous Land of Oz just because you reviewed this movie
Sin No. 8:
Yeesh. At least RUDOLPH & FROSTY'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY knew how to properly utilize Ethel Merman's talents.
And this version of Momby can't hold a candle to Winterbolt's Tolkein-esque grandeur. (I now call him "Saruman of Many Winters.")
The Tin Man and Lion's Elephant freakouts are like the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence from 'Dumbo' done half-assedly.
14:30 Dorothy’s eyes not having irises always kind of freaked me out. This would never happen in an Anime!
Anime eyes already look fucked up enough
@@SpamEggSausage It’s just that zooming into her eyes is supposed to look dramatic, but instead it just emphasizes the overly simplistic character design.
Or maybe it’s just me…
@@ebwarg There are so many different art styles encompassed in anime that I don't think that's really true. If you're judging by the big shiny shojo-style eyes I get that, but I can think of a handful off the top of my head that have super simplistic eyes. Things like Chobits or One Piece for example.
I will say this: I caught a brief glimpse of the green elephants in this movie when I was just a little tyke, and they stuck with me as being a memorable threat - and then, many years later when I actually saw the film, they did retain just a little bit of menace. That being said, everything ELSE about the film - pee-yew!
I remember watching this as a kid and seeing both Milton Belle narrating by himself and Bill Cosby narrating the movie in a hot air balloon with two kids and them all be dressed up in weird costumes.
Love how all I hear when Pumpkinhead opens his mouth is "A cocktail weenie... Cuz it's to-scale!"
As soon as "elephants never forget" was sung, I remembered watching this! Nice review!
I don’t ever remember watching this as a kid but I literally remember so much from this movie. Wouldn’t be surprised if a library/teacher popped this on in the early 90s.
The best explanation for the Land of Oz I ever saw was Dorothy's gang watching on as she wailed in front of a broken Statue of Liberty. I can only imagine what she cried out then.
Yay more musical hell!
Not sure how, but I NEVER saw or heard of this before I saw this review.
And I feel absolutely blessed by that.
It bums me out whenever there's an Oz project it just mixes its OWN ideas with elements from the 1939 Movie when the Books give screenwriters *MORE* than enough to work with it...
Especially Oz TV Shows, which have more then time and need ideas for episodes, but often straight up REFUSE to use stuff from the Books. Even the cartoon "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz", which used several characters from the books, STILL had its own elements while using ideas from the '39 movie 😖
Wait a minute, Mickey Rooney, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, it’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World reunion!
I agree with what you said, the movie "The Wizard of Oz" is far better known than the original book. For instance, in the book Dorothy has silver slippers but the filmakers behind the movie version thought ruby slippers would look better in technicolor.
The book that follow-ups to The Wizard of Oz seem to borrow the most from, this one included is The Marvelous Land of Oz, the direct sequel to the original book, because it's where Jack Pumpkinhead Mombi, the wooden horse and the Gump are all from. Having read it, I see what you mean about people who make anything Oz-related not wanting to stray too far from the 1939 movie because Dorothy is not even in the story, the protagonist is a boy named Tip. Consequently, Mombi is not the main villain either; it's a Munchkin named General Jinjur who leads an army of extreme feminists that want to take over the Emerald City and make all the men their slaves.
*trans boy
All right Now we just need you to do a review of "the wonderful land of OZ" by the guy who did Santa and the icecream bunny on your channel
speaking of oz, Tom and Jerry Back to Oz is a fun one. as one of the craziest places to find an actual sequel to the 39 version, it'll definitely be worth watching.
Yeah, and it finally brought The Jitterbug to the screen after almost eighty years!
Another gem! I remember watching it on TV in the 70s but I don't remember a live action wizard Berle or Cosby. I think you may only take suggestions from Pateron members but take a look at "Zoot Suit" (1981) it reminded me of "A Little Night Music" where they used stage conventions on film making for an awkward adaptation, a musical hell if you will!
Okay, here me out Tinny. If I learned one thing from video games, it's that the robot version of a character is always stronger than the organic version. You already have an axe, so you should have some fighting capabilities.
Remember that scene in the Class of 3000, where Tamika was helping Kim to scare the elephants with the drama kids dressed a mice? Inserting that clip would have been perfect for that mice attack in this thing.
I would only watch this to hear Paul Lynde's voice. Besides He-Man and Fat Albert, Filmation also brought us the abomination of Happily Ever After (the unofficial Snow White sequel.)
And the nightmare-inducing Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (an unofficial sequel to Pinocchio).
Happy Fourth of July, Diva!
Not Faraway Land being a sin when that's one of my happy songs. *laughs and then cries* Also, Pumpkin Head has been living in my head rent-free since the mid-90s, especially the "to the best of my incapacity," because honestly, same. But oof, rewatching this does have me questioning things like "why on earth did I subject my mother to listening to the elephants constantly making those heinous noises?" Funnily enough, it is supposed to be a DIRECT sequel to the 1939 movie, and even picks up on the DorothyxScarecrow threads that were cut but *still subtly there* in the original movie. This may be *not* the best but the score when it picks up on Faraway Land makes me SO happy. There's a Lion of Oz cartoon musical later on too with Tim Curry but they dubbed him in his like... one singing line.
I must give the background artists credit; the backdrops have a very surreal quality to them and are quite pretty; sadly, the animation and character design falls in the uncanny middle ground between _King of the Hill_ and _Yogi Bear_ .
18:26 wait that lyric is actually in the movie? i legit thought you spliced in a parody at first.
Have you seen the 1974 Jack and the Beanstalk film from Japan? If you haven't, it would probably be worth a review.
It's sad that Oz seems to be doomed in the shadow of its own theatrical releases where Dorothy is the end all be all. She's an introductory character at first to help the audience and viewer to make sense of the nonsensical and there's so much more the world than these rehashed sorry adaptations.