Wizard of Oz (character)

The Wizard is one of the characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Unseen for most of the novel, he is the ruler of the Land of Oz and highly venerated by his subjects. Believing he is the only man capable of solving their problems, Dorothy and her friends travel to the Emerald City, the capital of Oz, to meet him. Oz is very reluctant to meet them, but eventually each is granted an audience, one by one. In each of these occasions, the Wizard appears in a different form, once as a giant head, once as a beautiful fairy, once as a horrible monster, and once as a ball of fire. When, at last, he grants an audience to all of them at once, he seems to be a disembodied voice.

Eventually, it is revealed that Oz is actually none of these things, but rather an ordinary conman from Omaha, Nebraska, who has been using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem "great and powerful". Working as a magician for a circus, he wrote OZ (the initials of his first two forenames, Oscar being his first, and Zoroaster being the first of his seven middle names) on the side of his hot air balloon for promotional purposes. One day his balloon sailed into the Land of Oz and he found himself worshipped as a great sorcerer. As Oz had no leadership at the time, he became Supreme Ruler of the kingdom and did his best to sustain the myth.

He leaves Oz at the end of the novel, again in a hot air balloon. After the Wizard's departure, the Scarecrow is briefly enthroned, until Princess Ozma (the rightful hereditary ruler of Oz) is freed from the witch Mombi at the end of The Marvelous Land of Oz.

In The Marvelous Land of Oz, the Wizard is described as having usurped the throne of King Pastoria and handed over the baby princess to Mombi. This did not please the readers, and in Ozma of Oz, although the character did not appear, Baum described Ozma's abduction without including the Wizard as part of it.[3]

The Wizard returns in the novel Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. With Dorothy and the boy Zeb, he falls through a crack in the earth; in their underground journey, he acts as their guide and protector. Oz explains that his real name is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. To shorten this name, he used only his initials (O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D.), but since they spell out the word pinhead, he shortened his name further and called himself "Oz".[4] When Ozma rescues them from the underground kingdoms, he recounts his story of becoming the ruler of Oz, and Ozma explains that before the witches usurped her grandfather's throne (an occurrence happening long before the wizard arrived), the ruler of Oz had always been known as Oz or (if female) Ozma.[5] Ozma then permits him to live in Oz permanently.[6] He becomes an apprentice to Glinda (the most powerful magic-worker in Oz). Ozma decrees that, besides herself, only The Wizard and Glinda are allowed to use magic unless the other magic users have permits.

In later books, he proves himself quite an inventor, providing devices that aid in various characters’ journeys. Some of his most elaborate devices are the Ozpril and the Oztober, balloon-powered Ozoplanes in Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz and intelligent taxis called Scalawagons in The Scalawagons of Oz.

• In the 1902 musical extravaganza, The Wizard was portrayed by a series of "ethnic" comedians.
• The extended network television version of the animated feature Journey Back to Oz (1964/1972) contains live-action segments with Bill Cosby as The Wizard (a character otherwise not seen in the original theatrical version) trying to bring two children back to Kansas for Christmas.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in Off to See the Wizard, voiced by Daws Butler. He serves as the host of the show where he presents the movie of the episode.
• In the musical The Wiz, the titular "Wiz" was originally played on Broadway by Andre De Shields. This version is a balloonist from Omaha named Herman Smith who traveled to Oz by accident when his hot air balloon drifted off course.
  • In the 1978 film version, The Wiz, the Wiz was played by Richard Pryor. This adaption of Herman Smith is a failed politician from Atlantic City, New Jersey who was transported to Oz when a balloon he was flying to promote his campaign to become the city dogcatcher was lost in a storm.
  • The 2015 TV special The Wiz Live! features the first female Wiz, played by Queen Latifah.
• In the 1980 Thanksgiving special Dorothy in the Land of Oz, the Wizard is voiced by Sid Caesar.
• In author Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (a 1995 revisionist novel based on the inhabitants of Oz) and in the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked (based on Maguire's novel), the Wizard is a dictator who uses deceit and trickery to hide his own shortcomings. It also revealed, in both the book and musical, that the Wizard is in fact Elphaba's biological father. In the original stage production, the Wizard was played by Joel Grey, who performed that same role in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True, a 1995 television concert stage production of the 1939 musical film which was a benefit for the Children's Defense Fund.
  • Jeff Goldblum has been confirmed to play the character in the two-part film adaptation of the musical.[9][10]
• Caliber Comics' Oz comic book series, followed by Arrow Comics' Dark Oz and The Land of Oz featured the Wizard, affectionately known as "Oscar," particularly to Ozma, as a tall, bald, mustachioed man, brooding, powerful, and not at all bumbling.
• The Wizard is featured in the 1990 The Wizard of Oz animated series, voiced by Alan Oppenheimer.
• In the animated series The Oz Kids (1996), he has a son named Frank. He is voiced by Steve Stoliar.
• In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005), the Wizard of Oz is portrayed by Jeffrey Tambor. This version is a former tour bus driver named Francis Cornfine from Hollywood, CA who came to the Land of Oz where the residents assumed he was an all-powerful figure. Cornfine's talent at manipulating his fingers impressed the populace. Feeling a need to "give the public what they want," he developed a number of devices and tricks to maintain the illusion of "Oz, the great and powerful." Using special effects, he appeared as a dragon to the Lion (Fozzie Bear), a flaming entity to the Scarecrow (Kermit the Frog), a hot woman turning into a hen to Tin Thing (Gonzo the Great), and a big green monstrous head to Dorothy (Ashanti) and Toto (Pepe the King Prawn).
• In the 2007 Sci Fi television miniseries Tin Man, a character called the "Mystic Man" (played by Richard Dreyfuss) is one of the former rulers of Central City, the capital of the Outer Zone (O.Z.), and like his counterpart from the book, uses technology to make himself seem more impressive. He is also referred to as "the wizard" and styles himself similarly to the Wizard of Oz, but has been relegated to the main performer of a Central City magic show rather than the "humbug" overlord of the Emerald City.
• In the VeggieTales episode The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, the Wizard is portrayed by Archibald Asparagus as the "Wonderful Land of Ha's" amusement park owner who later reveals himself as a promotional showman to Darby (Junior Asparagus).
• In June 2008 the Japanese video game publisher D3 Publisher announced The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, a new video game adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, developed for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console.[11] The game was developed by Media.Vision and shows a Japanese anime style for the graphics. "Riz-Zoawd" (the game's name in Japan) is actually the anagram for "Wizard Oz". The game was published in Japan in late 2008 and North America in 2009 by Xseed Games.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in Dorothy and the Witches of Oz, portrayed by Christopher Lloyd. When the Emerald City is attacked by the Wicked Witch of the West's forces who are after the Book of Mini Airu which contains the Changing Word, the Wizard of Oz holds a ceasefire where he will give the Book of Mini Airu to her in exchange that the Wicked Witch and her allies don't attack, bother, or annoy the Emerald City, the Munchkin Country, and the territories west of Winkie Country. This leads to a pinky swear where the Wizard of Oz is forbidden to try and fetch it back. When it was discovered that the Wizard of Oz entrusted the key to the Book of Mini Airu to Dorothy, this leads the Wicked Witch of the West to invade Earth years later to get her to give it up. When the Wicked Witch of the West gets the key, a holographic message is played by the Wizard of Oz who reveals some of his backstory and states that the key is a fake which thwarts the Wicked Witch of the West's plans to take over the worlds. By the end of the movie, Dorothy and Nick Chopper see someone that resembles the Wizard playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the saxophone.
• In the 2011 direct-to-DVD animated film Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard is voiced by Joe Alaskey.
• In the Dorothy Must Die series by Danielle Paige that details an alternate version of the stories, after Dorothy and her friends have been corrupted by the magic of Oz and the wizard's gifts, it is revealed that the Wizard has returned to Oz, acting as a 'neutral' party in the conflict between Dorothy's forces and the Order of the Wicked that acts against her, allowing him to live in the Emerald City while passing on some information to the Order of the Wicked. After he tells new protagonist Amy Gumm about how she might defeat Dorothy, she is able to take the Tin Woodman's heart and the Cowardly Lion's courage- 'manifested' as his tail- but when she next confronts the Wizard, he has taken the Scarecrow's brains. His true agenda is revealed to be a complex plan to bring Kansas and Oz together, having concluded that the two countries are essentially the same place across two different dimensions, requiring the gifts he gave Dorothy's companions as they represent a blend of the magics of Oz and Kansas (Kansas having been deprived of magic by Oz's existence). He attempts to use Dorothy as the final sacrifice for this spell, but she is able to disrupt the spell so that the Wizard is destroyed instead, creating a temporary portal that send the Order of the Wicked and Amy back to Kansas until they can find Dorothy's silver shoes.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in the Supernatural season 10 episode There's No Place Like Home portrayed by Carter Kinsella. In this show, he was originally Man of Letters member Clive Dylan who got sent into the Land of Oz and split himself. L. Frank Baum was able to rescue Clive who then retired at the cost of Baum's daughter Dorothy being left behind. Sometime after the Wicked Witch's death, Charlie Bradbury reveals she made a deal with the Wizard to split herself into her good and dark sides using the Inner Key of Oz in order to win a rebellion to free Oz from evil. The Wizard of Oz turned out to be the personification of Clive Dylan's dark side who wanted to rule the Land of Oz. Years later, Sam Winchester and Good Charlie track down the good side of the elderly Clive Dylan (portrayed by Duncan Fraser) who is using the alias of Michael Carter. To draw out the Wizard of Oz, Charlie wounded Clive. The Wizard of Oz appeared to confront Clive as he used his magic to restrain Sam. Despite Dean Winchester beating up Dark Charlie, Good Charlie was goaded by Clive to kill him. Once Good Charlie shot Clive in the face, the Wizard of Oz fell dead as Sam uses his Inner Key of Oz to merge both Charlies back into one body.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, voiced by Tom Kenny. He appears in "The Wizard, The Witch, and The Crystal Ball" where another tornado brings his balloon back to the Land of Oz where he plans to become an actual wizard. When he finds out about the Wicked Witch of the West's spirit being trapped in her crystal ball, he decides to help resurrect her in exchange for powers (not knowing that it takes years to get powers), but it backfired and Dorothy accidentally resurrects the Wicked Witch without her powers.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in the play The Wonderful Winter of Oz, portrayed by Kermit the Frog.[12]

• The season 3 episode of the serial drama Lost titled "The Man Behind the Curtain" is a reference to the Wizard of Oz. His name is also mentioned in the dialogue of the show, with John Locke comparing Ben Linus to the Wizard and saying that he is the one orchestrating events and is "The Man Behind the Curtain".
• In the episode "It's Christmas in Canada" of the television series South Park, the main characters visit the new Prime Minister of Canada, who takes the shape of a floating head. This turns out to be a projection operated by Saddam Hussein, who was hiding in a hole in the wall.
• An entire episode of Scrubs, "My Way Home", pays homage to The Wizard of Oz.
• The television show Futurama aired "Anthology of Interest II" which parodied the 1939 movie version of the story where Professor Hubert Farnsworth played the wizard and appearing as a giant-headed version of himself standing behind a curtain.
• The Wizard of Oz appears in the Robot Chicken episode "Two Weeks Without Food", voiced by Breckin Meyer.
• The Wizard of Oz is the titular subject of the Spock's Beard song, "The Man Behind the Curtain" from their 2010 album, X.
• The Fall Out Boy song "Alpha Dog" features the lyric "I can almost see the wizard through the curtains" - meaning he can see through the deception of something.
• In the anime-inspired 3D web series RWBY, the character of "Headmaster Ozpin" alludes to the Wizard of Oz. This is further expanded on with the character "Oscar", Ozpin's next incarnation. In fact, Ozpin's name is even derived from the fact that the initials of the wizard's full name spells out "ozpinhead."
• In the video game Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, a boss level parodies The Wizard of Oz. The main character is dressed as the Tin Man and fights a holographic projected head known as the Brain of Oz.
• The Wizard of Oz makes a brief appearance in the crossover video game Lego Dimensions as the "In Peril" character for the first level of the story mode "Follow the LEGO Brick Road". He also appears as a Gold Brick puzzle in The Wizard of Oz World if you collect all ten Minikits in Follow the LEGO Brick Road where he flies in his hot air balloon and you need to stop the Winged Monkeys from destroying the balloon so he can make it to Emerald City.
• In the Indigo Girls song, "You and Me of the 10,000 Wars", Verse 4 includes the line "Watch the Wizard behind the curtain."

• List of Oz books

• More information on The Wizard