Note: FaceOff Spoilers Alert! If you haven't watched the 8/26/14 episode yet, stumble upon this blog first, and hate spoilers, do not read further until you've actually watched it. Otherwise, read away.
So I'm a bookworm and have read both Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I have also read both sequels to these novels: Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Now, I cannot claim to be a foremost expert on Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series because there are 14 different novels altogether and I have only read two of them. However, I can claim to know and love the original first novel very well. These Oz books were first published throughout two decades from the years 1900 to 1920.
On another note, I have varied television interests, so the creative character-mindful FaceOff show on SyFy is a show I often watch.
Today, they had a challenge to commemorate Wizard of Oz's 75th anniversary where teams of two were to take a randomly chosen character from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and pretend that character fell down the rabbit hole and found himself or herself in the Wonderland of Alice in Wonderland. These were the teams and character assignments for the challenge.
Jason & Sasha: The Cowardly Lion
Damien & Cig: Scarecrow
Drew & George: Wicked Witch of the West
Keaghlan & Rachael: Tin Woodman
Stella & Dina: Winged Monkey
Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm very opinionated (especially when it comes to characters and settings that are beloved to readers all over the world). Now, I was really crazy about the team who did the Tin Woodman character in Wonderland and I honestly wanted them to win. I felt that they found a way to make the core of the Tin Woodman character's story from Oz maintain itself in Wonderland. The idea that the Wonderland Queen would try to make the Tin Woodman her executioner ("Off With Her Head") and the Tin Woodman realizes that he cannot do it, so he has a heart is brilliant. They won me over.
The Winged Monkey character, in truth, did have a lot of innovation in the makeup itself. Making the monkey ears converge into jester hat tips was rather amazing. The monkey face did look mischievous and the eye color definitely was hypnotizing. Since the show is called FaceOff and not CelebrateLiterature, I understand why the judges chose the winged monkey to win. However, in the original Wizard of Oz tale, the winged monkeys were being held captive against their will causing trouble because the Wicked Witch of the West was making them. Turning the winged monkey character into a jester is very juxtapose to the original storyline. To go from a life of bringing trouble to Dorothy to a life of bringing laughter to the Red Queen can be inspiring. And in some respects, the winged monkey going from being a slave of one villain in Oz to the slave of another villain in Wonderland is quite clever.....Hmmm, the winged monkey is growing on me. The existence of the controversy about the character in itself for the reader means that the character is meaningful.
Speaking of meaningful characters, who is more meaningful than "the villain" in any story. As such, I was really disappointed with the Wicked Witch of the West character created on FaceOff tonight. The Oz effect was really only seen in the emerald green bling-lace layer at the waist of in her dress. There were a couple of ways this character could have been Wonder-fied. I had an idea that since the Wicked Witch of the West had been obsessed with shoes in the Baum novel that she had to change her obsession in Wonderland to another accessory (particularly hats). I figured that she could have either started collecting hats or that she could have become enamored with the Mad Hatter's Hat and started to believe it inherently contained power. A state of delusion would be fitting to have about the Mad Hatter's hat based on the history of making hats as well. The reason that hatters in the past used to go "mad" was that liquid mercury was often used in hat-making as an adhesive. This exposure to mercury all the time during the hatting occupation made the hatters go crazy. Thus, a character like that would have been completely feasible. An alteration to the hat color would have been an homage to shoes too, if the hat had been glitter-fied as silver or ruby red. In the book, Dorothy's magic shoes were silver. In the movie, Dorothy's magic shoes are ruby red. Hence, either color could have acted as an accent to the significance of the anniversary.
The Cowardly Lion character presented on FaceOff was minimally Wonder-fied to subtly resemble the Cheshire Cat through fir-striping and an ugly card-esque outfit. This result was, for lack of a better word, lame. As such, I had ideas regarding creating a character concept on this subject too. First, let's understand that there were multiple cat-like characters in Carroll's novel that could have been used to marry the lion better to Wonderland. The most recognizable character is the Cheshire Cat. The other minor cat-like characters include the Tiger Lily and Dina, Alice's own cat from "the real world" (The "real world" characters were the inspiration for the characters in Wonderland, so Dina still counts, People). In any case, the Cowardly Lion in the first Baum novel thought he was afraid, but showed signs of bravery when he wasn't fixated on that belief.
As such, following with the theme of the lion being brave when it counts, here's one character idea. The Cowardly Lion lands in Wonderland and notices all the acts of animal and card cruelty throughout the land. Hence, the Cowardly Lion becomes an animal/card activist Steve Irwin-style. He gathers the flamingos that would be used for croquet, the croquet hedgehogs, the pig baby, the white rabbit, the playing cards, and anyone else being mistreated and starts an expedition to find a way out of Wonderland to save them. Since the Cheshire Cat ability to disappear at will becomes something to admire when trying to save the inhabitants of Wonderland, the Cowardly Lion desperately tries to glean ideas from him when he shows up and it drives him mad in his haste to catch him for advice. Hence, the Cowardly Lion becomes frantic, much like the White Rabbit, in the pursuit of civil justice.
Another fun idea for a Cowardly Lion character would involve him improvising after his initial fear of the place. The Cowardly Lion lands in Wonderland and fears everything he sees happen. He walks through the garden, the flowers talk to him, and he runs screaming along the garden path to get away. He walks near the palace and the Queen shouts "Off with his head" randomly about someone else. The Lion keeps running, thinking his life is in danger. The Lion runs into the crossroads in the forest. He meets the Cheshire Cat, who seems normal and then disappears part by part. The Lion runs toward a regular-looking house, the White Rabbit's house. When he gets to the clearing of the house, huge Alice arms and legs shoot out of the building's windows. The Lion is startled and then runs away. He runs until he sees a very long table and he knows what he is going to do. When he gets close to the table covered by a tablecloth, he dives underneath it, hides, and cries in utter terror. After awhile, he eventually decides that he can't stay under the table frightened forever. So he makes armor and weapons from the teacups and cutlery on the table he is hiding under (Mad Hatter and Hare's tea party table) and prepares for battle. Voila, we have the Cowardly Lion, the Teacup Soldier.
Now, we come to the Scarecrow. The FaceOff character created was Wonder-fied, but it just didn't make sense. The Scarecrow wanted to be smart in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In truth, he actually knew a lot, but he didn't acknowledge that until the end of the novel. In Alice in Wonderland, there was a character who loved to teach known as the Mock Turtle, which I think would have been the perfect avenue to follow for makeup creation. The Scarecrow lands in Wonderland, seeking a way to become smarter. He meets the Mock Turtle, hears his songs and logic, and decides to become the Mock Turtle's disciple. He makes himself a turtle shell to wear in imitation of his scholarly mentor and gradually starts to look more like the Mock Turtle as he becomes smarter.
Another option for Scarecrow character development would have to do with the trial proceedings that Alice faces in Wonderland. We postulate that Alice is left without a defense lawyer during the trial for some reason. The Scarecrow sees her distress and offers to help. He wears a King card-like wig, a suit, a tie (containing card shapes, or flamingos), white face makeup and rosy red cheek blush (possibly in a heart and/or a diamond symbol shape) and other clothes to make him fit in better with the populace (whether that means a Mad Hatter hat, card in lapel, red and white colors only, or anything else). His oratory skills impress all spectators at the courthouse (probably a house made of playing cards) so much that he saves Alice and realizes that he really is smart.
In any case, these ideas were rolling around in my head and I enjoyed them so much that I wanted to blog about them. Thank you, FaceOff, for being so inspiring as to make me think in a multitude of ways about book mash-ups that I wouldn't normally think about extensively. I love the SyFy channel! Go Creative People, Go!
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