NEW YORK – It’s not that he doesn’t love the musical, nor that he doesn’t appreciate the work and extra attention the movie is now bringing. “It’s very exciting. Oz just keeps regenerating itself,” Oz Historian John Fricke tells WTMJ. It’s just that Fricke has not, nor will he ever, accept that Wicked is a prequel to the original Wizard of Oz. “The real Oz is the Frank Baum book series and the MGM movie,” Fricke said in an interview in New York’s Broadway District where he’s based.
RELATED: At the Movies, 2025 has ‘full calendar of hits’
Fricke grew up in Milwaukee, and distinguished himself as the world’s foremost expert on the Wizard of Oz. He’s an Emmy award winning writer and producer and has authored books on Judy Garland (Dororthy) as well as the Official 50th Anniversary Oz Pictorial.
He suggests the Gregory Maguire Wicked book series is its own story entirely. “I mean his book Wicked is very original. It is very much Oz upside down, if you will. It is very, very adult. It is violent. It is political. It is sexual. It is war. It is all these things that, to me, have nothing to do with Oz.”
Slow to come around, Fricke finally brought himself to see the Broadway Musical in New York that debuted in 2003. “It was a Saturday matinee. The place was packed,” Fricke recalled. He’s seen Wicked 5 more times since on Broadway. “The house lights went to half to signify the show was about to begin, and 26-hundred people started to scream in joyous anticipation, and I thought, well, there’s got to be something to this.”
Fricke reports friends in the Oz community are raving about the film, which is up for four Golden Globe Awards. “They’ve been going back two times, three times, four times. Even the people who were doubtful have come away exalting.”
Just don’t tell him its the story of The Wizard of Oz.
“I will go to my dying, last breath over the rainbow saying, no, Wicked is not the real Oz.”
TOP HEADLINES FROM THE 620 WTMJ NEWS TEAM:
- Wisconsin’s Morning News: 2024 Quotes of the Year
- Anime Milwaukee cancels burlesque show amid harassment
- State investigating after man found unresponsive in Madison police custody
- Jacobs, McKinney & Gary representing Green Bay Packers in 2025 Pro Bowl
- Search for ‘armed & dangerous’ suspect in deaths of 2 juveniles, 1 adult underway in New Lisbon
READ: Milwaukee 13-year-old shot by two unknown suspects during attempted robbery
