The musical was written, in part, by the book's author, L. Frank Baum, and costumes were designed based on the illustrations by WW Denslow. Characters were created for this version that don't appear in any other. Baum eventually moved to California and attempted to have a couple of black and white, silent movies made of his stories and characters before his death in 1919. One b/w feature done after his death starred Stan Laurel. MGM beat out several studios, including Disney, to get the film rights to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (as it was originally titled in 1900. A reprint by a new publisher changed it to The New Wizard of Oz a couple of years later, but it's essentially been known as The Wizard of Oz for most of its 100+ year history).

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