Opening Night Review of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz

Exactly one hundred and thirteen years ago today, the Los Angeles, California, Daily Tribune published the following review of the premier performance of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz:

RARE BEAUTIES OF “TIK TOK MAN OF OZ” [sic] ARE REVEALED

Most Magnificent Extravaganza Ever Seen Here; Broadway, N. Y., Show, Predicted

By J. Rex James

Oliver Morosco made good his promise to give Los Angeles the most magnificent production of an extravaganza ever seen here when last night at the Majestic theater the beauties of the “Tik Tok Man of Oz” [sic] were revealed for the first time to public view.

The production was found to answer even to the word “mammoth.” In lavish use of costly costumery, gorgeous lights and brilliant products of the scene painter’s art, no production has ever been offered here that in any wise approaches it.

In “The Tik Tok Man of Oz” [sic] we have a Broadway production in the commonly accepted sense of the term, only we have reversed the Broadways and the meaning still holds good.

I do not see why New York should not advertise this piece next fall “as originally produced by Oliver Morosco in the Majestic theater, Broadway, Los Angeles,” to give tone to the press matter. But whether this is done or not, “The Tik Tok Man of Oz” [sic] ought to delight that other Broadway as much as it pleased the first night audience at the Majestic.

Fairy Story Told

Frank Baum took three incidents in his fairyland stories of Oz and wove them together to make “The Tik Tok Man” [sic]; Louis Gottschalk set the piece in ticking with music that radiates vivacity and puckers the lips into a whistle; Frank Stammers came out from New York and stage directed the production, transforming a nondescript army of young women and men into a chorus of beings artistic; and Robert Brunton, scenic artist at Morosco’s Burbank theater, looked the Baum book over and turned out a series of magnificent and lavishly-painted settings.

These big five have produced a spectacle of Hippodrome proportions. Forty thousand dollars is the sum represented in their product—a $40,000 gamble on the vagaries of the public taste.

“The Tik Tok Man” [sic] is purely an extravaganza with its scenes laid as in Baum’s earlier work, “The Wizard of Oz,” on the mythical island of Oz.

Adrift on Island

Betsy and her mule, Hank, are the only persons from the outside world on the island and they are thrown adrift there during a storm. True, the Shaggy Man comes apparently from nowhere, explaining his presence in the hothouse of the rose kingdom by saying that he fell a great distance from an apple tree, whereupon Shaggy and the rose girls sing a song about an apple being the cause of it all. But Shaggy is in search of a long lost brother, the Ugly Man, hence he must be a native of the place.

The adventures of Betsy and Hank and the Shaggy Man, who discover the Tik Tok [sic] Man at the bottom of a well and haul him out, and the Tik Tok [sic] Man, who is wound up, form the plot of the story. And though the story is entertainingly told, one is willingly diverted by the beauty and brilliancy of the scenes, the piquant charm of the music, the comeliness of the sprightly costumed chorus, the catchy song numbers and the impressive military marches.

Realistic Storm

A storm at sea serves as the prologue to introduce Betsy and Hank. This storm is realistic enough to cause seasickness, but the ship sinks hurriedly and Betsy and Hank row triumphantly across the stage to the shore of the Rose Kingdom of Oz, a land without a ruler. A lot of roses are budding here and the old gardener explains that as soon as the roses grow a little larger one is to be picked as the ruler of the kingdom, and that it must be a man. After the arrival of the Shaggy Man so unceremoniously from his apple tree, Betsy makes so bold as to pick a rose. The fair flower is the Princess Ozma, but the other roses refuse to accept her as princess and all are driven from the garden.

Rainbow Shown

This only carries one to the end of scene one. The next scene shows a cross-roads, a rainbow, with the arrival of Polychrome, who is deserted by her rainbow fairies and left on earth, the arrival of Betsy and her wanderers and the discovery of Tik Tok in the well. One is also introduced to the army of Bugaboo [sic], consisting of Private Files and sixteen officers, commanded by Queen Ann.

The wanderers now have a definite destination in view—the land of the Metal Monarch, for it is he who has imprisoned the Shaggy Man’s brother and it was he who threw Tik Tok [sic] in the well. A group of chorus girls costumed as field flowers show them the way. The Metal Monarch is conquered by the magnet of love carried by the Shaggy Man, the Ugly Man is released and, though difficulty is threatened, all ends well, with the return of Polychrome to the rainbow.

Seven scenes and two acts are required to tell the story.

Author Baum has without doubt permitted his love of the artistic scene to intrude on his sense of comedy, for, though there are many clever situations in the piece, it is lacking in bright, snappy humor. Considerable old material likewise has been used, such as the magnet of love, but this is so artistically handled as to be excusable. And though it is “The Tik Tok Man of Oz,” [sic] there is nothing explanatory of Oz, so far as I can remember.

The cast is splendid, though I think Morton as Tik Tok [sic] could be much more effective. Moore gets a good deal of comedy out of the Shaggy Man. Dolly Castles is a picture as Polychrome and sings sweetly, but the favorites of last night’s audience were Leonora [sic] Novasio as Betsy and Fred Woodward in the disguise of Hank, the mule.

Mlle. Doria sang the part of Princess Ozma acceptably and Charles Ruggles gave a real characterization to the part of Private Files. Josie Intropodi [sic] did another good piece of character work as Queen Ann. Eugene Cowles use [sic] his magnificent bass voice to advantage as the metal king. Burns and Fulton dance a whirlwind, so named on the program. Morton and Moore, with Miss Castles and Miss Novasion, [sic] introduce some clever burlesque stunts. The army of Bugaboo, [sic] well trained both as to voice and step, had more ginger than some of the principals. But all in all, it went off well for a first performance and it should be a big winner.

Manager Morosco, Author Baum, Composer Gottschalk and Frank Stammers were called on last night and made brief responses.

Copyright © 2026 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Maud or Matilda?

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Maud Gage Baum

Scholarship on L. Frank Baum has been plagued for decades with misinformation, myths based on Baum family tradition, and outright fabrications. Dig into Baumian research and you’ll find hanging Munchkins all around.

I lay much of the blame at the feet of Baum’s eldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum, and the biography of his father he co-authored, To Please a Child. But Frank J.’s not the only culprit to perpetuate balderdash surrounding the life of L. Frank Baum. A lot of false information has been repeated so many times, it’s taken on the stamp of authenticity. One can wear oneself out shoveling the layer of crap that’s hardened for decades. I’ve been reading distorted and erroneous information about L. Frank Baum since I was a child. Consciously checking my preconceptions at the door has gotten easier over the years. For All Wound Up, I strove to base my research, my statements, and my conclusions on solid evidence from as close to the events as I could reach.

Even so, the evidence sometimes proves slippery. Here’s an example. For decades now, scholars have claimed that L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law, the nationally known women’s rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, inspired Baum to write down and publish the stories that he made up for his sons, strongly implying that Baum wouldn’t have published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz if not for Matilda. But is this view actually true?

Baum during his lifetime consistently credited his wife Maud—not his mother-in-law—with inspiring him to write down his stories. Maud Gage Baum was the founding impulse for Baum’s writing career, according to Baum himself.

Words direct from the horse’s mouth should be definitive, right? Maybe.

Baum was a jokester, a storyteller, a crowd-pleaser, and sometimes a downright liar, which complicates the job of squashing those hanging Munchkins. Maybe Baum wasn’t telling the truth about who inspired him to write his stories down. Maybe he wanted to flatter his wife. Maybe he wanted to simplify the story for publicity. But as far as I know, Baum never credited his mother-in-law Matilda.

How did Matilda become a candidate in the first place? In 1939, two decades after Baum’s death, Maud directly contradicted her husband’s statements when she told a reporter that her mother Matilda was the person who urged Baum to write his stories down. It's a credible claim. Matilda actively—even vehemently—encouraged another of her daughters to write, so perhaps she encouraged Baum as well. 

Can we trust Maud’s memories of decades past? Not always. In interviews long after Baum died, Maud occasionally got facts wrong. But I’d think she would have known whether she or her mother ignited her husband's internationally famous writing career. In giving her mother Matilda the credit, was Maud correcting Baum's version of events? Or was she, perhaps, simply shy of publicly claiming credit for herself?

Who are we to believe? Who spurred Baum’s writing career—his wife Maud or his mother-in-law Matilda?

During the 1890s, when Baum’s career of writing for children began, Matilda made long visits to the Baum household. She spent her last days in the Baum’s Chicago home and died there in 1898. Both Maud and Matilda were in the right place at the right time. Both mother and daughter may have voiced a shared opinion on what Baum should do with the stories he made up, especially if they were in the room at the same time and if the encouragement took place on more than one occasion.

I doubt we’ll ever know for certain. At this point, I think the most reasonable view is that both Maud and Matilda encouraged Baum to write. That’s the stance I took in All Wound Up.

Click here to order your copy of

All Wound Up: The Making of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Notes

Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Wizard of Oz (second edition), New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, xxvii; Sally Roesch Wagner, The Wonderful Mother of Oz, Fayetteville, NY: Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, 2003; Angelica Shirley Carpenter, Born Criminal, Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2018, 187; "Weaver of Fairy Dreams Here; 'Tik-Tok' Originator in Town," San Francisco (CA) Examiner, 19 April 1913; "Composers and Librettists of Next Week's Light Operas," Indianapolis (IN) News, 6 September 1913, 11; Teet Carle, “Writer of 'Oz' Books Once Lived in S. D.,” Daily Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), 25 June 1939, 14; Maud Gage Baum, letter to Sgt. Jack Stone [sic, Snow], 21 June 1943, TS; Matilda Joslyn Gage, letter to Helen L. Gage, 11 February 1895; "Matilda Joslyn Gage Dead," Chicago (IL) Tribune, 18 March 1898.

Copyright © 2026 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Baum the Jokester

On April 4, 1913, the pseudonymous reporter "Zip," in a regular dramatic column for the Los Angeles (California) Times, related an amusing anecdote involving L. Frank Baum, which occurred shortly before Baum's new musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz premiered in Los Angeles:

I heard a good one pulled in the Majestic lobby the other night. Somebody, I can’t tell who it was, asked Frank Baum what he was going to do if someone should stand up in the audience at the first performance and shout, “Baum, Baum, Baum.”

To which the author laughingly replied that he hoped such an event would not occur, for the reason that someone might think the kindly-inclined individual was shouting “Bum, Bum, Bum.”

Copyright © 2026 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved. 

Tik-Tok Man review from Kansas City

On September 29, 1913, this review of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz appeared in the Kansas City (Missouri) Times:

A NEW “OZ” EXTRAVAGANZA

“THE TIK-TOK MAN” AT THE SHUBERT A BIG SPECTACLE

“The Tik-Tok Man of Oz” at the Shubert Theater this week is the result of an effort to repeat the success of “The Wizard of Oz.” The latter extravaganza was written by L. Frank Baum, librettist, and Paul Tietjens, composer. In the new play Mr. Baum has had the assistance of Louis F. Gottschalk. These writers risked the danger of close imitation, with the result of some rather tame variations in lieu of original devices. The similarity marks the whole costly production, to such an extent, indeed, that the question arises as to whether a plain sequel to the original work might not have been more acceptable. For it is almost an axiom in the “show business” that imitations in characters and plot must be better than the originals if they are to win.

But at that “The Tik-Tok Man” probably is a better entertainment than was “The Wizard of Oz” when that play was first presented in this city. It was following that presentation that the last act was replaced with an enirely [sic] new section, the cast of principals strengthened and the chorus augmented for the New York engagement.

The new spectacle is introduced with a storm at sea instead of a Kansas tornado, and out of wreckage comes a girl from Oklahoma instead of Kansas. And if you have seen the first “Oz” play you can pretty nearly guess the adventures of the various characters, including the stranded girl’s donkey, the clock man, the shaggy man, a princess or two, a queen and a fierce monarch of the metal kingdom. The successive scenes are on big spectacular lines and the principal ones are exceedingly beautiful.

The real delight in this extravaganza is Miss Charlotte Greenwood, who is a whole “awkward squad” in herself, with the amusing tricks and bantering familiarity that made her success in vaudeville and later in the Winter Garden production. And next in merriment is Fred Woodward, who acts the pet mule, about the most expressive “animal” extravaganza has yet produced. Frank F. Moore as the Shaggy Man and James C. Morton as the Tik-Tok chap (the Scarecrow and Tin Man of the first play) work hard and score sometimes; but they are not sure hits.

There are two really good singers in the company—John Dunsmure, a basso of fine accomplishments and interesting career, who acts the Metal King, and Miss Dolly Castles, the Rainbow Girl. Miss Lenora Novasio, as the girl from Oklahoma, is an interesting little waif. Miss Gipsy Dale is an attractive princess.

There is not much that is distinctive about the music, although there are several very pretty numbers. The best of Mr. Gottschalk’s work is in the instrumentation.

Austin Latchaw.

Copyright © 2026 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Joe Whitehead's Joke

Joe Whitehead in 1913

Joe Whitehead played the role of Tik-Tok in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz for a week in June 1913. For the 1907 Anniversary issue of the theatrical magazine Variety, Whitehead wrote a verse about the challenges of being an actor. The meter scans less than perfectly and the use of commas is liberal, to say the least, but the view of the acting business of the time is valuable, if you can parse the theatrical jargon.

The Tale of a Joke

by Joe Whitehead

Originally published in Variety (New York, NY), December 14, 1907

In the lobby of the Sherman House
In the town they call Chicago,
A critic and an agent stood,
Frank Wiesberg and Bob Fargo.
I butted in between the two,
I did the merry sneak,
They talked about Variety,
And the big page Anniversary week.
I saw that was no place for me,
I turned to duck away,
When a voice called, halt, Sir Joseph,
Have you anything to say?
I said I didn’t have a word,
I told the truth, for a wonder,
But Wiesberg said, tell me a joke,
To put in our Anniversary number.
Well, I started in to tell said joke,
I told most all I knew,
’Twas the ups and downs of show life,
And most of it was true.
I started with the Friday nights,
(That’s where most of us begin),
We get lemons there right off the reel,
And watches made of tin.
Or say we join a circus,
For “ten-a-week and cakes,”
We’ll even carry the center pole,
Or get busy driving stakes.
We get a job in the concert,
We sing and dance and play.
Gee, pal, we’re regular actors now,
And me for the “Big White Way.”
I wrote to a guy to book the act,
In vaudeville, what do you say?
I got an answer, here it is,
Can give you “three-a-day.”
I took it and was happy,
In a month saved ninety cents,
Gee, I ain’t as happy now,
As I was beneath the tents.
And speaking about your dressing rooms,
Really, say young feller,
Some big smoke got in my dressing room,
For me, poor hick, the cellar.
I registered at a hotel once,
The clerk said, Booth, skidoo,
Or you can hang out in the garret,
It’s good enough for you.
I took the room, it was a shine.
The meals they were the same,
The letters on the door spelled “dining room,”
But H–l, what’s in a name?
Now all this junk was strange to me,
With the tents all were alike,
If we didn’t like our cook tent there,
We could all get out and hike.
And speaking about expenses,
When down to the depot we’d go,
We had the same cry every week,
“How much is the excess, Bo?”
Then we used to send our photos,
In advance, nice and clean to a day,
When the week was up, we got them back,
One look, then threw ’em away.
Gee, this business is something awful,
To get what one don’t deserve,
I think I’ll do like someone else,
And collect things on my nerve.
Now our act was the hit of the bill
At the morgue and at Pike’s Peak,
And here I gets a letter,
Laying me off on Christmas week.
Well, I ain’t going to cry, old pal,
I’ve got my health, that’s all,
And I’d better get ready for that third one,
Before I get a call.
Yes, there’s trouble in every business,
Just to keep the old scout from our doors,
So don’t say I wrote this,
I can’t stand the applause.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Men Behind Tik-Tok

 

These photographs from the Los Angeles Daily Tribune of April 1, 1913, show the principal creators of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, the hit stage musical that opened production at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles, California, the previous evening. Left to right, they are:

Oliver Morosco, producer

L. Frank Baum, author of the libretto and lyrics

Louis F. Gottschalk, composer

Frank M. Stammers, director

Robert A. Brunton, scenic designer

The $40,000 they appear in is the amount The Tik-Tok Man of Oz cost to produce.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Gottschalk Discovers Tik-Tok

Louis F. Gottschalk, circa 1913

When I wrote the book All Wound Up, my history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz stage musical, I relied on composer Louis F. Gottschalk’s version of how he became connected with the show. In an article published June 8, 1913, in the Chicago Examiner, Gottschalk told the story of how he discovered the script:

I had gone out to Los Angeles in June of last year to take a rest and see my old friends in the home town. Mr. Baum (the author of the book) makes his home in Los Angeles every winter and at this time was in Syracuse. Some one gave me his book of Tik-Tok and I became enthusiastic over its possibilities as the background for a musical setting. So I wrote him at Syracuse. The letter followed him all over the country and finally reached him at Los Angeles two months after I had mailed it. In the meantime I had gone back to New York. Mr. Baum addressed a letter to me at the Lambs Club, but I had gone when it reached there. His letter chased me about a month and finally reached me in Los Angeles. Then we were both together and we began holding conferences. This was last October.

Early in November we made our arrangements with Mr. Morosco for a production of the play and I began my work on the score last December.

After All Wound Up was published, I found a different version of Gottschalk’s encounter with the script of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. An article from the Los Angeles Sunday Tribune on March 23, 1913, a week before the production opened in Los Angeles, provides alternate details:

Gottschalk came out here from New York about three months ago to take a vacation. He drifted into Manager Morosco’s office one day and was handed a manuscript to read.

The book looked good to him; he saw big possibilities in it, and he told Mr. Morosco he would like to write the music for the piece.

The script was of Frank Baum’s The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, and before Gottschalk left the office a tentative contract had been signed and he carried the script away with him, prepared to begin work.

Already he had had an inspiration for the “Tik-Tok Man” song, which is one of the principal numbers, and he wrote that as easily as the spring poet dashes off his verses.

Then he set to work in earnest, and in six weeks he had written practically all the music for an extravaganza that contains nineteen song numbers, in addition to the prelude and the orchestral accompaniment of the story from first to last.

Both versions contain inaccuracies. For instance, the first version claims that Baum spent only winters in California. But Baum lived permanently in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Gottschalk says that Baum was at that time in Syracuse, New York. He was actually visiting Chicago, not Syracuse. The second version’s inaccuracies include the claim that Gottschalk arrived in Los Angeles three months previously, which would have been about December 1912. This compresses the timeline. Actually Gottschalk had permanently moved back to Los Angeles months earlier—by the end of summer 1912.

The second version brings Los Angeles theatrical producer Oliver Morosco into the history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz much earlier than any other version I’ve found. It claims that Gottschalk encountered Baum’s script in Morosco’s office.

This claim is by no means unlikely. I made room for the possibility in All Wound Up. When I reported that Gottschalk might have read the script Baum submitted to producer Pop Fischer, I posited the alternative that Gottschalk encountered the script “in a pile of scripts submitted to another Los Angeles theatrical producer.” Morosco could easily have been that producer. I expect, knowing Baum’s ambitions for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, he attempted to raise the interest of every legitimate producer he could find.

The second version claims Gottschalk signed a “tentative” contract with Morosco’s office on the day he encountered the script. Is this likely? Unless Morosco had the rights to assign Gottschalk to the script, this seems premature. Does the word “tentative” indicate that if Morosco and Baum didn’t sign a contract, then the agreement between Morosco and Gottschalk would be void? Possibly. Such a speculative arrangement seems odd for Gottschalk, one of Broadway’s most acclaimed musical directors. But Gottschalk hadn’t worked professionally in Los Angeles since 1897, so maybe he was willing to take this chance while beginning a new facet of his career.

The first version, specific in its timeline, sets the arrangement with Morosco in November 1912. That date agrees with the November 6 date of Baum and Morosco’s contract for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

However, Gottschalk wasn’t a party to that contract, which specifies that Morosco “will commission and employ Louis F. Gottschalk to compose and orchestrate an appropriate Musical score for the lyrics and incidental requirements of said play.” That means that Morosco and Gottschalk had a separate agreement. Is that the “tentative” agreement they reportedly arranged months before? Or did Morosco and Gottschalk sign their contract in November, too?

The two versions seem to disagree about when Gottschalk composed the show’s music. In the first version, Gottschalk explains that he began composing in December 1912. The second version implies that Gottschalk completed the music during the six weeks after he encountered the script.  Neither version seems entirely accurate. I doubt that Gottschalk composed nothing for the show until December 1912. Two months earlier, in October, Baum and Gottschalk together approached Morosco with a formal proposal for the production of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Gottschalk would have played some sort of music for Morosco, even if that music was in a preliminary form. But I also doubt that Gottschalk composed all the show’s music within six weeks of encountering the script and with only a “tentative” contract.

Does the second version compress the timeline concerning when Gottschalk composed the score? It says, “Then he set to work in earnest, and in six weeks he had written practically all the music.” Perhaps the unspecific word “then” means December 1912, rather than the apparent implication of months earlier. If so, on that point, the second version agrees with the first.

In the end, some discrepancies between the two versions can be reconciled, while others can’t. I’m glad that All Wound Up seems accurate as far as it goes,* but I’m frustrated to realize we’ll probably never know the exact story. Anyone got a functional time machine handy?

*Except for claiming the Baums visited Syracuse rather than Chicago, which I addressed here.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.