Coincidental Oz

Joseph Kline Emmet, Sr.

The Tik-Tok Man of Oz composer Louis F. Gottschalk, early in his career, acted as musical director for the tour of the play Fritz in Ireland. The show starred Joseph K. Emmet, Jr., carrying on his father’s legacy as the well-known character Fritz. In 1870, Emmet, Jr.’s father, Joseph Kline Emmet (1841–1891), made Fritz famous in the show Fritz, Our Cousin German and played the character for the rest of his life. His son took up the role after his father’s death.

In May 1884, the senior Emmet, through his manager, Phil H. Lehnen, bought “two beautiful Jersey cattle” from the Syracuse, New York, area farm of Benjamin W. Baum, the father of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz writer L. Frank Baum. Lehnen paid $1000 for the cattle and sent them to Albany, New York, where they joined the “many attractions on and about” Joe Emmet’s property.

How’s that for an unexpected connection to The Tik-Tok Man of Oz?

Notes

“Joe Emmet Buys Two Cows,” Syracuse (NY) Standard, 19 May 1884, 4; “Amusements,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), 9 January 1893, 3; “This and That,” Buffalo (NY) Enquirer, 25 March 1893, 5. Image credit: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection.

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