One thing that I love to do in my spare time is fancast. What is fancasting, you might be asking? The Urban Dictionary defines FANCAST as "When a fan of a franchise makes a list of actors they would like to see in a movie based on the franchise. Usually specifically refers to a type of threads found on internet forums. The threads will be tagged or labelled "Fancast <franchise>: Who would you cast?" or something similar." In this series of posts, I'll be doing a little fancasting of my own. Welcome to the first edition of "Fancast Time".
I initially was going to call this "The Casting Couch", but apparently the phrase "casting couch" has a dirty definition and I want to keep this blog at least RELATIVELY clean. Sooooooooooooo, yeah.
Let's talk a little about The Wizard of Oz. When I say those four words, you probably think of the 1930s movie adaptation of the Oz books starring Judy Garland and Bert Lahr. But there have been so, so many different adaptations of the Oz stories over the years - many of them animated. For example, there's this one I've already looked at...
And there's also this, which I plan on reviewing another time...
And this, which I've heard was unnecessarily creepy...
So, let's play a game of hypotheticals here: what if somebody made ANOTHER animated adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? Like, a direct-to-video movie or something? Specifically, one that didn't have Tom and Jerry in it? Who would they get to voice the characters?
Well, here's what I think... and just to make it a little harder on myself, I'm gonna try to avoid using anyone who's actually voiced any of these characters before - so, no Jess Harnell as the Cowardly Lion, no Tress MacNeille as the Wicked Witch of the West, etc.
Brooklynn Prince as Dorothy
How old is Dorothy supposed to be? Apparently, she's 11, at least in the original books. So I figured, why not cast an actual child actress as Dorothy? I'm not even sure how many times that's been done... a child actress played her in Return to Oz, there was an anime adaptation where she was voiced by the girl who played Annie... The one problem here is that I'm not super up-to-date when it comes to child actors and actresses.
Brooklynn Prince has been acting since she was two years old, and she's currently fourteen. She's appeared in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, The Angry Birds Movie 2 and The One and Only Ivan - plus she won a Critic's Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer back in 2017. With all of this in mind, I see no reason why she shouldn't take a whack at Dorothy.
Dee Bradley Baker as Toto
Toto is a dog. He doesn't talk, he just makes dog noises. Now, what voice actor is well-known for his incredibly realistic dog noises? Well, there's Frank Welker, of course, who actually did Toto's voice in the 1990s Wizard of Oz cartoon. But there's also Dee Bradley Baker, who's "woofed" and "barked" for such cartoon dogs as Diogee in Milo Murphy's Law, Charles in The Loud House, and Buster in My Friends Tigger and Pooh. So if you need a good Toto and Frank Welker's either too busy or too expensive, Dee is your guy. Oh, and Dee could also voice some if not all of the Flying Monkeys as well.
Bill Farmer as the Scarecrow
I'm not sure why not too many adaptations of the Oz stories have the Scarecrow speaking with a Southern accent. I mean, I'm not saying that he HAS to have one, but it just seems so OBVIOUS to me. When I think of scarecrows, I think of the country. And also autumn.
But anyway, I think that Bill would be a wonderful choice for the Scarecrow. For one thing, it's Bill Farmer, he's great at everything he does. He's actually FROM Kansas. An episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse called The Wizard of Dizz was a parody of The Wizard of Oz - and it had Goofy, Bill's most iconic role, playing the Scarecrow! On top of that, you probably know that Walt Disney World once had an attraction called The Great Movie Ride, which featured characters from The Wizard of Oz. On that ride, Bill provided the voice of the Cowardly Lion! I personally believe that something similar to Bill's voice for Doc from The 7D, maybe with a more pronounced Southern accent (so... basically Hop Pop from Amphibia?), would fit the Scarecrow quite nicely.
Other actors I could see making for a good Scarecrow are Jack McBrayer, Tom Kenny, Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, or Tom Hanks (which I think stems from the fact that Woody was inspired by the Scarecrow, at least when he runs).
David Hyde Pierce as the Tin Man
I believe that my idea of a British Tin Man was inspired by the casting of Kelsey Grammer as the character for Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return. And no, my suggestion of David Hyde Pierce in particular is not just because he played Kelsey Grammer's brother on Frasier... okay, maybe that's PART of the reason, but it mainly stems from the fact that I think David Hyde Pierce is delightful, and he's certainly no stranger to voiceover work - if you're an animation fan, you probably know him best as Slim from A Bug's Life. I think that he'd be able to bring a large amount of charm and gusto to the Tin Man.
Kevin Michael Richardson as the Cowardly Lion
I think this is my favorite of the casting choices here. Not only does Kevin Michael Richardson has an enormous range, but he's no stranger to voicing lions (The Wild, Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production, Prince John in House of Mouse) and he also provided the voice of Grimace in The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald, a similarly cowardly but good hearted character. With all of this in mind, I could see Kevin either emulating Bert Lahr or just doing his own thing as the Cowardly Lion, and either way it would work wonderfully.
Grey Griffin as the Wicked Witch of the West
You're familiar with "Twisted Toonz", right? It's this thing where a bunch of voice actors get together at a convention and do a script-reading of a movie as their characters - like, you'll have Tara Strong reading Han Solo's lines as Twilight Sparkle, for instance. I believe you can find a few of these on YouTube. Anyhow, at one of these Grey did an impression of the Wicked Witch of the West (I don't remember what movie they were doing, though...). Ever since then, I've been thinking that Grey would make a wonderful Wicked Witch of the West - not only that, but she also provided the voice of Dorothy in Tom and Jerry Meet the Wizard of Oz! How cool would it be if she were one of the few people to have voiced both Dorothy AND the Witch?
Candi Milo as the Good Witch of the North
Interesting fact: in the original Oz books, there are TWO Good Witches - the Good Witch of the North and Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Most animated Wizard of Oz productions do what the 1939 movie did and merge the Glindas into one character. But let's say that this hypothetical production wanted to be closer to the book and have two Good Witches. This character is a kindly old grandmother-type, right? So who better to do her voice than Candi Milo, the current voice of Granny from Looney Tunes?
Jennifer Hale as Glinda, the Good Witch of the South
I'm going to be very particular with this one - I want an actress with a voice that's both soothing and regal. Something that isn't too young-sounding or too old-sounding. After much deliberation, I decided on Jennifer Hale mainly based on her work as two different Disney princesses, Cinderella and Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.
Eric Bauza, Jeff Bennett, Dee Bradley Baker and Bob Bergen as the Munchkins
Because all four of them can do high-pitched, squeaky voices. I don't need a better reason than that.
Alan Tudyk as the Wizard
Okay, what kind of voice do we want for this guy? He kind of looks like the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland from me, so I was originally thinking of Corey Burton. But then it came to me - Disney's lucky charm Alan Tudyk! Not only did he do the voice of the Mad Hatter in the recent Once Upon a Studio short, he also voiced King Candy in Wreck-it Ralph, whose voice is based on Ed Wynn's and also has a bit of a Wizard of Oz influence in his design and role. Of course, the Wizard wouldn't necessarily HAVE to sound like Ed Wynn - given Alan's versatility as a voice actor, I could see him crafting a unique voice for the Wizard, or even something that mimics Frank Morgan's take.
If you have any ideas of your own in regards to possible casting choices for the Oz characters, feel free to post 'em in the comments section below. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm... dang it, I can't think of a good Wizard of Oz joke here. "I'm off to see the Wizard" sounds a tad too obvious...
