Before he was a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was, the Wizard of Oz was Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, late of Omaha.  So it was said in "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz," the fourth of L. Frank Baum's classic children's books, and so it is now in Disney's "Oz the Great and Powerful," director Sam Raimi's original prequel to the whole shebang.  The movie starring James Franco, means to fill us in on an iconic character's backstory.  Baum, who wrote the first 14 Oz books, wasn't averse to spinoffs, authoring Oz plays, movies and other media.  After his death in 1919 came many more novels by other writers -- in and out of canon, estate-authorized and not.  There have been Oz comics, video games, even slot machines.  And while not all of these, perhaps, were labors of love, "Oz the Great and Powerful" is clearly so.  Besides the dozens of TV and stage adaptations -- including a ballet and the 1970s Broadway musical "The Wiz" -- some of the most notable movie versions are:

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1910) and "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz" (1914) -- Respectively, the first surviving Oz film and the first produced and directed by Baum himself

Wizard of Oz (1925) -- A silent-movie adaptation starring Oliver Hardy, pre-Laurel & Hardy, as the Tin Man
The Wizard of Oz (1939) -- The classic MGM musical starring Judy Garland
Journey Back to Oz (1974) -- Animated sequel voiced by Liza Minnelli, Garland's daughter, as Dorothy; Margaret Hamilton, the original Wicked Witch of the West, as Aunt Em; Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Paul Lynde, Herschel Bernardi, Danny Thomas and others
The Wiz (1978) -- Adaptation of the Broadway musical, with Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow
Return to Oz (1985) -- Walt Disney Pictures' critically and commercially disappointing hybrid sequel to / retelling of the 1939 film  Frank Lovece   http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/james-franco-is-the-wizard-in-new-oz-film-oz-the-great-and-powerful-1.4716615

Decades of riding and handling horses helped John Talip of Ottawa Lake, Mich., land an on-the-set job during filming of Oz the Great and Powerful.  "I was a wrangler and helped out with the horses on set when they did a lot of the filming," he said.  The movie was shot in the former Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac, Mich., a state-of-the-art studio built on the site of the General Motors Centerpoint business campus.   http://www.toledoblade.com/Movies/2013/03/08/Ottawa-Lake-man-s-experience-with-horses-lands-him-job-on-set-of-Disney-movie.html

There have been fierce battles over control of Conan Doyle’s estate and the preservation of his former home in Surrey, England — to say nothing of the wild speculations surrounding the mysterious 2004 death of a prominent Holmes scholar who was found garroted with a shoelace shortly before a controversial auction of Conan Doyle papers.  But when the Baker Street Irregulars, an invitation-only literary club, gathered for their annual weekend in New York in January, few had any inkling they would soon be embroiled in a distinctly 21st-century case that might be called “The Adventure of the Social Media-Driven Copyright Debate, With Annotations on Sherlockian Sexism and the True Nature of Literary Devotion.”  A few weeks later, after a leading Holmes scholar and longtime Irregular filed a legal complaint against the Conan Doyle estate arguing that Sherlock Holmes and the basic elements of his world were in the public domain, various online Sherlockian conclaves exploded.  “The suit has wreaked havoc,” said Betsy Rosenblatt, an assistant professor at Whittier Law School and a member of the Irregulars, who pointed to the spread of a “#freesherlock” hashtag on Twitter.  The suit, which stems from the estate’s efforts to collect a licensing fee for a planned collection of new Holmes-related stories by Sara Paretsky, Michael Connelly and other contemporary writers, makes a seemingly simple argument.  Of the 60 Conan Doyle stories and novels in “the Canon” (as Sherlockians call it), only the 10 stories first published in the United States after 1923 remain under copyright.  Therefore, the suit asserts, many fees paid to the estate for the use of the character have been unnecessary.  But it’s also shaping up to be something of what one blogger called “a Sherlockian Civil War.”  On one side is Leslie S. Klinger, a prominent lawyer from Malibu, Calif., and the editor of the three-volume, nearly 3,000-page “New Annotated Sherlock Holmes,” as well as an editor of the new collection.  On the other is Jon Lellenberg, a retired Defense Department strategist and, for the past 30 years, the Conan Doyle estate’s hard-nosed American agent.  If neither side is ready to cast the other in the role of Professor Moriarty, Holmes’s arch-nemesis, the tide of sympathy among Sherlockians is running strongly in Mr. Klinger’s favor.  Jennifer Schuessler  Read extensive article at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/books/suit-says-sherlock-belongs-to-the-ages.html?hp&_r=0 

Find the malapropism in this (paraphrased) sentence:  If I want to let my dry food rot in my bowl, that's my own peroxide.  Bucky Katt in Get Fuzzy comic strip, Mar. 15, 2013 

Peeps at 60  Few products have achieved the iconic status of PEEPS®, the yellow, chick-shaped marshmallow confection beloved by children and adults alike.  But, as popular as PEEPS® has become, it is only one of the many delicious products produced by Just Born, an 87-year-old, family-owned confectionery company based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  The Just Born candy tradition actually began in 1910 when Sam Born emigrated to the U.S. from Russia.  A candy maker by trade, Born used innovative technology to produce chocolate sprinkles, known as Jimmies, and the hard chocolate coating for ice cream bars.  In 1916, Born invented a machine that mechanically inserted sticks into lollipops.  In 1923, Born opened a small candy-making and retail store in Brooklyn, New York.  He marketed the freshness of his line of daily-made candy with a sign that declared, “Just Born.”  The company thrived in spite of the economic depression of the 1930s and, in 1932, moved its operations to an empty printing factory in Bethlehem, PA.  The company continued to grow, aided by several key acquisitions.  In 1935, Just Born acquired the prestigious Maillard Corporation, well known for elegant hand-decorated chocolates, crystallized fruits, Venetian mints, jellies and “the best bridge mix in the country.”  In 1953, Just Born acquired the Rodda Candy Company of Lancaster, PA.  Although Rodda was best known for its jelly beans, it also made a small line of marshmallow products that included a popular Easter Peep that was made by laboriously hand-squeezing marshmallow through pastry tubes.  http://www.justborn.com/get-to-know-us/our-history

Peeps show  http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/peeps

Peeps in libraries

Bedford, Massachusetts  http://www.bedfordlibrary.net/events/peeps.htm
Georgetown, Texas  http://library.georgetown.org/peeps/frames/page1.html
Decatur, Illinois  http://www.millikin.edu/staley/about/peeps/pages/default.aspx
Ann Arbor, Michigan  http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/peeps-contest-results/