Scarecrow (Oz) - Modern Works

Modern Works

• The Scarecrow is also a minor character in author Gregory Maguire's revisionist novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and is made a more prominent character in its Broadway musical adaptation Wicked. In the musical, the Scarecrow is revealed to be the remnants of Fiyero after he was captured by the Wizard's officials, but made impervious to injury by Elphaba's incomplete spell. The Fiyero-Scarecrow executes a plan to save Elphaba through using the rumor that water will melt her; thus she stays alive and the two move out of Oz. This has no basis in the book other than that in the final scenes Elphaba hopes that the Scarecrow is really her beloved Fiyero in disguise, which is proven to be a false hope when he is attacked and she sees that he is nothing but straw. The Scarecrow is featured more prominently in Son of a Witch, Maguire's sequel to Wicked. In that novel, the Scarecrow helps the Witch's son Liir avoid political turmoil in the Emerald City after the Wizard's departure. Later, various powerful interests place a different Scarecrow on the throne of Oz to serve as a puppet ruler; the suggestion is that most residents of Oz are unable to distinguish one Scarecrow from another.

• In the 2005 ABC television movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, Kermit the Frog plays the role of the Scarecrow.

• In the VeggieTales episode The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, the Scarecrow and his Kansas counterpart from the 1939 film were played by Mr. Lunt the Gourd.

• In the 2007 Sci Fi television miniseries Tin Man, the Scarecrow is re-imagined as the character named "Glitch" (played by Alan Cumming). Formerly a chief adviser to the queen of the Outer Zone (O.Z.) named Ambrose, he resists her usurper (and daughter), the evil sorceress Azkadellia and has his brain removed by the physician as a reeducation measure. In the series, he wanders the O.Z. searching for his brain and becomes a companion of the protagonist, a girl named DG.

• The Scarecrow appears in Dorothy and the Witches of Oz played by Ari Zigaris. He appears on Earth in the form of a man named Allen Denslow.

• A commercial for GE smartgrid technology, which first aired during the Super Bowl XLIII, featured computerized Scarecrow dancing clumsily on a radio tower singing If I Only Had a Brain.

• A character inspired by the Scarecrow appears in Alan Moore's Lost Girls. In the work, a young farmboy becomes Dorothy Gale's first sex partner. However, she soon grows bored of him because of his lack of intelligence and imagination, comparing it to having sex with something you use to scare the crows. The "scarecrow" tries to prove to Dorothy that he does have a brain and writes her a poem.