Woot!

[vovat]

According to Urban Dictionary, the obnoxious modern interjection "woot" derives from the world of role-playing games. Long before that, however, it was the name of an Ozian wanderer. His only canonical role is in The Tin Woodman of Oz, and Jack Snow (I believe it was him, anyway) once proposed that the name could have come from rearranging the initials of the book's title (leaving out "the," of course). I'm sure we'll never know if this is true.


Woot is a Gillikin boy, whose original home was near Oogaboo, in the far northwest of Oz. His hometown was happy and content, so seeking more excitement, he decided to wander throughout Oz. In the course of his wanderings, he came upon the Tin Castle, and accompanied the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow on a journey to find Nick Chopper's old lover, Nimmie Amee. He spends a significant portion of this journey in the form of a green monkey, until Ozma transferred that form to its perpetrator, the giantess Mrs. Yoop.


Woot is a quite polite boy, usually providing the voice for NOT barging in on any strange community or dwelling the party comes across. As he remains wandering at the end of the tale, he certainly has potential to appear in more stories, but creating conflict would probably require teaming him up with other characters.

Comments

[bethje.livejournal.com]

I didn't bother to read this post, but that one picture is a blatant ripoff of that Leave It to Beaver episode where the Beav climbs into the bowl of soup on the billboard to see if it's real soup.

I'm worried about the Woot ...

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's the opposite -- that illustration was drawn decades before The Beaver came along.

Re: I'm worried about the Woot ...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think she knows that. {g} She's also told me that Polychrome is a ripoff of Rainbow Brite.

Oh, and Woot is actually drinking from a giant cup of coffee, not a bowl of soup.

Re: I'm worried about the Woot ...

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

My gosh, I hadn't considered that -- Poly is totally a Rainbow Brite ripoff! And didn't Baum steal Scarecrow from the Batman comics? :->

Re: I'm worried about the Woot ...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Cheers also ripped off the Scarecrow from Batman. I mean, a psychiatrist named Dr. Crane? Come on, it's been done before! (Actually, that one makes sense as far as the order goes, but I don't know if there was any actual influence.)

As far as preemptive ripping off goes, some Christians think Satan ripped off the Eucharist before Jesus was born. And what about Dreamworks rushing out their own movies with similar subjects to Pixar ones before Disney can complete them?

Re: I'm worried about the Woot ...

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Hollywood is rampant with projects being "coincidentally" in production at the same time ... and since many in Hollywood seem to be spawns of Satan, I guess it all fits together.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Oh Beth! When will you realize that most of these books took place before TV came along? :D

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Not Shaggy Man, though!

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I always wondered why Baum didn't just use Ojo for that role ...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I have to suspect he wanted to bring in a new character to provide a fresh perspective on Nick's relationship with Nimmie Amee.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That makes sense; although Ojo and Nick didn't interact often (although they did have that one big scene together!) I would think, as much as Nick likes to tell stories, that Ojo had heard it all at that point.