Who Is Oscar Diggs? Inside the Wicked Movie's Most Wonderful Easter Egg | Playbill

Film & TV Features Who Is Oscar Diggs? Inside the Wicked Movie's Most Wonderful Easter Egg

He's plastered on posters, crates, carts, and portraits throughout the Emerald City. But who is this man? And what does he mean for Part 2?

Courtesy of NBC Universal

As part one of the Wicked film continues to soar at the box office, eagle-eyed fans are starting to pick up on more and more easter eggs embedded in the film by director Jon M. Chu and production designer Nathan Crowley. One front-and-center reference, which is repeated over and over throughout the Emerald City sequence, is to someone named Oscar Diggs. 

But who is this "wise and magnificent" man?

SPOILERS FOR WICKED, THE WIZARD OF OZ, AND THE WORKS OF L. FRANK BAUM BELOW THIS POINT.

It is no mistake that the majority of the Oscar Diggs artifacts are strewn throughout a storage room in the Wizard's Palace. Lingered on as Elphaba and Glinda attempt to break free of his guards, first via a hot air balloon and second via flying broom, a large portrait of Diggs, flanked by snarling lions, is perhaps the biggest hint to fans as to Diggs' identity.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you, that is an artistic rendering of a young Jeff Goldblum. Oscar Diggs is the shortened name of L. Frank Baum's original Wizard of Oz. Born Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, Diggs's nickname, O.Z. (for Oscar Zoroaster), is also a nod to Diggs' eventual rulership: initially, he used his initials (O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D.), but since they spell out the word "pinhead," he shortened his name further.

But that isn't all! The use of Diggs' name, and the countless artifacts stuffed in the storage room, suggest the Chu and co will be exploring Baum's original backstory for Diggs in Wicked, Part Two. While that backstory was excised from the 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz, Wicked suggests it through The Wizard's performance of slight-of-hand magic on Elphaba upon her arrival to the palace, and in the stage show, in the Act 2 song "Wonderful."

Jeff Goldblum and Cynthia Erivo Courtesy of NBC Universal

In the Baum books, Diggs was an ordinary conman from Omaha, Nebraska, who used elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem powerful. Working as a magician for an unnamed circus, he wrote O.Z. on the side of his hot air balloon for promotional purposes.

One day, after a sudden storm took control of his balloon, he was swept into the Land of Oz, where he was worshipped as a great sorcerer. The people of Oz had never seen a hot air balloon before. When they saw his initials painted on the balloon, they declared that he must not only be a great Wizard, but their future leader—as every ruler of Oz is typically named Oz or Ozma. As Oz had no active leadership at the time, he became the supreme ruler of the kingdom—and did his best to sustain the myth through increasingly elaborate tricks, all the while obscuring his human heritage from the Ozians.

In the "One Short Day" sequence in the film, there is a cameo-filled number depicting "the absolute factual story of our Wonderful Wizard of Oz" that Ozians believe.

READ: Behind the Broadway Cameos and the New Song in the Wicked Movie

In the sequence, an oversized projection of the Wizard can be seen chanting "O-MA-HA" as evidence that he can read the magic spells within the Grimmerie. In reality, he is saying the name of his hometown, Omaha, which was clearly misunderstood by the Ozians as a magic sequence of words.

That's not all! It is believed that Diggs was inspired by a real person: Washington Harrison Donaldson, a balloonist, ventriloquist and stage magician who worked for P. T. Barnum. On July 15, 1875, Donaldson made a balloon ascent near Chicago and disappeared in a storm; neither he nor his balloon was ever seen again. While it is believed that Donaldson crashed into the watery depths of Lake Michigan, Baum's more fantastical option for survival certainly paints a happier picture for Diggs. 

Additionally, P. T. Barnum himself, known as one of the greatest perpetrators of entertaining hoaxes, could certainly be the inspiration behind the Wizard's methodology.

In the 1939 film adaptation, Diggs' backstory was eschewed in favor of Professor Marvel, a mysterious traveling fortune-teller who Dorothy meets in Kansas. Due to The Wizard of Oz's "it was all a dream" conceit, actor Frank Morgan played Professor Marvel, The Wizard, the Doorman at the Emerald City, the Guard at the Gates to the Wizard's Palace, and the Coachman whose transport is drawn by The Horse of a Different Color.

Like Dorothy, this Wizard states that he himself hails from Kansas, proudly stating that he is "an old Kansas man myself, born and bred in the heart of the Western Wilderness." However, the balloon seen in The Wizard of Oz still says "Omaha State Fair," reflecting the Wizard's book origins.

Only one Oz film has endeavored to explore Diggs' book backstory: Oz the Great and Powerful, the 2013 unofficial prequel starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, and and Michelle Williams.

Written by Tony winner David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner, the film centers on Diggs and his journey from a small-time magician to the ruler of Oz. In the film, he is portrayed as an overly flirtatious and overconfident con artist and stage magician who uses his illusions to free the Ozians from the tyranny of the Wicked Witch of the West. 

As Wicked quite clearly positions The Wizard as Oz's tyrant, and not Elphaba, it is likely that Part Two of the Wicked film adaptation will follow suit. 

Unfortunately, we have to wait one more tantalizing year to see what Chu is building to, especially now that Elphaba and Glinda have shredded his balloon to bits during their escape attempt. 

Perhaps a new take on "Wonderful," spun off from Goldblum's "you've gotta give the people what they want" soft-shoe routine in Part One, could be on the horizon? Only time will tell!

Jeff Goldblum Courtesy of NBC Universal
 
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