The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story
Genre	Biography Drama Family
Written by	Richard Matheson[1]
Story by	David Kirschner Richard Matheson
Directed by	Jack Bender
Starring	John Ritter Annette O'Toole Rue McClanahan
Music by	Lee Holdridge
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producers	David Kirschner Robert M. Myman
Producers	Ervin Zavada Laura Moskowitz Clare Witt (associate producer)
Cinematography	Thomas Burstyn
Editor	Jerrold L. Ludwig
Running time	100 minutes
Production companies	Bedrock Productions Adam Productions Spelling Entertainment
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	December 10, 1990 (1990-12-10)

The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story is a 1990 American made-for-television biographical film starring John Ritter as Lyman Frank Baum, the author who wrote the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and thirteen other Oz books.^[2][3] Also starring in it were Annette O'Toole as Baum's supportive wife, Maud, and Rue McClanahan as Baum's tough mother-in-law, Matilda Gage.

Plot

The film depicts how L. Frank Baum came to create The Wonderful Wizard of Oz while undergoing and eventually overcoming professional and personal failures.^[4] The story is interspersed with the famous Oz story, shown at certain points when Baum is writing down his ideas. It is shown that he was originally telling this to a group of kids, who asked him the name of this location, to which he looks at a file cabinet with the bottom drawer marked O-Z and decided "Oz". Another idea he had thought of was to say Dorothy was born in the Dakota Territory, only to scrap that sentence in favor of Kansas.

Cast

• John Ritter as L. Frank Baum
• Annette O'Toole as Maud Gage Baum.
• Rue McClanahan as Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage
• Charles Haid as Al Badham / Cowardly Lion
• David Schramm as W.W. Denslow
• Nancy Lenehan as Harriet Alvena Baum Neal
• Courtney Barilla as Dorothy Leslie Gage / Dorothy Gale
• Nancy Morgan as Helen Leslie Gage
• Jason Ritter as Harry Neal Baum
• Pat Skipper as Charlie H. Gage
• Ed Gale as Ned Brown / Farmer
• Trevor Eyster as Frank Joslyn Baum (5–9 years) (as Tim Eyster)
• Joshua Boyd as Frank Joslyn Baum (3 years)
• Roger Steffens as Salesman (as Roger Steffans)
• John Cameron Mitchell as Albert the Reporter
• Frank Hamilton as Sullivan
• Steven Gilborn as George M. Hill
• Jerry Maren as Mr. Munchkin
• Elizabeth Barrington as Mrs. Munchkin
• David Ellzey as Scarecrow
• Derek Loughran as Tin Man (as Derek Loughram)
• Christopher Pettiet as Teenage Frank Jr.
• Ryan Todd as Robert Stanton Baum
• Alexis Kirschner as Tweety Robbins
• Paul Linke as Opie Read (uncredited)

Reception

In his TV Preview, Tom Shales of The Washington Post proclaimed the film 'cheerfully satisfying', and praised the production values, but wasn't impressed with Ritter's performance.^[5] John J. O'Connor of The New York Times praised Ritter's performance and called the film 'heartwarming'.^[6] Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times dubbed it 'long on mush and short on magic', but praised the recreations from the original stories.^[7]