A long time ago I wrote fanfics that had Mr. Wogglebug in a wish realm of Oz in which he not only always stayed the same as he was originally, but everyone also always liked him. The first fanfic I ever wrote set in this wish realm of Oz received a review from a user named Mad A Hatter and the first thing he said was “The Wogglebug, no matter how much you may love him, is still conceited.” He went on to say that because he loved my writing style he had favorited my story and my as an author and I would be hearing from him again. But I was so offended by the first thing he said that I blocked him from being able to ever review again.
I looked at his profile and read the following: I have a belief in total honesty, even if it gets me into trouble. My honesty can sometimes be brutal. So, he was being honest when he was saying, “No matter how much you love the Wogglebug, he isn't lovable.” But at the same time, I am being honest in saying to him and every other Oz fan, “No matter how much you hate him, he is.”
This brings me to the point of why the wish realm of Oz I had invented is in itself a “double mumbo-jumbo” as the late great Blake Snyder had described such things. This is why I have since had to toss that concept into the fantasy rubbish bin, both literally and figuratively. I have decided from now on my Oz-related stories, both online and offline, will only ever depict the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Wogglebug's Oz fandom situation as I have always seen it.
In other words, I have decided to be totally and brutally honest with the Oz fans even if it ever gets me into trouble. Which it just may. Because the truth is that the Oz characters, especially the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, really are just as mean toward the Wogglebug as I made them out to be in the book The Wogglebug's Hidden Truth Behind the History of Oz. And it certainly was never the Wogglebug's fault they were, either. No matter what his haters otherwise known as the Oz fans would prefer to believe.
One such Oz fan who is a prime example of the majority of this is Sam Milazzo who lives in Australia. He has stated plainly and more than once in reviews of Oz books at Amazon that he outright hates the Wogglebug and wishes he wasn't in the series at all. He claimed in a post on The International Wizard of Oz Club forum that he had first read about him in the fourth book and didn't have a problem with him in it, and then it was when he read the second book that he first appeared in that he hated him. And it was all for the stupidest of reasons. He just hates him for being a good guy who got involved with the wrong people, and at the wrong time, and in the wrong place.
I was always the exact polar opposite of Sam. I also first read about the Wogglebug in the fourth Oz book, and I didn't like him at all in it or any of the other books he was in by Baum and Thompson. But then as soon as I started reading about him in the second Oz book when he first came in, I realized what I stated in the above paragraph and also knew why he had changed so drastically in the rest of the books. I point all of these reasons out in detail in past blog posts and in the second episode of my Visual Podcast which I highly recommend watching.
The truth about the Wogglebug's Oz fandom situation is akin to how Disney did the teaser trailers for one of their last 2D animated feature films, Lilo and Stitch. The trailers showed Stitch interfering in classic scenes of past Disney feature films. He wipes out Ariel, takes Simba's place on Pride Rock, crashes into the ballroom where Belle and the Beast are dancing and takes Jasmine away in his spaceship during the magic carpet ride. Aladdin in response to this says, “Get your own movie!” This is exactly what Stitch did and it was a huge success with Disney and spawned sequels and a TV series among other things.
It also reminds me of a very memorable scene in the direct-to-video movie I loved to watch as a kid, Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent my Summer Vacation in which Buster and Babs Bunny are falling off their raft from a waterfall and Superman comes flying out of nowhere and rescues them. Only to have them say, “This is our story! Get your own video!” He then drops them and lets them fall into the water. It was a comical scene overall of course. But it brings me to my point about the Wogglebug.
The Wogglebug was always destined to not only be the hero for his own fandom, his own fantasy land, and his own friends but also for many children of the world, especially in America. He deserves the movie treatment to make this happen. He can't have it as long as he is in Oz. Maybe in some other time and place, he could have had it in Oz but no one in or surrounding it wants him too apparently. These days in Oz he is mostly kept locked up in his Athletic College inventing learning pills. He can't possibly be a true hero who can connect to children in our world as a proper teacher in that way. And besides the whole point of him being the dean of this college is just to keep him busy and thus keep him out of everybody's hair. It's essentially of no good use to him or Oz, either.
Let me put it this way. Can you imagine how badly it would reflect on all those Disney characters if they had locked Stitch up instead of letting him have his very own movie to star in and place to be happy in? That is how I see the Oz fandom. So, thank goodness he is in the public domain so I can pursue this dream I've had for him since I was twelve years old. Sam Millazzo has stated his sincere hope that if the Oz books ever get proper adaptions into a movie series the Wogglebug will be left out of them altogether, and I couldn't agree more with him, but for different reasons. He deserves so much better than Oz.