Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz remain the most iconic pair of footwear in cinema history. The shoes, worn by Judy Garland in the original 1939 film, have been auctioned off for astronomical prices several times over the last eight decades. But why are the shoes, originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East, silver and not red in the film version of Wicked? The answer is simple—Universal Pictures doesn’t have the rights to use them. The ruby slippers are entirely an invention of the 1939 MGM musical. Silver shoes, however, are accurate to L. Frank Baum’s original novel, and therefore free for anyone to use.
When MGM produced The Wizard of Oz, they made several changes to L. Frank Baum’s novel. For example, in the novel, there are two Good Witches. The Good Witch of the North greets Dorothy when she arrives in Munchkinland. Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, appears at the end of the story. The MGM musical conflated these two characters together. And because technicolor was new, the studio felt ruby slippers would pop more on screen than silver, so they changed them. However, since ruby slippers were unique to the film, MGM was able to trademark them. So even though Baum’s Oz books are long in the public domain, MGM (and now Warner Bros.) owns the concept of the ruby slippers, so other studios can’t use them.
Wicked nods to several things in the 1939 film. Probably more so than Baum’s original novel. For example, Glinda is still the only “Good Witch” in Oz in Wicked. And Elphaba is green, something not from the book. Elphaba’s green skin is another original creation for the MGM film. So how can Wicked have a green witch without legal trouble? Universal was able to keep their witch green, as too many other pop culture witches have green skin since The Wizard of Oz, like Witch Hazel from Looney Tunes. Still, Elphaba in Wicked can’t be the exact same shade of green used by Margaret Hamilton in 1939. This also applies to green witches in Once Upon a Time, Oz, the Great and Powerful, and recently, Agatha All Along. Perhaps one day, ruby slippers will appear in other Oz films. But for now, legalities keep them in the original classic film.
