Joe Whitehead's Joke

Joe Whitehead in 1913

Joe Whitehead played the role of Tik-Tok in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz for a week in June 1913. For the 1907 Anniversary issue of the theatrical magazine Variety, Whitehead wrote a verse about the challenges of being an actor. The meter scans less than perfectly and the use of commas is liberal, to say the least, but the view of the acting business of the time is valuable, if you can parse the theatrical jargon.

The Tale of a Joke

by Joe Whitehead

Originally published in Variety (New York, NY), December 14, 1907

In the lobby of the Sherman House
In the town they call Chicago,
A critic and an agent stood,
Frank Wiesberg and Bob Fargo.
I butted in between the two,
I did the merry sneak,
They talked about Variety,
And the big page Anniversary week.
I saw that was no place for me,
I turned to duck away,
When a voice called, halt, Sir Joseph,
Have you anything to say?
I said I didn’t have a word,
I told the truth, for a wonder,
But Wiesberg said, tell me a joke,
To put in our Anniversary number.
Well, I started in to tell said joke,
I told most all I knew,
’Twas the ups and downs of show life,
And most of it was true.
I started with the Friday nights,
(That’s where most of us begin),
We get lemons there right off the reel,
And watches made of tin.
Or say we join a circus,
For “ten-a-week and cakes,”
We’ll even carry the center pole,
Or get busy driving stakes.
We get a job in the concert,
We sing and dance and play.
Gee, pal, we’re regular actors now,
And me for the “Big White Way.”
I wrote to a guy to book the act,
In vaudeville, what do you say?
I got an answer, here it is,
Can give you “three-a-day.”
I took it and was happy,
In a month saved ninety cents,
Gee, I ain’t as happy now,
As I was beneath the tents.
And speaking about your dressing rooms,
Really, say young feller,
Some big smoke got in my dressing room,
For me, poor hick, the cellar.
I registered at a hotel once,
The clerk said, Booth, skidoo,
Or you can hang out in the garret,
It’s good enough for you.
I took the room, it was a shine.
The meals they were the same,
The letters on the door spelled “dining room,”
But H–l, what’s in a name?
Now all this junk was strange to me,
With the tents all were alike,
If we didn’t like our cook tent there,
We could all get out and hike.
And speaking about expenses,
When down to the depot we’d go,
We had the same cry every week,
“How much is the excess, Bo?”
Then we used to send our photos,
In advance, nice and clean to a day,
When the week was up, we got them back,
One look, then threw ’em away.
Gee, this business is something awful,
To get what one don’t deserve,
I think I’ll do like someone else,
And collect things on my nerve.
Now our act was the hit of the bill
At the morgue and at Pike’s Peak,
And here I gets a letter,
Laying me off on Christmas week.
Well, I ain’t going to cry, old pal,
I’ve got my health, that’s all,
And I’d better get ready for that third one,
Before I get a call.
Yes, there’s trouble in every business,
Just to keep the old scout from our doors,
So don’t say I wrote this,
I can’t stand the applause.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Men Behind Tik-Tok

 

These photographs from the Los Angeles Daily Tribune of April 1, 1913, show the principal creators of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, the hit stage musical that opened production at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles, California, the previous evening. Left to right, they are:

Oliver Morosco, producer

L. Frank Baum, author of the libretto and lyrics

Louis F. Gottschalk, composer

Frank M. Stammers, director

Robert A. Brunton, scenic designer

The $40,000 they appear in is the amount The Tik-Tok Man of Oz cost to produce.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Gottschalk Discovers Tik-Tok

Louis F. Gottschalk, circa 1913

When I wrote the book All Wound Up, my history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz stage musical, I relied on composer Louis F. Gottschalk’s version of how he became connected with the show. In an article published June 8, 1913, in the Chicago Examiner, Gottschalk told the story of how he discovered the script:

I had gone out to Los Angeles in June of last year to take a rest and see my old friends in the home town. Mr. Baum (the author of the book) makes his home in Los Angeles every winter and at this time was in Syracuse. Some one gave me his book of Tik-Tok and I became enthusiastic over its possibilities as the background for a musical setting. So I wrote him at Syracuse. The letter followed him all over the country and finally reached him at Los Angeles two months after I had mailed it. In the meantime I had gone back to New York. Mr. Baum addressed a letter to me at the Lambs Club, but I had gone when it reached there. His letter chased me about a month and finally reached me in Los Angeles. Then we were both together and we began holding conferences. This was last October.

Early in November we made our arrangements with Mr. Morosco for a production of the play and I began my work on the score last December.

After All Wound Up was published, I found a different version of Gottschalk’s encounter with the script of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. An article from the Los Angeles Sunday Tribune on March 23, 1913, a week before the production opened in Los Angeles, provides alternate details:

Gottschalk came out here from New York about three months ago to take a vacation. He drifted into Manager Morosco’s office one day and was handed a manuscript to read.

The book looked good to him; he saw big possibilities in it, and he told Mr. Morosco he would like to write the music for the piece.

The script was of Frank Baum’s The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, and before Gottschalk left the office a tentative contract had been signed and he carried the script away with him, prepared to begin work.

Already he had had an inspiration for the “Tik-Tok Man” song, which is one of the principal numbers, and he wrote that as easily as the spring poet dashes off his verses.

Then he set to work in earnest, and in six weeks he had written practically all the music for an extravaganza that contains nineteen song numbers, in addition to the prelude and the orchestral accompaniment of the story from first to last.

Both versions contain inaccuracies. For instance, the first version claims that Baum spent only winters in California. But Baum lived permanently in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Gottschalk says that Baum was at that time in Syracuse, New York. He was actually visiting Chicago, not Syracuse. The second version’s inaccuracies include the claim that Gottschalk arrived in Los Angeles three months previously, which would have been about December 1912. This compresses the timeline. Actually Gottschalk had permanently moved back to Los Angeles months earlier—by the end of summer 1912.

The second version brings Los Angeles theatrical producer Oliver Morosco into the history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz much earlier than any other version I’ve found. It claims that Gottschalk encountered Baum’s script in Morosco’s office.

This claim is by no means unlikely. I made room for the possibility in All Wound Up. When I reported that Gottschalk might have read the script Baum submitted to producer Pop Fischer, I posited the alternative that Gottschalk encountered the script “in a pile of scripts submitted to another Los Angeles theatrical producer.” Morosco could easily have been that producer. I expect, knowing Baum’s ambitions for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, he attempted to raise the interest of every legitimate producer he could find.

The second version claims Gottschalk signed a “tentative” contract with Morosco’s office on the day he encountered the script. Is this likely? Unless Morosco had the rights to assign Gottschalk to the script, this seems premature. Does the word “tentative” indicate that if Morosco and Baum didn’t sign a contract, then the agreement between Morosco and Gottschalk would be void? Possibly. Such a speculative arrangement seems odd for Gottschalk, one of Broadway’s most acclaimed musical directors. But Gottschalk hadn’t worked professionally in Los Angeles since 1897, so maybe he was willing to take this chance while beginning a new facet of his career.

The first version, specific in its timeline, sets the arrangement with Morosco in November 1912. That date agrees with the November 6 date of Baum and Morosco’s contract for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

However, Gottschalk wasn’t a party to that contract, which specifies that Morosco “will commission and employ Louis F. Gottschalk to compose and orchestrate an appropriate Musical score for the lyrics and incidental requirements of said play.” That means that Morosco and Gottschalk had a separate agreement. Is that the “tentative” agreement they reportedly arranged months before? Or did Morosco and Gottschalk sign their contract in November, too?

The two versions seem to disagree about when Gottschalk composed the show’s music. In the first version, Gottschalk explains that he began composing in December 1912. The second version implies that Gottschalk completed the music during the six weeks after he encountered the script.  Neither version seems entirely accurate. I doubt that Gottschalk composed nothing for the show until December 1912. Two months earlier, in October, Baum and Gottschalk together approached Morosco with a formal proposal for the production of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Gottschalk would have played some sort of music for Morosco, even if that music was in a preliminary form. But I also doubt that Gottschalk composed all the show’s music within six weeks of encountering the script and with only a “tentative” contract.

Does the second version compress the timeline concerning when Gottschalk composed the score? It says, “Then he set to work in earnest, and in six weeks he had written practically all the music.” Perhaps the unspecific word “then” means December 1912, rather than the apparent implication of months earlier. If so, on that point, the second version agrees with the first.

In the end, some discrepancies between the two versions can be reconciled, while others can’t. I’m glad that All Wound Up seems accurate as far as it goes,* but I’m frustrated to realize we’ll probably never know the exact story. Anyone got a functional time machine handy?

*Except for claiming the Baums visited Syracuse rather than Chicago, which I addressed here.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Lloyd and Roach on Their Way

Harold Lloyd

Hal Roach

In early 1913, silent movie superstar Harold Lloyd, then unknown, popped into a rehearsal for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, but decided not to audition, as detailed in my book on the history of the show, All Wound Up. In July 1914, Lloyd and his good friend Hal Roach, later a major Hollywood movie producer, acted in the Oz Film Manufacturing Company’s first feature film, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. As Lloyd later told the story in the San Francisco Call and Post on October 9, 1925:

Finally Hal Roach and I caught on with the “Wizard of Oz” Company. . . . I played things nobody ever heard of—Gillikens [sic, Gillikins] and Mauchkims [sic, Munchkins] and Kalidahs.

One day Hal and I were sitting on a little bench in the sun made up as Hottentots [sic, Tottenhots]. All we had on was a lot of terrible colored grease paint and some grass skirts. He said to me, “Some day I’m going to make a picture myself. I’m going to make a comedy. People like to laugh and there’s always room for real comedy.” I was terribly impressed, though I couldn’t show it through my makeup. “And when I do, Harold,” he said, “you’ll be in it.”

I was. A couple weeks later he called me up and said that some distant relative of his had died and left him some money. I suspected for a while that he had robbed a bank or something, but I found out eventually that it was on the level. It was only a few hundred dollars, but it was the beginning of things for us.

Thus began the movie careers of two early Hollywood giants.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Temperamental L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum, playwright

As a playwright, L. Frank Baum seemed to have little patience with editorial interference. When a script doctor revised Baum’s script of the stage version of The Wizard of Oz in 1902, Baum objected strenuously. In 1905, when The Wogglebug was being staged, Baum refused to let anyone else touch his script.

So in 1913, when producer Oliver Morosco wanted to make changes to The Tik-Tok Man of Oz script early in the rehearsal period, he approached Baum carefully. Morosco spoke softly and flatteringly before suggesting the possibility of condensing Act Two.

To anyone aware of Baum’s past displays of temperament, his reply was a surprise: “Oh, you want to cut it,” said Baum. . . . “Well, then, go as far as you like.”

Oliver Morosco, producer

This may have been when the part of the Ugly Man was cut down, turning it into a minor role. Charles Ruggles, originally cast as the Ugly Man, was shifted to the role of Private Files.

Of course, following opening night, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz changed even more. Baum seems to have been content for several months to work with Morosco, tightening and sprucing up the script while the production ran in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Serious conflict seems to have arisen only toward the end of the 1913 summer season, when it grew evident that the show would not open the regular theatre season on Broadway and Baum relinquished creative control over the script.

For a complete history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, see the book All Wound Up, available here.

 

Notes

J. Rex James, “Morosco’s Invasion of New York Announced; Edison’s Kinetophone Replaces Bernhardt,” Daily Tribune (Los Angeles, CA), 15 March 1913, 13, 16; “Objects to Changes,” Syracuse (NY) Daily Journal, 3 June 1902, 6; O. L. Colburn, “Telegraphic News; Chicago,” New York (NY) Dramatic Mirror, 22 July 1905, 12; “Heard Back of the Curtains,” Los Angeles (CA) Daily Tribune, 20 March 1913, 15; “Behind the Scenes by the Genial Grouch,” Los Angeles (CA) Express, 5 May 1913, 10; Memorandum of Agreement among Oliver Morosco, L. Frank Baum, and Louis Gottschalk, Los Angeles, CA, 9 September 1913.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Photo Shoot for Forthcoming Show

Here's another photo from the series taken by a newspaper photographer, likely in January 1913. Composer Louis F. Gottschalk and author L. Frank Baum pose amid work on their forthcoming musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. The location is the studio of Lou Gottschalk's best friend and brother-in-law, painter John Bond Francisco.

Both Gottschalk and Baum had plenty of experience acting on stage, so presenting the photographer with engaging expressions probably came naturally to the men. The playfulness of their poses suggests that they had a good working rapport. 

This photo appeared in the Los Angeles Sunday Tribune on March 30, 1913, the day before The Tik-Tok Man of Oz opened at Los Angeles's Majestic Theater. Hank the Mule, a character from the show, invades the picture area from the right. A newspaper publicity push for the show included both these photos and more.

Other photos from this shoot appear on pages 4, 56, and 58 in my book All Wound Up, which contains the complete history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

West and Denslow

Paul West

Paul Clarendon West (1871-1918) wrote the lyrics to the song “One! Two! Three! All Over,” which was interpolated into The Tik-Tok Man of Oz during the final months of the show. West also had a long association with William Wallace Denslow, illustrator and co-creator of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

A letter from West to Denslow provides details of their earliest connections. West was editor of the Comic Section of The World, a major New York City newspaper in the late 1880s and early 1900s. At the time West wrote his letter, Denslow had recently illustrated the children’s book of verse by L. Frank Baum Father Goose: His Book, the first critical and popular success produced by the Denslow-Baum team.

Here’s West’s letter:

The World
Sunday Edition – Editorial Dept.,
Pulitzer Building, Park Row, N. Y.

Dec. 6 1899

Dear Denslow,

Maybe you remember one or two evenings we spent together in Chicago, when I was with Camille D’Arville. That is the reason I write so familiarly – also, I think I’m entitled to after having made up that page from “Father Goose” for the Sunday World, for you.

All of which leads me to ask you if we can’t get something from you at a rate commensurate with the limited amounts the World allows me to pay for comic pictures. If I should send you a good idea, and, on your working it up for a page, give you full credit as author of “Father Goose’s” pictures, wouldn’t you be willing to do the drawing “very reasonable” for us? Let me know, and I will send you some material on hearing from you? [sic]  With best wishes for the success of “Father Goose,” of which, by the way, I haven’t a copy, I am yours very truly,

Paul West,
Ed. Comic Supplement.

The famous actress Camille D’Arville, mentioned by West, was well known for her stint with the celebrated theatrical company the Bostonians. D’Arville employed West as her theatrical company’s advance agent in 1894. In December of that year, D’Arville played Chicago while touring in the comic opera Madeleine; or, The Magic Kiss. This engagement likely provided the “one or two evenings” when West met Denslow, who frequented Chicago theatrical circles, both socially and professionally, while he resided in that city.

The “page from ‘Father Goose’ for the Sunday World” that West “made up” for Denslow likely refers to a November 12, 1899, World's comic section feature on Denslow and Baum’s best selling Father Goose: His Book.

Denslow evidently complied with West’s request in the letter’s second paragraph. A month and a half after this letter, on January 21, 1900, a full-page comic illustration by Denslow graced the first page of “The Funny Side,” the World’s comic section. The delicate, detailed color artwork featured the character of Father Goose speeding on a sled while other characters from Father Goose: His Book flee from the sled’s path.

Copyright © 2025 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.