Tik-Tok (Oz)

For the novel by John Sladek, see Tik-Tok (novel).

Tik-Tok
Oz character
Tik-Tok as he appears in Ozma of Oz illustrated by John R. Neill
First appearance	Ozma of Oz (1907)
Last appearance	arguable
Created by	L. Frank Baum
Information
Species	machine man
Gender	male in likeness
Title	Adviser to Ozma of Oz
Family	inapplicable
Spouse(s)	inapplicable
Children	inapplicable
Relatives	inapplicable
Nationality	Ev

Tik-Tok is a fictional character from the Land of Oz books by L. Frank Baum.^[1] He has been termed "the prototype robot,"^[2] and is widely considered to be the first robot to appear in modern literature,^[3] though that term was coined after Baum's death.

Baum's character

Tik-Tok (sometimes spelled Tiktok) is a round-bodied mechanical man that runs on clockwork springs which periodically need to be wound, like a wind-up toy or mechanical clock. He has separate windings for thought, action, and speech. Tik-Tok is unable to wind any of them up himself. He becomes frozen or mute or, for one memorable moment in The Road to Oz, continues to speak but utters gibberish. When he speaks, only his teeth move. His knees and elbows are described as resembling those in a knight's suit of armor.

As Baum repeatedly mentions, Tik-Tok is not alive and feels no emotions. He therefore can no more love or be loved than a sewing machine, but as a servant he is utterly truthful and loyal. He describes himself as a "slave" to Dorothy and gives her deference.

Tik-Tok was invented by Smith and Tinker at their workshop in Evna. He is the only model of his kind before the two disappeared. He was purchased by the king of Ev, Evoldo, who gave him the name Tik-Tok because of the sound he made when wound. The cruel king also whipped his mechanical servant, but that simply kept Tik-Tok's round copper body polished.

Tik-Tok first appears in Ozma of Oz (1907) where Dorothy Gale discovers him locked up in a cave, immobilized. He becomes Dorothy's servant and protector, and, despite his tendency to run down at crucial moments, helps to subdue the Nome King. That novel also introduces Tik-Tok's monotonic, halting mode of speech: "Good morn-ing, lit-tle girl."

Later Baum published "Tik-Tok and the Nome King," a short tale in his Little Wizard Stories of Oz series (1914). In this story, the Nomes disassembled Tik-Tok and Ruggedo mistook the rebuilt Tik-Tok as a ghost. Ever after, he was colored whitish grey in color plates, apparently a mistake.

The Tik-Tok Man of Oz was a stage musical loosely adapted from Ozma of Oz; and an adaptation of that play back into a novel called Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). While Tik-Tok is a major character in that latter book, he in no way drives the plot. Tik-Tok also appears in most other Oz novels as a notable inhabitant of the Emerald City, most prominently in The Scalawagons of Oz, in which he operates the production of the Scalawagons.

Portrayals

Tik-Tok was played by Wallace Illington in the 1908 film, The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays. Comedian James C. Morton played Tik-Tok in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (1913), a musical play by Baum, Louis F. Gottschalk, Victor Schertzinger, and Oliver Morosco. The former is known only from a production still or two. The latter was a straight man role regarded at as similar to that of David C. Montgomery's Tin Woodman in The Wizard of Oz. The Fred Stone Scarecrow clown part was The Shaggy Man, played by Frank F. Moore, who would later play the Scarecrow in His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz. Tik-Tok did not appear in any of the productions of The Oz Film Manufacturing Company.

In animated productions, Tik-Tok has been voiced by Joan Gerber and A.J. Henderson.

Tik-Tok in Little Wizard Stories of Oz, 1914.

Tik-Tok was a main character in the movie Return to Oz, adapted from The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. His legs are very stout and he speaks with his mustache rather than his teeth. In the movie, he is the entire Royal Army of Oz, ironic considering his generally helpless nature. In an interview which is included in the DVD's special features, Fairuza Balk described the Tik-Tok costume: An acrobat, Michael Sundin, was upside down inside in Tik-Tok with his hands operating Tik-Tok's legs and his feet tucked behind Tik-Tok's head. He used a monitor inside the costume. Sean Barrett provided his voice, while Tim Rose controlled his facial and arm movements.

Appearances in adult fiction

In the comic book, Oz Squad, Tik-Tok's "Internal Clockwork Morality Spring" winds down and causes him to act violent and sexual, though he closely resembles Neill's depiction.

A somewhat sinister version of Tik-Tok is a minor character in Gregory Maguire's revisionist Oz novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. In the novel, tiktok is used as an adjective for any mechanical or robotic being. The character Madame Morrible has a tiktok servant, called Grommetik, whose description matches Baum's Tik-Tok; however, this character's speech key is never wound. It is strongly implied that this tiktok servant kills Doctor Dillamond, on Madame Morrible's orders. Though no great detail is spent on the topic, Grommetik eventually becomes independent, and, possibly due to disgust of the things he was forced to do, tries to foment rebellion among the tik-toks.

John Sladek's 1983 novel Tik-Tok turns Baum's genial character into a psychotic murderer.

Gregory Benford's 1997 novel Foundation's Fear, set tens of thousands of years in the future, depicts a group of robots named tik-toks, who are responsible for supervising the automated farms on the planet Trantor. A tik-tok revolt against the forces of the Galactic Empire play a major role in the novel.

References

1. ^ Jack Snow, Who's Who in Oz, Chicago, Reilly & lee, 1954; New York, Peter Bedrick Books, 1988; p. 213.
2. ^ Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich, eds., The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1982; p. 85.
3. ^ Raylyn Moore, Wonderful Wizard, Marvelous Land, Bowling Green, OH, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1974; p. 144.

External links

• Tik-Tok from Return to Oz
• The Robots of Oz
• Tik-Tok and the three laws of robotics