Trudy Whyatt always wanted to escape the big city, so when a year abroad in a sleepy English town is proposed she couldn't be happier. Until of course the sleepy English town turns out to be the headquarters of a massive corporation with weird place names and weirder politics. And that's before the explosions and threatening notes start...
—Series description
The Grey Tarmac Road is a YouTube web video series adaptation by Baguel Productions, based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and associated works by L. Frank Baum. The series is set in modern day England, and all of the main characters are human teenagers. Dorothy is renamed Trudy, and her dog Toto becomes her imaginary friend.
The series is comprised of three channels:
- Trudydoubleyou - Trudy's channel
- politicalcorey - Corey's channel
- omartheflyingspoon Omar's channel
The full series playlist, including events not captured by in-world cameras posted on Baguel's channel, is here.
The Grey Tarmac Road provides examples of:
- Adaptational Name Change: Practically everyone.
- Our Dorothy is called Trudy, for thus far unclear reasons.
- Lin Thropupland - Glinda
- Cyrus Crow - Scarecrow
- Corey Chopper - Nick Chopper (The Tin Woodman)
- Leone Jinjur - The Cowardly Lion
- Omar Amber Tree - Omby Amby/Tree
- Adaptational Sexuality: Everyone whose sexuality has been confirmed. Lin is bisexual, Cyrus is asexual and aromatic, and Leone is at the very least into more than one gender.
- Age Lift: Dorothy was eight in the first book; Trudy is seventeen.
- Ascended Extra:
- Lin, to the point of lampshading Glinda and the North Witch's original The Mentor role in the book and 1939 movie.
- Omar is based on the minor recurring character Omby Amby, an Emerald City guard.
- Toto is upgraded from Team Pet to Imaginary Enemy, and the voice of Trudy's anxieties and fears.
- Celebrity Paradox: Trudy is a fan of Zooey Deschanel, who played another Dorothy equivalent. She also follows and often retweets Diana Ross on twitter
- Composite Character:
- Like the 1939 film, the characters of Glinda of the South and the Good Witch of the North are condensed into one character.
- The Tree siblings are also this, of the characters they're named after, the trees Dorothy and the Scarecrow encounter in the forest, and the flying monkeys.
- Kissing Discretion Shot: The video cuts out as Lin and Leone kiss for the first time.
- Meaningful Name: Many. Cyrus Crow (The Scarecrow), Nimmie and Omar Tree (Omby Amby/Tree), and Leone (The Cowardly Lion), to name a few. (G)Lin(da).
- Shout-Out:
- Queen in the North
- Lin's last name, which
Word of God has it is a portmanteau of her mothers', is Thropupland
