Who is Toto?
Toto is an imaginary friend that has been part of many children’s fantasies. His appearance may be that of a monkey, though he has other forms. Toto is always shown by his great white face, which is always adorned with black eyebrows and a smiling face.
In the original story, Toto is a monkey named Tooba who lives in the forest with his wife. He was given life by the magician Kwang, though later in the subsequent books he was changed into a white cat. Other animals, indigenous to Oz, also spoke to him, though in later books, Toto remained silent. In later stories, Toto was shown to have a green, leaf-like striped cape that covered one side of his face, and in the most recent books his eyes were replaced with blue eyes (they are also indicated by the fact that Toto has a green tail).
When Toto appeared in the 1994 movie, The Lion King, as the newest character, people immediately associated him with the lead character, King Meye. Though this association may have had some truth, due to another character in the movie, Tim Burton, Toto was actually an earlier creation of Jim Carrey (the one who played the lovable lion, on the movie). According to Carrey’s account, Toto was a monkey that lived at the Royal Palace with his wife, Trashine. The two were forced to leave after a riot caused by a panda. To protect his wife, Toto threw a boomerang, which hit a steward on the head. The steward fell backwards, knocking Toto off his feet and he fell into a vat of boiling water, and into the hands of Scar, who then turned Toto into a more powerful lion.
In both the book and the film, Toto is portrayed as being very protective of his friends, and when he sees anyone trying to attack his friends he charges them. In the book, The Lion King, when the Tin Man, Cosmo, tries to poison Toto, he thinks that only evil people could be poisoned, and thus poisons Toto instead. However, in the recent movie, The Lion King, when Toto tries to poison the lion, Cosmo, using his invisibility powder, shoves Toto under a fountain and Toto is shocked to see Cosmo there. In the book, Cosmo explained toto to that he had been invited by the King of Kings, and when Toto tried to kill him, Cosmo used his invisibility powder to turn Toto invisible and then proceeded to kill the evil lion. In the movie, when the Tin Man tries to poison Toto again, Toto creates a smoke cloud and makes himself appear to be unconscious, allowing Cosmo to distract him long enough for him to stab the tin man with his double-bladed axe, and then use his dust sword to kill him.
In a similar fashion, both principal characters of the Wizard of Oz (Tintin and Dorothy) also have their own unique clothing, which is entirely different from the general dress worn by all of the other members of the cast. For example, Tintin’s outfit consisted of a brightly colored peasant top, a red and black blouse, and a pair of brightly colored overalls. On the other hand, Dorothy’s clothing mainly consisted of yellow overalls, a brown straw hat, white gloves, and a brown felt hat. Most of the other costumes, such as those worn by other members of the cast were more like Dorothy’s, though, and not really as revealing.
Both the book and the subsequent motion picture version of The Lion King feature a number of songs, including “The Joy of Painting”, “Dry Goose” (also known as “Dry Torture”), and “Daffodils”. When the character of Toto became a superstar in the 1930s, a number of versions of his songs were also made available to the public. Many of these have been recorded and are available on the audio recording that goes along with the original motion picture. Other versions have been created for Broadway play and for the cartoon series.