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Bogeyland is the abode of the "bogeymen" (and presumably, "bogeywomen") in Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, which formed the basis for the 1934 classic film March of the Wooden Soldiers. In the story, Bogeyland is separated from Toyland by a crocodile-infested river situated just outside the gate of Toyland. It is a dark, cavernous place, where twisted cypress trees grow, and many stalactites and stalagmites protrude from its rocky landscape. Citizens of Toyland who committed serious crimes could be banished to Bogeyland; once there, they would be set upon and bitten by the Bogeymen, after which the offenders would become Bogeymen themselves. In March of the Wooden Soldiers, Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee (played by Laurel and Hardy, respectively), almost got themselves banished to Bogeyland on a burglary charge, but the "victim" of the crime, the villanous Silas Barnaby, agreed to drop the charges if Little Bo Peep would marry him. She reluctantly assented, but not before Ollie had suffered the humiliation of the ducking stool (Stannie was to undergo this too, then both were going to be banished to Bogeyland, before Bo Peep agreed to the nuptials). But the wedding never took place, because Stannie foiled it by engaging in act of cross-dressing, impersonating Bo Peep by wearing her wedding gown to the ceremony. Enraged, Mr. Barnaby plotted his revenge, eventually hitting on the idea of framing Bo Peep's true love, Tom-Tom The Piper's Son, on a trumped-up charge of "pignaping" and getting him banished to Bogeyland. A lackey in Barnaby's employ proceeded to abduct one of the Three Little Pigs, then planted items including what appeared to be some sausage links, in Tom-Tom's house to incriminate him; Tom-Tom was put on trial, convicted, and banished to Bogeyland. A distraught Bo Peep then voluntarily followed him there herself. Tom-Tom and Bo Peep desperately sought a way out of Bogeyland - and actually found one, in the form of a secret passageway that led to the bottom of a wishing well in Toyland. Meanwhile, Ollie and Stannie found evidence implicating Barnaby in the pignaping, including the fact that the alleged sausage links presented as evidence at Tom-Tom's trial were made of beef instead. They later found the kidnaped pig - Little Elmer - alive, in Barnaby's cellar. A manhunt commenced for Barnaby, who fled to Bogeyland, commanded an army of Bogeymen, and invaded Toyland. Ollie and Stannie then wound up the wooden soldiers (of which there were 100 at six feet tall, instead of 600 at one foot tall as the toymaker had originally ordered - a blunder which caused Ollie and Stanny, who had heretofore worked for the toymaker, to be fired earlier in the movie) and the "march" alluded to in the film's title was on. Barnaby and the Bogeymen were routed, and the kingdom of Toyland was saved. |