The Zoop is a strange, mysterious creature that appeared in the films The Magic Cloak of Oz and The Patchwork Girl of Oz. An animated version of the Zoop appears in the Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz episode, "Mission Imp-Possible".
Description[]
The Zoop is an ape-like being with a long thick tail and comical facial features. It might be characterized as a clownish ape-man or small Yeti. Its temperament is provocative and confrontational. It seems to have an obsessive interest in mules: it annoys Mewel the mule in one instance. (The Patchwork Girl of Oz)
And in another case it teases and pesters Nickodemus the mule and fights with a "lazy lion." Yet the Zoop also joins in the gang of vigilante animals led by Nickodemus, which rescues a kidnapped child from bandits and fights with the Roly-Rogues when they invade the city of Nole. (The Magic Cloak of Oz)
In the animated series, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, the Zoop appears as a large, Yeti like creature who is prone to getting the hiccups. He dwells on Emerald Mountain in an ice cave.
Background[]
The Zoop is a character that L. Frank Baum added to the plots of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Queen Zixi of Ix when he wrote the scripts for the 1914 film adaptations of the books. In Patchwork Girl the beast is called "the lonesome Zoop," and in Magic Cloak it is "the awful lonesome Zoop." No further information is available.
Since a Zoop appears in Oz and in Noland as well, one might suppose that there are at least two Zoops in existence.
The Zoop as he appears in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz: Mission Imp-Possible