Khalida

In L. Frank Baum's Oz books (Wizard of Oz) Khalidas (Kalidah Sp. Var.) were a strange fanciful creature like a cross between a tiger and a bear. The Kalidahs are a fictitious species of animal in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. They are mentioned and featured in the first half of the story when Dorothy Gale and her companions are traveling through the dark forest. Although two Kalidahs are killed in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum had decided by The Magic of Oz that the inhabitants of Oz are immortal, so a Kalidah, though pierced through the heart, survives.

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Other Kalidahs appear in The Magic of Oz, where they bother Trot and Cap'n Bill. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Dr. Pipt keeps Kalidahs struck with his Liquid of Petrefaction by the entrance to his house. The creatures play an important part in Eric Shanower's "Gugu and the Kalidahs." Phyllis Ann Karr's short story "The Guardian Dove," published in the 1990 issue of Oziana, provides a detailed treatment of Kalidah culture.

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The 1975 stage musical The Wiz includes a musical number "Kalidah Battle," featuring the Kalidah Queen and two of her gang. In the film adaptation of The Wiz, the Kalidahs are two red paper lantern-alike marionettes controlled by the Subway Peddler, the Wicked Witch of the West's henchman. During the attack in the New York City Subway, it's shown that the Kalidahs are able to separate from their strings, become two meters high and chase anyone the Peddler wants. After the Wicked Witch of West is defeated, when her henchmen (the Peddler included) and her slaves turn into Winkies by tearing their costumes and burning them, the Kalidahs may be destroyed in the process.

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In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, the Kalidahs are portrayed by Statler and Waldorf.

The Turkish form of this name is Halide. [noted -ed]