Prior to the events of the film, he is an ordinary Gump walking through the woods until he heard a loud noise and died. His head was mounted in the tower attic in the Emerald City's palace. Sometimes later, when the magical Land of Oz was taken over by the Nome King and Mombi, who turned it to ruin. Eventually Dorothy Gale (accompanied by her chicken Billina) returned to Oz and met Tik-Tok the mechanical copper man. When Dorothy is taken captive by Mombi and locked in her tower, under her imprisonment, she met Jack Pumpkinhead, who helped the little party make an attempt to escape.