Lion of Oz is a 2000 animated film set before the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It tells the story of how the Cowardly Lion, formerly part of the Omaha Circus, came to be in Oz and how he stopped the Wicked Witch of the East from getting the Flower of Oz. It is based upon the 1995 book Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage by Roger S. Baum (great-grandson of L. Frank Baum, the original author of the Oz books).