strongheartmaid

well, one of the other trivia facts I spotted could lend to the running away bit, bolding the important bit:
In the earlier drafts of the script, the writers often created new incidents to liven up the story. The original idea was to turn the story into a slapstick musical comedy, so there were a few deviations from what was written in the book. Some of the earlier scripts included a son for the Wicked Witch of the West whom she wanted to put on the throne of Oz, a stuck-up niece for Miss Gulch, a rescue from the Wizard's balloon by the Munchkin fire department, a singing princess and her cowardly suitor who gets transformed into a lion, [/snip]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/trivia?item=tr0782016