Shady Things About The Wizard Of Oz Fans Ignore

Op = Sister Mary Sunshine

Mama wore a blue dress!

We know, everything is bad...Hollywood executives were all, assholes. We know that.

They wouldn't get in here now. Trump wouldn't allow short people like them into the US.

During filming, Judy Garland was higher than a kite.

They were ALL higher than a kite.

I'd cluch my pearls, but Tin Man stole them to use as a prop for a voguing routine he's been working on. How I hate drag queens during the Harlem ball season.

i hate this creepy, boring movie.

Margaret Hamilton's pussy was green.

[quote]The "snow" that was used on set was actually asbestos.

Not all of the "snow"...

I read Buddy Ebsen's memoir. He was originally tapped to play the Tin Man, and was in costume and filming for about 2 or 3 weeks.

Every morning a silver spray, which turned out to be very toxic, was sprayed on his tin costume while he was in it. One day he woke up, could hardly breath, and his wife had to rush him to the hospital. The toxic fumes of the spray had gotten into his system and he was very ill, weak, etc. and had to be kept in the hospital for weeks.

When he had gotten out of the hospital to report back to work he discovered that he had been unceremoniously dumped by the studio and replaced by another actor.

He said that long shots of him as the Tim Man had been left in the film if you watch them closely.

He stated that for the rest of his life he was affected, to some degree, by the toxicity that had gotten into his system.

[quote]He stated that for the rest of his life he was affected, to some degree, by the toxicity that had gotten into his system.

Indeed.

R11 He couldn't have been too effected, he lived into his nineties.

[quote] He couldn't have been too effected, he lived into his nineties.

Look up Affected and Effected.

We heard the munchkin actors were fucking like rabbits.

Auntie Em later commited suicide.

^interesting note R16. She was going blind, in pain, and 85.

Poppies could have helped, R17.

I've tried to like/love The Wizard of Oz since I was child. I think I was 5 or 6 when I first saw it on TV at my grandparents' house on their newish color console TV. It was the mid sixties.

I tried to "like" it for decades because it was a big deal when it was broadcast annually. I was supposed to like it from what I could gather. I knew there was a moral to the story and all that.

This thread quite literally let me finally not like it, hate it in fact. The trivia is something I never knew about until this thread. However, it doesn't figure into my lifelong dislike.

It scared the shit out of me when I was so young. Yes, a well done film for its time and great actors. The movie and story embodied all of the elements of my worst nightmares.

The overall theme of becoming lost and impossibly separated from my family, an awful sadistic neighbor that would steal and probably kill my beloved dog ( I had a treasured little dog as a child,) and having to make my way in the world with strange unreal people was just too much.

I hate The Wizard of Oz and will never be fond of this movie. This doesn't detract from the merits of the movie. The only attraction for me is Judy singing "Over the Ranbow" and even that is so sad and hopelessly, dreadfully melancholy.

I thought the scariest thing about the movie was the M-G-M lion.

Best I've seen about the wizard of oz...

I had a boyfriend years ago that told a nice story about how he and his brother enjoyed the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz when they were kids. It was a favorite childhood/family memory.

His mother made them extra special hamburgers and let him and his brother watch Wizard while sitting on the floor in front of the TV eating their hamburgers and watching the movie which theyou loved.

I had to wonder what I was missing.

[quote] I had to wonder what I was missing.

Love.

Can't read,to read, r21.

Cheeky response, r23. Care to expound?

OP=Debbie Downer.

Oh, sorry R19. I didn't realize what you typed there was a continuation of sorts. I thought it was a self contained story about marveling at familial affection.

Otherwise, who cares? Why wonder? Some people just don't like something the majority of others do. I wouldn't give it another thought.

[quote] Not all of the "snow"... —Judy G (SNIFF!)

My Judy never did drugs. She only took medicine to help her sleep, help her wake up, help her stay thin, give her energy and help her not get pregnant. The very idea that my baby would take drugs. I oughta sue you for libel!

I liked synching it with Pink Floyd

The 3 farmworkers, Link, Lunk, and Hunk , had daily 3ways in the barn.

Miss Gulch had a dildo attached to her bicycle seat.

The wizard behind the curtain was actually L B Mayer in drag.

The first Toto had rabies and was put down, as was one of the stagehands he bit.

Buddy Ebsen was fired as the Tinman because his cock was too big for the costume.

The reason Glinda was giggling so much in Munchkinland is that a Little Person was under her skirt, munching her. J

The Three Stooges were originally cast as the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, but Columbia wouldn't loan them out.

Lucy was up for Glinda, but Gary talked her out of it.

I can watch the first half but the second is too boring for me to stay interested.

Judy struggled with her weight to such a degree that amphetamines alone weren't sufficient. As there were no true diuretics yet, they resorted to enemas and laxatives for a quick drop of 2 or 3 pounds when she was bloated. As might be expected, this led to an embarassing accident on set, and several near misses, after dance numbers.

[quote] Judy struggled with her weight to such a degree that amphetamines alone weren't sufficient. As there were no true diuretics yet, they resorted to enemas and laxatives for a quick drop of 2 or 3 pounds when she was bloated. As might be expected, this led to an embarassing accident on set, and several near misses, after dance numbers.

Except that in her other movies she didn't have Toto to blame it on.

Several near misses on several near Misses?

Ted Turner was so cheap that he wouldn't colorize the first ten minutes or the last ten minutes of that movie.

That's why Jane left him.

I guess the forest was shady...

Why didn't they cast children as the Munchkins? Midgets are repulsive.

^ Self-loathing little person.

I think it's funny that Billie Burke (Glinda) tried to eat Judy's pussy.

Sadly because movies are now available at all times (and there is so much competing entertainment), it's doubtful anything has the potential of being such a classic again.

Part of what made it a classic was the anticipation that built up waiting to see it each year.

I loved watching it on CBS around Easter time each year when I was a little boy. God, I'm so gay.

I grew up in Chicago and this was always on at Easter. Loved it every year. AND sunday afternoon movie classics with Frasier Thomas played "the Song of Bernadette" every year at Easter too, on WGN.

It was so comforting, so supremely comfortable and relaxing, even though TSoB made me cry and cry every time.

I know someone for whom this movie is like some kind of Grail. If you mention that you find it an only mildly entertaining 'oncer' he literally becomes enraged! I don't think it resonates on any level for today's kids. They love Frozen etc.

[quote]The actors who portrayed the Munchkins, most of whom fled Nazi Germany, were paid less the dog, Toto.

Seriously? That's all you got? It's not like they were forced to do it.

Jerry Maren is the only known surviving one left

R48. You call that surviving?

I guess the actors who portrayed the munchkins were a wild bunch....

I remember looking forward to Oz as a special event too. My parents didn't have a color set so it was years before I got The Horse of A Different Color joke, or that the Kansas scenes were in black and white. Even without that difference, I never understood why Dorothy would want to leave her great new friends in fabulous Oz for a dreary old farm.

GWTW used to be a once a year too. Weird that the only one left is The Ten Commandments, and I don't know anyone who looks forward to seeing that one each year.

It's available to watch on Amazon Prime.

The once a year movies:

The Wizard of Oz

Gone With The Wind

The Sound of Music

The Ten Commandments

It's A Mad, Mad Mad, Mad World (always played Labor Day weekend)

And there were some others which I think I'm forgetting. This was all before cable tv channels were. We didn't have "movie" channels back then. We had NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and some local affiliates which did their own programming (in NYC it was Channel 9 and Channel 11).

The tv stations acted like these movies were big events. And if they advertised "With limited commercial interruption" you knew it was BIG!

I was wondering what was going to be the next SJW target. It's the Wizard of Oz! Wait until they realize how badly the Wicked Witch was misunderstood and discriminated against. And her in a protected class due to her religion. Not to mention the fact that evil white girl Dorothy murdered her.

That's why so many budding young SJWs love "Wicked," r54.

Thanks for the tour through the proverbial hot dog factory. Peter Pan much,, dollface?

R49. God damn it! You just made me spit my coffee out all over. Perfect. R49 wins

I did have a heart once, but Dick Cheney stole it.

"Dick Cheney stole it."

You wouldn't know it, to look at him.

[quote] The actors who portrayed the Munchkins, most of whom fled Nazi Germany...

What, there were no American little people to play the Munchkins? They should have built a wall.

The Never Ending Story is my Wizard of Oz.

I saw it at the theatre when it first came out when I was 5. If we were good at school, we were allowed to watch it at the end of the school year.

Such an epic, but dark movie.

And then came Twin Peaks arrived just before puberty hit.

No wonder I'm fucked up.

They forced Judy to tape her breasts down in that movie. She was a young woman playing a childs character. Shirely Temple was originally supposed to play Dorothy. They treated Judy like crap on the set of that movie, I've never been able to enjoy it.

It's the favorite movie of my Fundie *Alt. Right* boss. I just want to laugh and ask him, "Which do you enjoy more, the Flying Monkeys or the Poppies?"

I'm with r19. It is a nightmare from beginning to end. Technicolor is so lurid and unsettling. Judy is so vulnerable, that is is clear Dorothy doesn't enjoy Oz at all. She is perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown that watching the movie gives me major anxiety.

It's a subconscious manifestation of her desire to kill Miss Gulch for trying to take Toto away.

There have been 65 posts, so far, and not one of you bitches had shared the blissful pleasure of muting the film's soundtrack/volume, replacing it with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." Three, two, one . . . cue the MGM lion . . .

r66 Yes, someone did, go back and read again, maybe 30 posts in? I am with r19 and r64, always thought it was too wistful and sad and I only looked forward to one holiday and one movie, and it wasn't this.

Or you could just watch it.

or not:

Fuck you Captain r66

r29

I believed in you, r29! I even knew it was in the first 30 posts.

Thank you r67

r29

R21's link is a blathering poorly formatted web page that combines Baum's original political satire/allegory with the usual stoner Libertarian paranoia; New World Order, Illuminati, etc.

Right. Like Mervyn LeRoy, George Cukor and MGM conspired to take over the world with a musical film that flopped at the box office.

George Cukor got fired from both that and [italic]Gone with the Wind[/italic] the same year.

And that link at R21 proves a point: why are so many of those links so poorly written and formatted? Reading those is like feeling your brain falling down a rabbit hole and turning around and around.

R21's link is one page of a completely batshit paranoid rightwing douchebag's website with hundreds of entries on celebrities, with a meme using fuckin' CHUCK WOOLERY as a reasonable quote.

The Munchkins were a randy lot. During filming, one of the Lollypop Guild boys said to Judy, "I'd like to fuck you, little girl"

Judy, seasoned trooper that she was, looked down at him and responded, "well if you do, and I find out about it..."

Re: the annual showing: One year it was on the same time my mother wanted to watch :Uncle Vanya", a play by Chekov (I think). Well! Hell hath no fury like a pre-queen teen in training kept from watching Judy. I kept interrupting Mom, making noises, singing and more. (Yes, we only had one TV).

R21's asinine link's author also thinks homosexuality is 'demonic possession.'

R21, fuck you, asshole.

These are all false flags to cover up what's really going on behind the curtain.

I thought Cukor left to work on GWTW. I don't believe he was fired.

Yes, narrator Martin Sheen explains a lot in part of this documentary/TV program:

Cukor was fired from GWTW because Gable insecurely bitched he was a "woman's" director.

Someone had edited together every word uttered from the film A to Z. I think Joe My Gods website first displayed the link. I couldnt get all the way through it. Was exhausting, though pretty entertaining. Sporadically, some of the words chained some pretty hilarious unintended phrasing.

I had to pause at "Arf."

I had my very first orgasm watching TWOO. Had my little head perched in my hands looking up at the TV and was sort of dry humping the floor to the music of "We're Off To See the Wizard" or whatever the fuck it's called, and BOOM, it happened. I was probably around 6 years old.

R62 "They treated Judy like crap on the set of that movie."

Didn't they treat her like that on all her MGM movies?

I don't want to read behind the scenes stories about TWOO. It's too magical.

The one part I dislike is how the Scarecrow is at the top of the friends hierarchy. Dorothy even says she'll miss him most of all. I always preferred the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Oh, and the Wizard! He always gets overlooked, but Frank Morgan was a scream.

The film was a then-modern day version of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

No, it was a then-modern day version of the novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz -- a socialist dystopian allegory.

What r88 said -- and there are later books, where Dorothy returns to Oz

(So she liked it, after all)

Geoff Ryman wrote a brilliant novel called "Was," that interwove 3 narratives: the story of Dorothy Gale, Garland, and a gay man with AIDS, in 1990.

Quite; a great novel. Buy it today!

(and Maguire's 'Wicked,' if you like that sort of book.)

r53- WGN would have a Marx Bros movie marathon on New Year's Eve.

The only annual event movie we still have here in Australia is "Can't Stop the Music"- it's played every New Years, after midnight.

Good fun when passed out on the couch after too much food and booze.

Do they have an alternate ending, where Steve fucks Caitlyn?

I think "passed out on the couch" is probably the best way to watch that film.

Is Judy behind all the rumors that she was treated like shit in every movie she was in?

i remember watching this movie on easter.

[quote] Cukor was fired from GWTW because Gable insecurely bitched he was a "woman's" director.

And also because Cukor knew about Gable's manwhoring past.

When Cukor was asked about this in the 70s he brushed it aside instead of denying it.

r92

They used to also run "the Horn Blows at Midnight" on New Years Eve for awhile. Then they switched to the Marx Bros. I used to love, how after midnight, they'd run old shows on that day, like "Your Show of Shows" till the morning regular schedule.

WGN used to run Christmas episodes only on their reruns for the two weeks up to Christmas.

Let's process the metaphors of the story's premise:: after experiencing a horrific, emotionally traumatic experience (the hurricane is the metaphor), a supposedly naïve, young orphaned girl, runs away with socially questionable men, who have also been abandoned due to their own physical, emotional, and social traumas. Even after experiencing more horrific trauma in order to reach the implied safety of the Surrealistic World of Imagination, a kind, beautiful apparition materializes, just in time, to destroy their trauma, and rescue and repair their respective emotional abandonments.

A full-blown psychotic meltdown.

(However, associating the metaphor for the Ruby Slippers has stumped me, I must say.)

Ruby slippers ---menstruation

Trust me, menstruation is no reward. If it were my choice, I would have taken the exquisite Ruby Slippers.

Post Menstrual Witch wanted Ruby Slippers back, but Dorothy realized she was stuck with them...

I almost choked to death watching this movie when I was 5. I became upset when the flying monkey picked up Toto and my food went down the wrong way as I cried. My stepmom had to give me the Heimlich. I've hated it ever since. However, it did lead to the sublimely ridiculous Under the Rainbow, so there's that...

Only s dizzy queen on Datalounge would accuse "The Wizard of Oz" of trying to literarily kill her.

"literarily"

It was the movie that almost did me in, not the book.

Three Totos died while filming the tornado scene. The fourth survived but was severely injured. That's where Judy Garland's tears came from at the end of the movie. Sad!

The actress who played the Wicked Witch was a practicing witch and one of the early popularizers of Santeria.

R104, I guess you didn't have a wicked stepmother.

You don't believe a flying monkey picked up Toto? Have you never seen this movie?

Terry/Toto didn't die. He's a star.

If you can’t find it in your own backyard, it probably no longer exists.

From the moment, I saw it, I thought it was a story of child abuse.

Obviously, the three farmhands date rape Dorothy. You can see they are all gathered around the bed at the end. And so, when they begin to have their evil, dirty way with her, she slips into her fantasy world. If you'll notice, there are no normal men in Oz. They are either dwarfs, non-humans (scarecrow, tin man, cowardly lion) or alzheimer-riddled old men who hide behind curtains pretending to be something they are not.

Classic child molestation case.

I've heard it interpreted that "Glenda" was "Aunt Em" manifested as a result of Dorothy's emotional trauma.

[quote] I've heard it interpreted that "Glenda" was "Aunt Em" manifested as a result of Dorothy's emotional trauma.

Then why didn't Clara Blandick play Glinda as well?

Wasn't Glinda Dorothy's idealized dead mother?

[quote] Only s dizzy queen on Datalounge would accuse "The Wizard of Oz" of trying to literarily kill her.

What other classic characters of children's literature have you got a beef with, Ferdinand the Bull? Did Winnie the Pooh shit in your backyard? Did Curious George bite you? Did Amelia Bedelia steal all your booze?

I remember that Ray Bolger was an usher at our church in the early 80s in Beverly Hills.

What did he do with the collection money?

Even as a little kid it bothered me that it was all a dream since that meant that Toto was still pretty much fucked because Miss Gulch was almost certainly coming back for him a second time.

Toto's (Terry's) grave was forgotten and never moved when they built the Ventura Freeway, so next time you're driving on it give a thought to the fact that you're driving over Toto's remains.

Ray Bolger fingered my great aunt at the Copacabana in the 50s.

R120, Miss Gulch,got,killed in the tornado.

Well there were other reasons reasons why Cukor left GWTW. After only four or five weeks of shooting, he was already behind schedule and a lot of what he had shot wasn't good enough and was going to have to be reshot (he agreed with Selznick about this). Plus he couldn't stand the script Selznick was daily rewriting himself while on speed and wanted to go back to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Sidney Howard's original. Nor could he tolerate a strung out Selznick showing up onset daily trying micromanage Cukor's shooting. He was glad to get out of there. Nonetheless roughly 20% of the finished film is Cukor footage: both scenes in Scarlett's Tara bedroom with Mammy, Scarlett's wedding reception, the entire birth of Melanie's baby sequence, bits and pieces of the Atlanta Bazaar, etc.

And he most certainly was not fired from TWOO. He was never hired for it. He was asked to come in for a few days and help straighten things out after the production had been shut down after two disastrous weeks of initial shooting.

When it began, Garland was dressed in frou-frou with a curly blonde wig, rouged cheeks and she had been instructed to speak in kewpy doll voice. And the whole pace of the playing was frenetic. The rushes were disastrous, production was shut down and director Richard Thorpe was released from the production. In the interim before the film resumed shooting under the direction of Victor Fleming, Cukor worked with Garland and Margaret Hamilton. He changed the make-up, hair and costumes for both Judy and Margaret to what now appears in the film. He spent time coaching Garland on her characterization, reminding her that she was just a simple little girl from Kansas and must never act in a fancy-schmancy way. He worked with executive producer Mervyn LeRoy and making other suggestions and recommendations. Then he was off to start shooting GWTW.

[quote]i remember watching this movie on easter.

That's nice, R96.

And yet you can't remember to capitalizer the first word in a sentence.

R125 = too stupid to live.

R124 Fascinating. I vaguely remember some of this from the special Angela Lansbury hosted for the film's 50th anniversary.

Isn't it amazing how such a tiny sperm can produce such a big cunt like r125.

Once when I was 7 my parents punished me by not letting me watch it. They took us out to an Italian restaurant for pizza. I watched the first 30 minutes on a TV in the restaurant's bar. When I didn't come back from rest room they thought I had run away.

Yes .. I always wondered what happened to Miss Gulch.. if she didn't die , then she would be back to get toto .

I guess Miss Gulch was just gone with the wind.

I heard that Margaret Hamilton once took a shit in Judy Garland's shower and heeled it down the drain.

R130, well, she DID die, so Toto was just fine.

The Wizard of Oz...overrated?

r134....Hell No....TWOO is a damn near perfect film....from the score to the actors to the sets to the special effects to the wardrobe. There are very few films from that era that are universally loved and still talked about and referenced today. TWOO is a classic.

I have fond memories of the Wizard of Oz and grew up pre-VCR (or at least until high school), so it was still a special once a year event. However, is it still a favorite of kids today? I don't remember any of my nieces and nephews ever talking about it or own the video/DVD. It is still referenced or a childhood memory of anyone under 30?

Doubt it, R136. Unless it's shown to them by their parents. The fracturing of entertainment options in the present day precludes these kind of group memories.

I've finally realized the metaphor of the "Ruby Slippers"! They represented a true, yet powerful, rarity: Exquisite Grace and Beauty, the currency for all life's gifts. This is why they were so powerful, and why the ugly Wicked Witch of the East would have killed for them!

It's not a perfect movie, the second half was extremely boring.

In the book the slippers are silver. MGM switched to red only because the silver ones they made photographed so badly in Technicolor. (Please don't bring up the now discredited theories so popular in the 1970s that Baum was making some sort of economic allegory about the gold standard and the silver standard and fiat money.}

Billie Burke was 54 years old when she played Glinda. Women back then didn't sunbathe, nor did Billie smoke. She was 65 when she played Elizabeth Taylors MIL in "Father of the Bride." IRL she would have been the grandmother.

In The Great Ziegfeld, Billie was portrayed by Myrna Loy. In Father, Taylor's mother is played by Joan Bennett, who was in her early 40s.

OH fuck off r 140, it's completely about the Kansas City federal reserve, and the Great Depression.. If you bothered to even use your brain, you would realize that... Guess you're one of those nasty pedo queens fantasizing about that which you cannot have.. ..unless you pay for it which makes you feel special and powerful....

How can it be about The Great Depression when it was written 30 years earlier?

Well? I'm waiting.

Wow. I have R140 on Block, so will make up my own scenario as to the comment.

As mentioned above, "Was " is an interesting take on TWOO and gay culture.

The Wizzard, Scarecrow, and Witch of North needed to have Trans'd.

Judy Garland said she was molested but she used to actively lift her dress and encourage.

r144

Not the Great Depression what is now known as the "Long Depression" which ran 1873–96. Before the depression that was triggered in 1929 it was known as "the Great Depression."

Great Depression --> renamed Long Depression, when the depression that started out in 1929 became severe.

r147

I can totally see that girl doing that. I mean Judy always tried to play like she was innocent but she had like 10 abortions and was always a drunk cunt on TV shows in the 60s. She had talent, no doubt, but that doesn't excuse her behavior. Didn't her mother die in a parking lot or something because she wouldn't help her out?

[quote]Why didn't they cast children as the Munchkins? Midgets are repulsive.

Probably due to child labor laws, which were relatively new at the time. I believe the Fair Labor Standards Act (which restricts the employment of child workers) was passed in 1938.

R136/R137 Do you guys know any actual kids? Yes, OZ is still being shown to children these days. My nieces and nephews and their friends have watched it. I've also been to one school production of the stage show, which is based on the MGM film. In fact, I just typed "Wizard of Oz musical" on YouTube and got a list of recent high school productions. The story is considered "America's homegrown fairy tale" and the MGM film has been the best representation of it for nearly a century. Almost everyone thinks of the movie when they think of OZ and its look and characters. And it's not just limited to the US. The Oz stories and MGM film have a worldwide audience.

[quote] He stated that for the rest of his life he was affected, to some degree, by the toxicity that had gotten into his system.

Yes, the effects were difficult to overlook.

That's some serious tinfoil hat stuff there [R21]. How did Baum manage to write all that post-Depression symbolism into a book written in 1900?

I'm really surprised at those of you saying the second half of the movie is bad. From favorite scenes are always at the Witch's Castle: that's the most exciting and well directed part of the movie.

The actor who played the lead flying monkey hooked the entire cast of Munchkins on heroin.

Aunt Em may not have been able to say what she really thought of Miss Gulch (being a good Chirstian woman), but the actress who played her, Clara Blandick, could swear a blue streak, and told Margaret Hamilton many times on the set she thought she was a lying, cocksucking sack of shit. And those were on her good days! In reality she was not a good Christian woman at all, but rather a particularly evil MTF Satanist.

Ray Bolger used to have sex with the Horse of a Different Color in his dressing room.

Those who are posting misinformation as a joke, it's not funny. Too many people online take everything they read at face value.

The flying monkeys were actually lemurs with ducks glued to their backs.

[QUOTE] Part of what made it a classic was the anticipation that built up waiting to see it each year.

Kids born from the early 80s on will never understand what this was like. I was a boy in the seventies and remember waiting all year for The Wizard of Oz, March of The Wooden Soldiers, King Kong (Fay Wray version), Mighty Joe Young, The Ten Commandments, etc. These were real EVENTS for kids back then. Then VCRs and videodiscs and cable ruined it forever.

Glinda the Good's crown was filled with iced prawns at Bert Lahr's request.

The Kansas scenes were shot in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) to accommodate Vincente Minelli's spice addiction.

Toto the Pot-Belly Pig was starved throughout production to make it resemble a dog.

[quote] Those who are posting misinformation as a joke, it's not funny. Too many people online take everything they read at face value.

THAT'S the truly hilarious part!

If it wasn't true they wouldn't put it on the internet.

The gold bricks that formed the road were looted from the Vatican by Victor Fleming's Nazi pals.

Okay, I'm out of this thread. I thought it would be fun, and the old posts were. The Misinformation Troll is not cute nor amusing.

It's on TCM right now!!!

The yellow brick road was made up of thousands of dead canaries, all strangled for the movie studio by prisoners at San Quentin

The actress playing the wicked witch of the east actually was killed by the prop house, which was accidentally dropped on her. The scene of her legs and feet sticking out of the bottom of the house was allowed to remain in the film after the family of the actress received an $8, 310 settlement from the studio.

Judy Garland stashed her pills in the Tin Man’s oil can

More on Toto

I just reread my OZ books over the winter (I have them all). Waiting for the F2Ms to figure out that a female character turns male (Ozma was born a girl but was magically transformed into a boy named Tip). They can have a hero and not have to fuck with Joan of Arc and Mulan.

They are probably playing The Wizard of Oz on TCM tonight because the last living Miunchkin, Jerry Maren, died today at age 98.

Maybe it really was a story about the depression. Even Glinda the Good Witch was so poor she had to wear hand-me-downs from Jeanette MacDonald in "San Francisco".

I was molested.

I loved the Wizard of Oz as a kid. It was a real treat, the flying monkeys airborne was very scary. I loved learning about Margaret Hamilton, Must have been the first film I was curious about. The men that were principles were still alive and appearing on various talk shows. Judy “I’M Judy Fucking Garland!” was still alive also.

It is a shame that so many trolls are ruining this thread - but that would be their mission.

I once had a friend who insisted on watching this only in French. Pretentious twat!

I'd understand if it were Gay Purree, r174, but this........

Jerry Maren, the last surviving munchkin from 'The Wizard of Oz,' dies at 98

He was at our state fair selling Oz memorabilia. It was something like 15 or 20 years ago.

The dog did more. What does Nazi Germany have to do with anything? They didn’t even sing.

[quote] The lion suit was made of actual lion skin and weighed 100 lbs.

False.

I’ll miss you most of all, R161.

R90, yes!

To R178 -

Umm, it's actually true.

The Cowardly Lion costume was made of real lion skin and weighed 60 lbs.

It was originally sold at the 1970 M-G-M auction for $2400. In November 2014, after years of transferred ownership and a restoration, it was sold for $3.1 million at Bonhams.

i hate this movie. It manages to be creepy and boring at the same time. Awful.

R182 = Shirley Temple still pissed that her studio wouldn't loan out her services so she could be the star in the number one children's movie of all time.

Get over it, bitch!!!!

Sad

Seeing the movie just reminds me of how much I detest everything about Ray Bolger. I hate his dancing, his singing, his so called acting (mugging), his face, his body and his legs buckling on the yellow brick road. Repulsive.

I just can't believe the lion costume was really 100 lbs. Bert Lahr could not have moved about in it as he did if that were true.

r178: [quote] The lion suit was made of actual lion skin and weighed 100 lbs.

[quote] False.

r181 [quote] To [R178] - Umm, it's actually true. The Cowardly Lion costume was made of real lion skin and weighed 60 lbs.

To r181 - Umm, it's actually [bold]false,[/bold] and [bold]by your own admission.[/bold]

OP had complained it was 100 lbs., which is what r178 said was false. You've admitted it was nearly HALF that weight--so you've admitted the 100 lbs. claim was false.

R83- aaa was cracking me up.

For me the high point is when Dorothy explains what happened ("The wind began to switch/the house to pitch . . ."). Judy looks like an intense adult teenager awash in all that technicolor, and then the camera pulls back and you see all of those goosestepping midgets with only a tiny fraction of Judy's talent or experience. It's just so sublime.

Terry deserved every penny she was paid. She was an established performer before Oz and like Judy she's in it from beginning to end. I didn't look forward to the Ten Commandments. I looked forward to Yul Brynner as the Pharoh. I pretty much lose interest after they leave Egypt. Although Eddie G in the orgy scene is delightful.

[quote] and then the camera pulls back and you see all of those goosestepping midgets with only a tiny fraction of Judy's talent or experience. It's just so sublime.

Mary!

Who stepped on Toto?

[quote]The actors who portrayed the Munchkins, most of whom fled Nazi Germany, were paid less the dog, Toto

There parts weren't as big

r183

I went with the Bluebird. I made my choice and stand by it

[quote]There parts weren't as big

Oh, dear.

r194, thank god. I think Over The Rainbow would have lost its plaintive quality with Shirley Temple singing it.

[quote]What other classic characters of children's literature have you got a beef with, Ferdinand the Bull? Did Winnie the Pooh shit in your backyard? Did Curious George bite you? Did Amelia Bedelia steal all your booze?

Curious George flung his feces at him, R117.

[quote]Curious George flung his feces at him, [R117].

And that, r197, is how a future scat troll is created.

I kind of enjoyed being terrified by the Wizard of Oz as a youngster, although I hid behind the couch whenever the witch appeared, and the Toto the dog thing was heartbreaking. But I also found it hilarious - all the vaudeville schtick was completely new to me, so when the Cowardly Lion raced out of the Wizard palace and dove through a window I thought it was the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen.

The Scarecrow always kind of creeped me out. I know he and Dorothy were supposed to have the best bond of the gang, but although I didn't know the word back then, he was needy.

Even as a child, when the Good Witch tells Dorothy she could have gone home at any time, and Dorothy says, why didn't you tell me, and the Glinda goes, "Because you wouldn't have believed me." I thought that was some bullshit.

[quote]R86 The one part I dislike is how the Scarecrow is at the top of the friends hierarchy. Dorothy even says she'll miss him most of all.

This bothered me, too ... especially since the scarecrow was a bit annoying.

But I guess it’s because she met him first.

r196

I don't see you single handedly saving RKO or any studio from bankruptcy. As a matter of fact, when you were four, you probably couldn't even use the bathroom yet.

Toto/Terry’s page at Wikipedia lists her occupation as “dog actress.”

I’m not even going to go NEAR that one....

I always enjoyed the Witch and her flying monkeys. About 20 years ago, a drag queen enlisted me (then a hot twink) and three other guys to dress up in flying costumes she made, with herself as the Wicked Witch. We were a hit everywhere we went (NYC parties). I ended up having drunk sex while still in our costumes with two of the monkey guys.

Good times!

Utter bullshit video, R204.

[quote]Even as a child, when the Good Witch tells Dorothy she could have gone home at any time, and Dorothy says, why didn't you tell me, and the Glinda goes, "Because you wouldn't have believed me." I thought that was some bullshit.

I think the point of that was that Dorothy had to learn the lesson that everything she needs is at home. Children can't be wise because they haven't lived and wisdom comes through experience. An adult can impart all the wisdom in the world they themselves have learned, but young people generally don't/won't listen because they think they know better. Many have to learn the lessons the hard way, as did Dorothy.

Go directly to the source

The shady social metaphor for "The Lollipop Guild."

WTF was up with that!

Margaret Hamilton apparently retired to Connecticut. She was a guest lecturer in a class I took. I can’t remember anything about the lecture now, except she repeated the line “I’ll get you, my,title pretty”

R208 how do you mean?

Judy's hairdo at r207 was a salute to Ayn Rand.

Doesn't anyone remember that they used to play "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead" sung by the Palace Guards after Margaret Hamilton's witch melts? At some point the cut that out of the movie when it played on T.V.

r207

They were drunks LOL

R212 it was cut before the film was released in 1939. No existing footage exists.

"They treated Judy like crap on the set of that movie, I've never been able to enjoy it."

Not really. But Judy liked to bitch and complain about how everybody in the world treated her badly (drug addicts are like that) and told a lot of bullshit stories about how she would get picked on. On Jack Paar she told the story about how Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr would push her in back of them while they skipped down the yellow brick road. She said the director from his perch bellowed "You three dirty hams! Let that little girl in there!" Of course the audience and Jack Paar were in stitches. But the story was bullshit. Jack Haley said so; he said it wasn't true and how could they have pushed her in back of them when they were all arm in arm?

Judy Garland had little to complain about as far as the making of the movie went. Her breasts may have been taped down, but the costumes of the other actors were unbearable. Bolger, Haley, Lahr and Margaret Hamilton all went through hell due to their costumes. Haley and Lahr could barely move in theirs; Lahr's costume weighed a ton and Haley's made him stiff as a board. Bolger's makeup was so thick, it left lines and cloth patterns on his face for over a year. Hamilton's green makeup became embedded in her pores and left her greenish even after the makeup was taken off. She had to be on a liquid diet to avoid ingesting the green stuff. To make matters worse they were all working under extremely hot lights, which added to the torture. Poor Hamilton even suffered first and second degree burns due to an mishap during the scene where the witch appears in a puff of red smoke. And of course the makeup job done on Buddy Ebsen left his lungs coated with aluminum dust and almost killed him. Yes, I would say Judy had nothing to bitch about.

Judy's own kids have stated she was a teller of tall tales.

The munchkins would have been euthanized in Belgium

Judy spun lie after lie after lie.

Why she went to the studio apothecary and begged to be put on those pills without my explicit knowledge.

When I found out what she had done, I begged and pleaded with her to stop. I said, "Baby Gumm, best you leave that mess alone. You don't want a habit."

THEY WERE DRUNKS

THEY HAD TO CATCH THEM WITH BUTTERFLY NETS

I think Glinda was evil. She sends Dorothy and friends to Oz where, in order to get Dorothy back to Kansas, they come within a hair of being murdered (indeed, the Scarecrow is set on fire twice and trampled during the journey). Then, once they get back to Oz, the bitch shows up and says Dorothy could have been transported back from the get-go! If I were Dorothy, at that point I would have borrowed the Tin Man's axe and taken care of that cunt.

[quote]I guess the actors who portrayed the munchkins were a wild bunch....

The movie Under the Rainbow, starring our beloved Carrie Fisher and not so beloved Chevy Chase, was based on the off-set Munchkin shenanigans. The writers added a spy plotline to make it even weirder.

R81 Another theory is that Gable had Cukor fired because Cukor knew Gable was either gay for pay, or blew a few producers early on to get 'ahead' in the business.

When the palace guards march, I thought they sang a bunch of random sounds. Instead, they are acts,y saying:

“Oh, we loath, the old one”

[quote]When the palace guards march, I thought they sang a bunch of random sounds. Instead, they are acts,y saying: “Oh, we loath, the old one”

It was "Ooo-EEE-Oh-Ee-Oh" and they stole that from us.

I met Miss Carrie Fisher once and told her I enjoyed UNDER THE RAINBOW as a kid. She put her hand on my shoulder and said “I’m sorry”

Wasn't "Under the Rainbow" a movie about the Wizard of Oz munchkins? I don't know much about it except it was really awful and a major flop. It's lucky Carrie Fisher had the Star Wars movies because without them her movie career would have been a big fat zero.

Trivia: The part of the song "Umbrella" when Rhianna sings "ella, ella, eh, eh, eh" is a nod to the chant of palace guards.

Fun Fact: R227 is so full of crap it could fill the pig sty Dorothy fell into.

Fact: r228 eats his boyfriend's shit as foreplay.

LOL jokes, on you A-hole r229, I'm single-by-choice! BLOCKED!

R225, I thought the pearl was in the liver?

They were drunks....There were hundreds of them...THOUSANDS of them.

One of them asked me for a date, he was 40 and I couldn't say I didn't want to go because you were a midget. So I said, "I don't think my mother would like it," he was like "bring her along."

My seven year old loves it. Was a munchkin a few years back in their school production too. We watched the movie over thanksgiving and I checked the audio book out from the library. Does it suck. The narrator too. The movie is superior in every way. It changed a lot of the book, but damn, they were necessary changes.

[quote]Haley's costume made him stiff as a board

Pics please.