Return to Oz

Jimbo and Bond review Return to Oz for one of Bond's coworkers Emily as part of their Summer of Sequels series.  Find out what happens when Dorothy returns to Oz six months after the events that take place in the Wizard of Oz, to find Oz in ruins and controlled by a Gnome King!  Enjoy!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The Tragedy of Cinema podcast is intended as a family
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other identifying factors in this incredibly diverse world of ours.
With that said, some of the films we discuss may
contain serious subject matters or have content considered morally objectional
by today's standards. We do not intend to condone or

(00:25):
dismiss these aspects of these films, but our primary focus
beyond what we believe are the film succeeds at some
fun facts and our personal enjoyment factors of each film.
With that said, we help you enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Lights, Shingle Job Say, Flights eighty three in the Realm, Pocket,
the movies and TV fou through the stories we saw
screen tails on fool In Magic. They just.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sit them up.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So yes, if we tell student tells, we are from you.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
You mentioned something about.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
A tiger, a lion, a coward, a lion, and.

Speaker 5 (01:31):
He could talk to like the Scarecrow and the Tinman.
Remember how we spoke, Not to talk about us.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's just my imagination.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Just how did you get back from oz?

Speaker 3 (01:51):
He put them on, and you cut the heels three times,
and then he said, there's no place like home. I
know you don't want to go to the darks, but
you just haven't slept the night right through since the tornado.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yes, electrical marvel that would make it possible for you
to sleep again.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
And my friends are in trouble.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
I know it. We're in trouble, Dorothy.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
Why the way way lam?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
But I heard.

Speaker 6 (02:54):
Won't in a lulla ba.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Yah.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
They've all been trying to stop.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Where the wheelers? I don't remember them. I haven't got
anything to you.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
It isn't a stool and lunch feeling.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Your hand is with you.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
The norm King doesn't allow chickens anywhere in the.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
Kid? Who is the long kid? All right, guys, welcome
back to the Tragedy of Cinema podcast. I'm your host, Jimbo,

(04:03):
and I'm joined again once again by the fabulous person
I let pick out this summer of sequel.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
Hey, this is Bond, but don't blame me for this one.

Speaker 5 (04:15):
Right, So before we get started, Bond, we have a
little bone to pick with somebody named Emily. Emily is
a second grade teacher where Bond teaches down there in Texas,
and I tried, and I pleaded, and I tried and bribed.
Bond offered cash to get Emily to come on this

(04:37):
episode and talk about this because she is the one
that suggested this movie. Bond, would you like to tell
the wonderful people what Emily suggested for us to cover
this week?

Speaker 4 (04:50):
When I told Emily that we were covering the summer sequels,
she suggested one of her favorite sequels, Returned to Oz
eighty five Dark Fantasy that's supposed to be the sequel
to The Wizard of Oz from thirty nine.

Speaker 5 (05:06):
Wait a minute, did she actually say it was one
of her favorite sequels?

Speaker 4 (05:10):
She said she liked this one. I don't I don't
know if it was one of her favorites, but she
said she liked this movie and that we should check
it out.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
Well, I don't think you're in Kansas anymore, so, but okay,
I'm gonna be I'm not gonna be too hard on
this movie because it is actually based uponf books that
were written by Frank Albaum after The Wizard of Oz.
Uh So with that in mind, I went in with

(05:38):
a little bit more open mind, if you will, because
I have not seen this movie, Bond. It's been it's
been close to probably thirty five, forty years since I've
seen this. I'm pretty old. What was it out eighty five?

Speaker 4 (05:52):
I think in nineteen eighty five? So was this movie
forty years old now or back then?

Speaker 5 (05:58):
Well, I don't know, mandm. It feels like I was
hitting a dip of acid or something when I was
watching it now or were the people smoking with the
But the willies them willies have always creeped me out then,
I mean, oh my goodness, they just pretty cool that.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
Let's tell everybody kind of what we're doing. Man, we're
doing the Return of to Oz nineteen eighty five dark
fantasy film released by Walt Disney Pictures. So not everything
Disney puts out is a hit. Yeah, you are right.
It is based on two books by Frank L. Frank Baum,

(06:39):
The Marvelous Land of Oz nineteen oh four and Ozma
of Oz nineteen oh seven.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
Have you read either one of those?

Speaker 4 (06:46):
You know? I think I have, but it's been so
long that I couldn't tell you. Oh yeah, that sticks
right with the book or not.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
I wonder if EM's read them, Emily, she's probably read them.
Auntie EM's probably read them.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
Oh yeah, Emily's read probably the whole series. Does she
by Walter Merch?

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Hey Bond? Does she like the new musical Wicked?

Speaker 4 (07:07):
He loves Wicked. She lives for Wicked. He's a big fan.
I guarantee she'll be out there day one when the
sequel comes.

Speaker 5 (07:15):
Will she Will she be dressed? Will she be dressed up?

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Maybe? Let me put it this way. You wouldn't have
to push her too hard dress up. You can probably
just say hey, lift up, and she'll say, okay, I'll
be there. Man, this movie was well okay. Back in
nineteen fifty four, they actually Walt Disney Productions bought the
rights to the List of Oz and so they got

(07:40):
a big name director to direct this thing. Walter Merch
directed this movie. He has won three Academy Awards and
he's been nominated for nine Academy Awards. This dude was
a director for Apococalypse Now, Yep, Godfather's one through three,
American Graffiti, The English Patient.

Speaker 5 (08:02):
This is.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
I mean, they went all out on the director for
this movie.

Speaker 5 (08:05):
Too bad, the story you didn't hold up?

Speaker 4 (08:08):
I think that's where they must have spent all of
their money.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Man, well, by Bond question, Return to Oz or Godfather three?
Which one was worse?

Speaker 4 (08:20):
This one'd be worse. This is gonna be worse. This
movie came out on June twenty first, nineteen eighty five.
It's got a running time of one hundred and thirteen minutes.
It had a budget of twenty eight million dollars back
in eighty five man, which translates to about fifty five million. Now,

(08:44):
I'm thinking that was all spent on puppetry, its special effects.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
I will say this, some of the special effects they
had was pretty good.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
It was actually nominated for an Academy Award for Special Effects.
So it is an Academy Award nominated movie. As much
as we we're teasing it right now. It was a
box office flop.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
It Like I said, twenty eight million to make, but
it only made a little over eleven million at the
box office, which translated to today's money is about twenty
two million. But we did about half less than half.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
But why don't you take a moment and tell the
people some of the movies that it was going up
against at the time of this release.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Okay, tell me if you've ever heard of or seen
any of these movies right, and June of eighty five
it debuted at the like the number five or six
movie in the country, which is terrible for not only
a Disney movie, but a premiere week one movie right
opening weekend. It was beat out by cocoon YEP, Rambo,

(09:51):
First Blood Part two, the Goonies.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
Can't deny that one.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Fletch with Chevy Chiz Pritzy's.

Speaker 5 (10:01):
M I don't know if I've seen that one.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
Can you squeeze? In this movie? Right underneath that was
a View to a Kill, the James Bond movie and
Brewster's Millions with John Candy. That's a funny movie, great one, right,
So that's like a top ten right there, and I'm thinking,
no wonder it ended up somewhat near the bottom right
of that list. There's no way. I mean, think about

(10:24):
all those movies or classic movies. Cocoons, a classic movie, Rambo, Goonies, now,
all those classic movies.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
Now I have a question, do you think this movie
would have been better if they would have released it
or or had it done maybe like three to four
years after the original like in the original Wizard of
Oz and still had Judy Garland playing Dorothy and all
the characters from back then. Do you think it would
have done better?

Speaker 4 (10:50):
Oh, definitely think. I think we would be talking about
that movie in the same breath as The Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Do you think it's because it wasn't a musical too,
that it didn't hold up to.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
I was gonna get into that, but yeah, I think so.
I think there's a lot of little factors, right, they
go into why this movie wasn't the big blockbuster hit
or why we don't talk about it today in the
same you know, in the same breath and the same
motions of Wizard of Oz because most people don't even
know the sequel exists, right, And I think a lot
of it has to do with it. There's no music
in it. There's not a musical where the first one.

(11:25):
You think about The Wizard of Oz you think about
the classic songs in that thing, the what is it?
The over the Rainbow right follow theyellow brick.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
Word I only had a brain.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah, exactly. And so if you would have come out
with this movie as a musical and let's say nineteen
forty two, forty three, I think it would have been
just as big a hit as the first one.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
Oh yeah, and I wonder why. I think I wonder
why Disney waited until well Blood, you say, nineteen fifty
four to secure the rights.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yeah, nineteen fifty four, they got the rights, but they
didn't do anything with it till eighty five.

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Right, that's another that's another mystery. Why.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yeah, and you're thinking by that time, you're looking at
what forty six forty seven years in between sequels. Yeah,
so I don't know, man. I also think that it
also has to do with casting, and say that, but
it might have to do with casting on this one.
Let's go into that a bit bit. Man. You're looking

(12:25):
at Ferusa Bulk plays Dorothy Gale. Ferusa Bulk. I found
out the word Ferusa is a Persian word. She's Persian.
It's a Persian word that means turquoise.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
And that might have to do with her eyes because
she has those bluish green eyes that are kind of captivating.
This is her first movie, her movie Premiere. She was
nominated for a Saturday Award, which is a Young Artist Award.
She was also I know her from the movie The Craft.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
That's where I know her from too.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Plays like the goth girl Leader of the Witches, She
was also in American History X I Believe as the girlfriend.
She was also in water Boy, where she plays Bobby
Bouchet's girlfriend.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yeah, that's probably.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Where most people know where from, right, And this is
her first movie. It stars she plays Dorothy Gale. We
also have Nicole Williamson as doctor J. B. Whorley, also
the Nome King. He's a British actor. He was Merlin
in ex Caliber. He was also in Sherlock Holmes movies

(13:35):
The Seven Percent Solution, and he was also in the
Spawn movie, the movie Spawn.

Speaker 5 (13:41):
I really like the Nome King in this movie. I
think he did it.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Really you think he kind of saves it a bit
for you.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
He does at the end. I have to agree when
especially when he's like turning human if you will, oh.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah, that's true, that's true. It also has Gene marsh
as the.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
Nurse love her.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Also plays Momble momby right Moby. She was in Cleopapatra.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
She was in Willow, My favorite. One of my favorites
Willow is Queen bab Morda.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Did you so it's got this? The movie has people
you like in it. Yes, So I can't wait to
see how you?

Speaker 6 (14:16):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (14:16):
I figured this one. She was also in the TV
show Doctor Who.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (14:22):
And she was also in a Twilight Zone episode called
The Lonely Right. She was in all of those things.
Let's see Sophie Ward plays momby two. She was in
Young Sherlock Holmes. Oh, by the way, Jeane Marsh she
did pass away this year April. So recently we have

(14:43):
Piper Laurie as aunt.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Em another another famous actress.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
That's what I was thinking too. She's the famous actress Man.
She plays the mom and Carrie.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
She was nominated for an Oscar for that role. She
was Oscar also nominated for an Oscar in the movie
The Hustler. She was in Children of a Lesser God,
where she was nominated again for an Oscar three times Oscar.
And she played Louisa. Or she was in a movie
called Louisa with Ronald Reagan, which I thought was pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (15:16):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Matt Clark plays Uncle Henry. Uncle Henry was in the
Heat of the Night Outlaw. Josie Wills plays a bartender
and Back to the Future three. He was in A
Million Ways to Die in the West.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Also, let me ask you a question about Uncle Henry
and Anniem in this movie. Yeah, supposedly the story has
only it's only been six months since Dorothy was in
the uh in Oz the first time. You can tell
that by the damage to their house. It still hasn't
been fixed and winter is coming to me. Uncle Henry

(15:55):
and Anam looked a lot younger than the original Antim
and Uncle Henry, and I think that kind of will
throw people for a loop too, because even Dorothy looks
younger than what she did. So that kind of plays
with your psychology going into this because Uncle Henry, you know,
he's running around and all that looking for at the

(16:17):
end of this movie, but in the first one he
barely got out of that chair.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
So yeah, exactly, it's like they de aged somehow. It's weird, right,
It's just that's just crazy, man. There's some voice actors
too that I thought i'd name. Denise Bryer plays Billina
the Chicken. He was also in the movie The Labyrinth
Our Labyrinths. Sean Barrett was TikTok. He was also in

(16:44):
Labyrinth in Dark Crystal Did you like TikTok? That stuck
out to me was Jack Pumpkinhead. Jack Pumpkinhead's voice was
played by Brian Henson. Brian Henson is the famous son
of Jim Henson in The Muppets.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
Did you like TikTok?

Speaker 4 (16:59):
No? I didn't like any of the puppets at all.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
Really, you didn't like I like the Pumpkinhead. I thought
he's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Really, No, I didn't like any of the puppets at all.
I thought they were all creepy. They were all kind
of weird. I mean, even when the chicken first talked.

Speaker 5 (17:15):
Yeah, the chicken is kind of weird. What about the
chicken talked?

Speaker 4 (17:18):
I was like, what's that?

Speaker 5 (17:19):
What about the the moosehead? You're gonna say his name?
The the what they kind of like or something? Yeah?
He I mean.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah. Lyle Conway plays the gump and yeah, man, that
that to me pushed it over the edge.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
Yeah, that's that's just such a weird character to have
in this movie. Well, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 4 (17:41):
It's about uh Dorothy returns the land of Oz and
finds out it's been conquered by the Nome King and
his princess accomplice uh Momby Dorothy has to return Oz,
she uses her new friends Billina, TikTok, Chuck, Pumpkin Head,
and the Gump to do so. And like I said,

(18:05):
I think that all these little pupppeit people were just
a little bit too weird and strange for me, and
that's what kind of threw me off. And I think
that's that's another reason they say it did poorly at
the box office, is because it was too scary for kids.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
Right well, I mean I think it even got scarier
before she even goes back to Ozs. When you know
she's in that psychord and they're getting ready to do
electro therapy on her that would scare the living daylights
out of any eight nine ten year olds.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
She's like in an a sane asylum or something. It's
they're like going to perform a a botomy on.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Her right now. Now, let me ask you a question.
When she steals the life powder from the cabinet and
she puts it on Gumpy and and all that, why
and why didn't she put it on TikTok? If she
put it on TikTok, would he have never had to
wind up again because he was alive? I know, you
see what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, yeah, we had to like rewind.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Is that rewind is like brain function or is a
strength function.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, I would die out and so and then there
was so many aspects of this movie that didn't connect
with the first one. I think another big aspect of
this one that didn't match was the the coloring, because
when they go in the original OZ, they go to
OZ and there's like this technic color everything, super bright,

(19:25):
super the colors are exaggerated. I guess where I didn't
feel that one in this one. I know it's because
OZ was taken over and I was supposed to BEAK
somewhat darker dark. It didn't feel like OZ.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
When she was in OS, right, I agree?

Speaker 4 (19:42):
So do you think that OZ really exists or do
you think that it's all in Dorothy's head?

Speaker 5 (19:47):
See now now, now you're going you've already opened up
the rabbit trail this early into the podcast bond. But
from what I've gathered from theories is they don't know
if she ever went to OZ to begin with, because
if you remember, in the first movie, the window pane
opens up and knocks her in the head and she
goes unconscious and wakes up, and this one, you know,

(20:07):
she goes into the water, uh, basically passes out and
wakes up in OZ and they find her at the
end on the water bank. I don't know, man, I
don't know. What do you think.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
I don't think OZ is I don't think OZ exists.
I think I think the first one was a tornado
something like you said, the window paint bopped her in
the head. The whole adventure in OZ doesn't really happen,
and she wakes up. Well, it's one same thing. She
gets knocked out, same thing.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
Well, let's think about this bond and the first one. Now, now,
now see, now you made me think of something I
never even thought of before until right now. In the
first one, how does Dorothy get to Oz? Do you remember?

Speaker 4 (20:51):
There's a tornado and she's it's spinning it. The tornado
picks her up, picks what up, picks up her house.

Speaker 5 (20:58):
At the end of the movie, where is she?

Speaker 4 (21:01):
She is in bed? Isn't she in her house? In
her bedroom?

Speaker 5 (21:06):
So if the tornado picked up that house and at
the beginning of that movie.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
And threw it into Oz, well no, not.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Well yeah that but even if it landed it back
down number one, it wouldn't be in the same spot
where her family is number two. It would have been
totally destroyed I had never thought about that to this
exact moment right now.

Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yet it's perfectly fine. Perfect Nobody even mentions their tornado.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
Right, Isn't that crazy? Because that's why you go back
to this movie and you see, I guess they tried
to cover that in this movie because they say, oh,
the house is damaged here, and it's been six months
since that tornado, but it's still on its foundation and everything.
So was Oz all in her head all along? That's

(21:49):
a great point.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Yeah, I personally think there is no such place as Oz.
I think it's in her imagination, Okay, her deep, deep
subconscious Yeah, sure, if.

Speaker 5 (22:00):
You and I think that's why she recognizes each character
that she meets. Well, that's why I think there's people
that are in both worlds. They're anti M or not
anti M, but like uh, you know, uh the Scarecrow
and tin Man and and all and how Cowardly nine,
they were all the farm hands in the first one.
The Wicked Witch of the West was at what was

(22:22):
Elmirah Golch or whatever that was on the bike. You know.
So you had all these people that were in her
life and causing she loves some and some she was
scared of.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Her subconsciousness.

Speaker 5 (22:32):
Right.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
So, but do you think another thing that might have
heard this movie was the fact that none of those
characters come out when she goes to Oz.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
They they come out of state, do uh? The scarecrow
comes out at the end, but it's not your same
looking scarecrow if you remember, also she rides in on
the cowardly Lion. Remember that's true.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
It doesn't look they don't look like the cowardly line.
Doesn't look like the cowardly line from the nineteenth.

Speaker 5 (23:01):
From right, but it looks more like how Frank Albaum
had suggested they look in the book, is what I'm
getting at. So this is more of a direct sequel
to the book than it is to the movie, is
what I think is the problem. And that's where a
lot of people get confused. Right, Would you like to

(23:21):
see him, let's say, Disney plus come out with a
whole new Oz series where it does the Wizard of
Oz and then it goes through all of his other books.
It maybe make it make more sense.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
Would you like to see that starting at the beginning?

Speaker 5 (23:32):
Yes, at the beginning.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Is it a musical?

Speaker 5 (23:35):
It can be? I don't know, does right? I mean,
if it was.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
A musical, and they were able to adopt the songs
from the first movie and mix those with new songs,
so you'd have somewhere of the Rainbow, and then later
in the movie or later on the TV show, you'd
have another new song, and then you'd have another we know, right,
kind of mix it together like a soundtrack, and you

(24:04):
stretched it over X amount of seasons over the.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
Well, I'm just let's just say like a let's just
say like a new trilogy or four movies, because you know,
we've got the marvelous Land of Oz and then you
got Ozma of Oz. They could make. Do you think
it could be pulled off as a trilogy, kind of
like Lord of the Rings or something where they filmed
them all at the same time.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
I think you could.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
I think I think so. I think it'd be a
money maker.

Speaker 4 (24:31):
That would be spoiled and go, no way, this is
nothing like the eighty five.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
Except Emily. She's gonna be upset.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
At least the only one that'd be all this is
a rip off. That's not the gump.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
That's not how it looked.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
Cow on you call that a gump.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Yeah, So, so maybe Oz was all in her mind.
Maybe she was crazy.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
She was crazy. Man, did you see that moose with
it that used to be a couch.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
With the palm feathers wings or whatever and the you know,
it's pretty cool that they shoved the broom up for
his rear end too. You know.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
How that up on the cutting room floor on this one.

Speaker 5 (25:12):
I don't know, von, But what about go ahead.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
About the princess who had all of those heads.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
That's what I'm talking about creepy.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
I mean, let's say you were to buy the Oh
my gosh, they think she's insane at the beginning. She
ends up back in ours. Oh no, the chicken talks.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
Okay, yeah, like that wasn't weird enough.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, and then all there's always these smiling rocks. The
rocks are always reporting back to.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
But I think it's only the one rock, right, it's
like his loyal subject.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
I think, smiling and reacting.

Speaker 5 (25:53):
I think he tim that he goes, well, let me
go look, and he'll he'll go up and transform on
the other rocks and go back and report.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Oh so he was like a nome king's spy.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Yeah, like like his right hand man. That's what I'm
taking it as well.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
That was weird. And then you get to this palace
and she's got all of these heads that are in
these containers.

Speaker 5 (26:15):
That was cool, man, I ain't gonna lie. I really
liked that part.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
You liked the fact that she had that Dorothy had
to like go in there and what it was It
steals something from one of the heads.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah, she went in there distill the life powder, remember
that that could animate stuff, and then she proceeds to
pour it on the moose head and make it a
flying bed or whatever. But I thought it was really cool.
You know, all the people that were locked up in
those cases, they're all looking at Dorothy, and you know,
the the queen or whatever, takes her head off and

(26:47):
sticks it in, and then she goes and she looks
at it and picks out another one. And I thought
that was really well done. That's some of the stuff
I liked about this movie. But I was trying to think,
is any of these from doors he passed like? Was
any of them any of the orderlies from the psych board.
I was trying to put them together, and I just
couldn't really match them.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
I agree with that, man. The only one she brings
with her is Billina. The chicken. It's like, whoa, you
can talk? Oh yeah, I can talk in hans And
then okay, so what's up with the nome king and
his fear of chickens?

Speaker 5 (27:24):
He's got lay egg, he's got he's allergic to chickens.
Did you not know this? He's got a chicken allergy.
That was the dumbest ending I've ever seen to a
bad guy.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
The chicken lade.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
Lays an egg out of the pumpkin head, but the
egg because the hen has not laid an egg for
I don't remember how long she said, And then she lazy,
I get of rolls out of the pumpkin head's eye
and it goes down the throat of the king, and
he's like an egg, an egg. It's poised boys, Okay, hey,

(28:04):
do you think that? Do you think do you think
that the rolleys were actually the winged monkeys?

Speaker 4 (28:14):
I thought that too. I was like, okay, this is
this version of the flying monkeys? Are these wheelies?

Speaker 5 (28:20):
But then.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
Is the wheelies the cart that she's brought in on
before she's about to get our electric shock treatment?

Speaker 5 (28:32):
M M?

Speaker 4 (28:32):
Is that where that deep, that deep fear.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
Of subconscious comes from? Or is it on the or
is it on the gurney wheels, Yeah, where she's strapped
down to never put that together either.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
Yeah, but those wheelies, I have to give those guys
some credit. Abody who played a wheel in that movie.
That's some skills. I mean, just feet, wheels for hands,
and somehow they're able.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
To unless they were on remote control.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
I don't know how they did that, but to me,
that right there was one of my favorite special effects
in the whole Oh yeah, because I was like, Okay,
that's pretty cool. I like the way they did that.
I think the most tolerable was probably TikTok. He was
the most tolerable onely, Okay, TikTok's not so bad.

Speaker 5 (29:24):
TikTok was stupid the way he walked and everything I know,
and he's like the the what is he like the
sergeant of arms of the army or whatever.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
So TikTok is this movie's version of the Tin Man, right, yes?

Speaker 5 (29:42):
And did you notice the scene where she's talking to
him and he and he and he cries and she's like,
don't cry because he's got the little green Remember she
said that to the tin Man in the original movie too.
So there's a lot of stuff that has thrown back
to the original movie that they've thrown.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
In true true, true true. And then there's the girl
from So the girl from the Sanatorium is the princess?

Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yes, but was she ever actually in the sanatorium to
begin with?

Speaker 4 (30:15):
I that's I'm saying. I think maybe she was in
the sanatorium, but she wasn't in Oz because Oz doesn't exist?

Speaker 5 (30:21):
Or is that where the is that why the princess
with the mini heads? Remember she had her ghost or whatever,
a spirit at the castle. Maybe she had somehow shoved
her back to the real world. Uh, into Kansas. I
don't know that.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
That's what I'm saying. Man, this movie, here's something I
will give my coworker, Emily. This movie is a lot
deeper than it seems on the surface.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
I think, yes, yes, because when you when you first suggested,
I was like, man, I remember not liking this way
back then, but I'll give it another shot. So one of.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Those movies that as I was watching it, I didn't
remember anything about the movie until it started happening.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Right.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
You ever done that where you go back and watch
a movie that you haven't seen it.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
I remember when I was a kid, I remember the
electric electrotherapy because that scared me. I remember the Willies
because they scared me. And then I remember vaguely TikTok
and the pumpkin Head. But I didn't remember I didn't
remember the Nome King at all. I didn't remember the
Lady with the many heads, so neither.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
The only one I remembered was the pumpkin Head.

Speaker 5 (31:33):
Remember was the Pumpkin Well, let's go ahead and talk
about some of the trivia for this movie, Bond, and
you can interject as we go along, whatever you want,
or if something comes to your mind, what you got.
So Tim Burton has acknowledged that old Jack Pumpkinhead from
this movie is an inspiration for his iconic character Jack
Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas. And you can totally
see that because Jack Skellington, Jack Kellington's known as what

(31:56):
the Pumpkin King exactly. So Disney actually fired director Walter
Merch about a week into production due to budget concerns.
The studio found Daily's lacking and Merch's slow shooting pace disheartening.
Merch contacted friends. This is his friends, Okay, these are

(32:17):
the people he ran with. Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg,
and George Lucas. I mean, I mean, yeah, so, I mean,
if you're gonna have friends, that's some pretty good friends.
So he called them all from those guys, right, and
all three of the directors lobby Disney to rehire Merch.

(32:39):
So all these guys are saying, hey, you need to
hire him back. Lucas even offered to take over directing
himself should Merch fall behind schedule. I mean, okay, so
right there you have George Lucas. He has just finished

(32:59):
Return of the Jedi in nineteen eighty three, yep, and
he says, I'll do the sequel to the Wizard of
Oz two years later. If this guy doesn't fulfill his
if he falls behind the schedule. Yeah, yeah. If you're Disney,
how do you not just be like, okay, let's go.

(33:19):
You know fine, I'd sabotage the sets. I was sabotaged
the sets, so he fell behind so I could get
George Lucas, right exactly.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
I come up with every excuse me, well, no, that
if Spielberg or Coppola call you up and you're working
for Disney and they say, hey, you guys, did rehire
this dude.

Speaker 5 (33:36):
Not only that, but think about it. So George Lucas
comes in to help direct this movie or overtakes the movie.
What does George Lucas have that this other guy doesn't
have industrial light and magic? Can you imagine the special
effects he could have called in to get pulled off
if he could have kept it in budget?

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Exactly ridiculous. Or he's working with Oscar winning special effects.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
Right, I mean, and I would have called Kenny Baker
up to come get into.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
TikTok, right, Yeah, that would be awesome.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
Yeah. Uh So merch finished the film on schedule, though
though while in post production studio management change, so they
were like, oh well, we got to change in management.
The new executives had little faith in the movie and
doomed it with limited promotion and a short theatrical run.
That you're going against some pretty powerful movies of the time. Uh.

(34:30):
This was the first film to use the Walt Disney
Pictures logo with the rainbow going over the Blue Castle.
I thought that was pretty interesting, all right. So Feruza
Balks ruby slippers were specially handmade with imitation rubies and
rotoscoped in post production to give them a magical look.
The rubies were actually glass beads imported from Austria and

(34:52):
individually attached to the shoes with a special spray adhesive.
This later proved problematic, as the hot stage lights melted
the adhesive and the young actress's fidgety movements would often
knock the beads off. Tired of chasing after detached beads,
the wardrobe staff finally ordered the shoes to be worn
only when visible on camera. Balt confirmed to a fan

(35:15):
via Twitter in September of twenty seventeen that she got
to keep one pair of the ruby slippers she wore
in the film, So that's pretty cool, that is. And also,
in order to include the ruby slippers as part of
this film, Disney had to pay royalties to Metro Goldwyn
Mayor MGM, the studio which I produced The Wizard of
Oz in nineteen thirty nine. The ruby slippers did not

(35:38):
appear in L. Frank Baum's original novel. I didn't know
if you know that bond they were actually silver, If
I remember, they were emitted a nineteen thirty nine film
to better take advantage of the technic color process. Interesting enough,
in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wore a pair
of magical silver shoes which were lost when she used
them to return to Kansas, so they did keep that
part of the story in this Remember when the Nome

(35:59):
King says, oh, oh, they fell off when you went
to Kansas. In the subsequent novel Ozma of Oz, one
of the books on which this film is based, Dorothy
and her friends meet the Nome King, who possesses a
magical belt with properties similar to those of silver shoes.
Early drafts of the Scrub for Return to Oz reflect this,

(36:20):
with the Nome King cutting up the ruby slippers to
make his magical ruby belt. So that's interesting this would
now see I say, I don't like TikTok, but when
you find a fact like this, it makes you appreciate it.
So Gymnast Michael Sunden stood upside down with legs bent

(36:40):
and backwards inside TikTok's body to move the legs.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
No way, way are you telling me that that whole
time I'm watching TikTok, it's really a guy standing.

Speaker 5 (36:53):
On his head, yeah, honestly backwards and with his legs
bent and backwards and side of TikTok.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
Now I want to watch the movie again.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
Yeah, it's like I would to watch the making of
Return to Oz. Some'm like behind the scene stuff.

Speaker 4 (37:08):
I want to see see how they put the costume
on him and how they helped them moved.

Speaker 5 (37:12):
Well, I don't know if he I don't know, because
TikTok was kind of wide. I wonder if he did
all that inside of the costume.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
That's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
How long could they film before they had to give
him a break?

Speaker 5 (37:24):
You can't, but it was I think it was only
when he was it was only when he was moving.
There was a lot of times when he was just
standing still too, though, remember I guess, plus his coils
were wound up his gears. But I thought that was
a pretty cool That was probably a really cool fact,
one of the coolest ones I found. So Originally, Scarecrow,
the Tin Woodsman, and cawardly Lyon were all to have

(37:45):
more prominent roles in this film. However, budget cuts forced
their appearances to be reduced to mirror cameos. If I'm them,
I'm putting them guys in the movie, and I'm cutting
the stupid moose head, The Scared of the Gulp and
TikTok and all of them. I'm cutting all them, putting
the main guys in because that's who people know, and

(38:06):
that probably would have sold more tickets. This film received
a mention in the Guinness World Book of Records as
the sequel that was made the longest period of time
after an original. It was released forty six years after
The Wizard of Oz in nineteen thirty nine. Bond. Do
you know what movie broke that record?

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Ooh, all right, let me just be thinking. Broke the
record for the longest time between sequels. Huh forty six years? Man,
I have no idea. I was the only movie I
could think of has only been about thirty years between sequels,
and that was like Top Gun and Top Gun.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
Maverick Bambi bam B two in two thousand and six
broke that record in two thousand and six, releasing sixty
four years after the original Bambi in nineteen forty two.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Did they getting the original actors back?

Speaker 5 (39:02):
Yeah, Bambi's mom came back.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Bamby's mom comes.

Speaker 5 (39:08):
Yeah. She was just she was just jerky, though under
at a back of jerky.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
He comes back in the in the Hunter's celt I.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
Don't know if you caught this either, but Ponzmara, who
played the lead will Er, you know, the one guy
that got called the lead, the leader of the Wheelies.
He's also one of the Asylum ortallies, and he he
also voices the No Messenger. Also served as movement coach
on the film Bark, working to develop the postures and
movements of the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead. So he was

(39:39):
wearing many hats for this movie.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
And there's your connection between the Asylum and the Wheelies too, right.

Speaker 5 (39:46):
So l frank Baum changed the spelling of non g
n o emmy too n o emmy for his OZ
books because he felt the phonetics spelling was easier for
children to learn. In universe no means one who knows
because obsessively cataloged the location of every mining side in
the world. So he just wants kids to read. I

(40:06):
applaud him for that. Yeah. This is the directorial debut
of editor Walter Merch. It remains the only film he
ever directed. Oh you would think with Spielberg and Francis
for Coppola and all them guys, that you could pull
some strings.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
But that's terrible.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
Well so was this movie. But all right for who
as a Balk mentioned in interviews her tears of joy
when she was allowed to audition for the part of Dorothy,
and her words, it was a really big thing for
me even to get an audition for a real feature film,
because I guess she had done some TV spots or
something before this.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
I had heard that over six hundred girls auditioned for
that part.

Speaker 5 (40:51):
I heard there was like tens of thousands of girls
at audition for that part. Yeah, I think it's in
here somewhere. But Walter Merch never intended for this film
to be viewed as a direct sequel to the Wizard
of Oz. Rather, he intended it as a partial sequel
with some direct references the Ruby Slippers actors playing characters
in Oz and the real World, but in closer similarity

(41:12):
to the Oz novels, the appearance of the OZ characters
Oz being a real place as opposed to a dream.
The misconception that the film was ever meant to emulate
the MGM musical probably contributed to its failure at the
box office. I think if you would have named it
something else, you might have had a shot. And I
just thought of this as I'm sitting here reading this
bond Bond, we didn't see any of the Munchkins. Do

(41:33):
you think that that dead area, see the dead sea
thing that was in here, do you think that was
munchkin Land.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
Munchkin Land is now just the dead area of Oz.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Yeah, because you remember when the Willie said it, they
just killed them all.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
It would have been nice if they would have had
maybe like a munchkin Land house, something, something that indicated
it was munchkin Land at was sometime in the background
in ruins.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Right, because I mean you see the what is it,
the yellow brick roads all busted up. They could have
done they could have done something.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
If you remember from the first movie, the yellow brick
road originates in munchkin Land, right, that's the origin, that's
the beginning of the.

Speaker 5 (42:09):
Speaking of that bond. You know the yellow brick road
from the original. What about the red brick road that's
next to it? Where does it go?

Speaker 4 (42:17):
They should have taken that one, Yeah, a shortcut.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
I don't know. I will give credit for the stop
motion animation in this. It's pretty good. So to create
the stop motion puppets of the Nomes, Nicole Williams Williamson
and pondsmar were photographed against the background. Grid will Vinnon
of Claymation Fame then watched the footage frame by frame
and manipulated the puppets based on the movements and expressions

(42:39):
of the actors. So it's a lot of hard work
for this movie. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Like I said, they had the Henson's and all the
muppet guys. They were involved in all the puppetry.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
Too, right, all right. Bond When Returned to Oz was
released in June of nineteen eighty five. Only two members
of the original Wizard of Oz main Cat We're still Alive.
Who were they?

Speaker 4 (43:04):
I'm gonna say it was the tin Man and I'm
gonna say it was the cowardly.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
Line Ray Bolger who played a hunk and scarecrow in
the original, and Pat Walsh, who was the lead flying monkey.
Margaret Hamilton, who was you know, miss Golchen, the Wicked
Witch of the West. She died in May of nineteen
eighty five, so one month before this movie released. Oh yeah,

(43:38):
I remember when she was on Mister Rogers because you know,
all the kids were scared of her, and she was
on there without her makeup and everything. It was pretty
cool if you ever had a chance to see it.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
All right, So let me ask you a quick question, Jimbo,
before we move on. If they would have relaunched The
Wizard of Oz first, like, let's say, in nineteen eighty three,
and then this movie, the Return to Oz in eighty five,
would that have helped.

Speaker 5 (44:05):
Are you talking about a whole new movie, like a
reboot or just like a fiftieth anniversary movie. Sure, yes, absolutely,
I just don't know. I don't understand why Disney waited
so long, and I don't understand and if they were
gonna do that, and they wanted to go by Frank
Albama's books and make the Silver Slippers and all that,

(44:27):
then they should have done all that. It would have
been an easier transition to this, say hey, this isn't
your mom and Dad's Kansas anymore or something, you know,
some sort of tag like like that. But yeah, I
think it would have done better because when you say
return to something, you should have had to have been
there to begin with, right. I think that's the problem
with this movie, that the title is misleading enough everybody thought, oh,

(44:49):
this is gonna be a continuation, which he says he
didn't want to make a continuation. But it's six months
after the tornado ended, and Dorothy Kant's her aunt says,
she hasn't been able to sleep. You went to Oz,
you haven't been sleeping, right. The house is damaged, So
don't tell me it's not a direct sequel to OZ
when it is. That's how you set your story up
to be.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Exactly. You come out with a movie in nineteen eighty three,
you call it Dorothy's Journey to Oz, Dorothy's Dreamland, Dorothy's Dreamland,
Dorothy in Oz. And then you have this new actress
planet musical or not Musicals up to you. Then you
come up with this movie two years later, and everybody

(45:31):
just thinks it's a sequel to the movie that came
out two.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
Years before, right, And it would have worked because let's
say I think Dorothy and This was ten years old,
I think, or nine years old. She would have been
seven for the first one. I mean you would have seen,
you would have been believable that she grew up a
year or two, you know what I mean, you could
have seen the progression of how she grew. I just
think it was a missed opportunity. And then again, it
could have bombed and they would have never made this anyway, right, Yeah, you.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Would have never saw. This been a really bad remake
of the first one.

Speaker 5 (45:59):
So director Walter Merch invited friend George Lucas to visit
the set one day. During that visit, Lucas wondered two
different sound stages where he came across producer Rick McCallum
working on a small film. And for those of you
that know anything about Rick McCollum, he became really close
friends with George Lucas and later collaborated on what do

(46:24):
you know.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Let's see, I'm gonna say Jurassic.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
Park, Star Wars prequels. Oh no, yeah, hey, I like
the prequels. They're okay my book. Compared to what we got,
compared to what we got in these last three rounds.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
I started to look at those. Yeah, you start to
look at those next three, It's like, Eh, this were
too bad.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
So film depicts American life in the eighteen nineties. A
director in scre Walter Merch used the history book Wisconsin
Death Trip from nineteen seventy three by Michael Lessie as
his main source for this era. The book emphasized the
harsh aspect of Midwestern rural life under the pressures of crime, pestilence,
mental illness, and urbanization. I guess, but I mean, I

(47:15):
don't know. So several additional scenes filmed for the opening
Kansas sequence, including a face painting scene between Dorothy and
an em Belana running through the farmhouse kitchen, and Uncle
Henry reading a newspaper clippings detailing Dorothy's disappearance after the cyclone,
and they were all cut from the final film. So

(47:36):
I want does it say now now? Now I gotta
read probably watch the original Wizard of Oz. Does it
say that she went missing after that cyclone? Or do
they just know she ran away? Because she ran away?
She ran away to the uh what's his name? Where
the guy that played the Wizard, the Wonder, the traveling guy.

(47:58):
I can't think of his name at the.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Moment, but diya, I'm pretty sure that at the very
very end of the original Wisdom of Oz they mentioned
the fact that she was gone for so long.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
Now I gotta go back and watch it. Bond The
Scarecrow was originally supposed to have a fully articulated animatronic
face akin to that of the Gump However, budget cuts
forced the puppeteers to reduce his face to his series
of masks with fixed expressions. Terrible, I die. That is
a big disappointment right there. I can't believe you forgot
this in your casting bond. But the role of the

(48:31):
pet dog Toto was played by Tansy, a brown eyed
Border terrier. Tansy was a family pet with no previous
acting experience. It was chosen for the role through an
audition process, competing with fifty other dogs, so Tansy went out.
The real world portions of this film take place in
October eighteen ninety nine. Antim says it's been six months

(48:53):
since the tornado, meaning that Dorothy's departure and returned from
the original Wizard of Oz adventure took place in April
of eighteen ninety nine. So during film's production for Rosa Balx,
privacy was carefully guarded and she was not available to
meet with journalists. So I applaud him for that, you know,
keep her protected. And doctor Worley's office, Dorothy is telling

(49:16):
how the Tin Woodsman lost his human legs. She starts
to say hacked, but this was hastily dub to cut
as the original line was deemed too strong for younger years,
So yeah, they were hacked off. All right, here you go, ban,
You'll love this one. So the role of Bellina, the

(49:37):
talking hen, was played by around forty real chickens, each
are good for different things. Cages were tagged with the
chickens purpose including perch, sit, carry, and run to name
a few, as well as chickens that would attack and
others to run towards cast members. A mechanical chicken was
also used for certain scenes, though the crew had trouble

(49:58):
in telling it apart from the others. That's a pretty
good mechanical chicken.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
That is a pretty good chicken.

Speaker 5 (50:02):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
All right, So here's your job. A. You can interview
a let's say, a thousand Dorothys. You can be interview
fifty dogs for Toto or see. You could look over
the chickens during production.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
Which which which one paid the boast? Right? Oh? Can
you imagine cleaning up after him? Two? Oh?

Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (50:28):
So uh. Faruza Balk won the role of Dorothy out
of tens of thousands of girls worldwide who applied to audition.
Judy Garland was sixteen when she played Dorothy and the
Wizard of Oz in nineteen thirty nine Forarusa. Balk was
only ten when filming returned OZ. So you can tell
she looks a lot younger than Dorothy. But they say
she wanted out because she looked like Dorothy, and I'm like,

(50:51):
huh wow.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Once again, I think that's another problem that this movie has,
is you're buying that this new actress Dorothy and you're like,
but I don't think she looks like the original Dorothy
in the movie at all.

Speaker 5 (51:05):
Right, So Walt Disney Production has acquired the rights of
this film for l frank Baum's Oz novels in nineteen
fifty four. Their only previous use of the rights was
the unfinished feature film Rainbow Rode to Oz. By the
nineteen eighties, the film rights were about to expire when
Walter Merch proposed making another OZ film. The Disney executives
figured that it was their only chance to use the

(51:27):
rights before their expiration dates. So that's why they were like, well,
we might as well make something. The character of the
movie's version of Princess Momby is based on that of
Princess lang Wider and Frank l Baum's Ozma of Oz,
who rolled the Land of Eve ev across the deadly
desert from Oz. As in the movie, lang Wilder had

(51:48):
regularly changed her head and locked Dorothy in the tower
room of the Palace. So that's pretty cool. It was
in the book the film introduce is the character of
Princess Ozma, the riffel ruler of Oz. She was introduced
in the novel The Marvels Land of Oz in nineteen
oh four and continued to play a major role throughout
the novel series. Initially, L. Frank Baum depicted Ozma as

(52:11):
a regular human girl, but later reckconned her into an
immortal fairy or possibly a hybrid. So I don't know
Nurse Wilson's but the.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
Original movie doesn't make any reference to her at all.

Speaker 5 (52:27):
No, no, because who rules the land of Oz, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
The Wizard exactly. They don't make any reference to some
secret princess of Ozma.

Speaker 5 (52:38):
No, Nurse Wilson's dress is symbolically similar to that of
the Wicked Witch of the West is costume the Wizard
of Oz in nineteen thirty nine, So I'd like to
go back and take a closer look at that. In
the late nineteen fifties, the Walt Disney Studios did toy
around with the idea of making an OZ movie of
its own, using some of the Mouseketeers from The Mickey
Mouse Club in nineteen fifty five. That probably had a

(53:01):
net fun of Chillo in it, I'm sure. But guess
what they decided to make instead their bond? What did
they make Babes and Toyland in nineteen sixty one. Uh?
And guess what that started? Ray Bolger who was the
scarecrow from the original Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 4 (53:20):
So they had the rights to Oz.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
They had they had Ray Boulger, but they didn't well
a one plus one equals three. He didn't have a brain.
I know. The scene where Dorothy falls onto the couch
with a thud and onto the nome King's Mountain was
done in eleven takes. I mean that's a lot of
falling out. Uh. Feruza Bulk performed her own stunts for

(53:45):
the film. Her co star Emma Ridley was allowed to
use a stand in for dangerous scenes.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
Hey, well that's this little girl's first movie.

Speaker 5 (53:55):
Oh yes, She's probably like, no, I'm good, I'll do it.
But you gotta remember she only worked about four hours day,
I think I said or it's in here, somewhere. Yeah.
The film's location shooting at Salisbury Plane turned out to
be a difficult due to freezing temperatures. For Riza, Balk
reportedly cried from the cold, but never complained about the
harsh conditions. So it's probably so cold. She's got tears
going down her face. We've all been there. Well, I

(54:15):
don't know you have. You live in Texas, but up
here it gets so seen it it gets so cold.
Sometimes your face just freeze and you just cry. You
can't stop. It's just tears are falling. When the desolate
Emerald City is first seen, there is a close up
of a relief portrait of a creature with a lion's
head a monkey's body in an ingle's wings. This is

(54:35):
a faithful reproduction of John R. Nill's portrait of the
aptly named creature Lee munn Eg, which appeared on the
back cover of the Magic of Oz and Oz Held
by L. Frank Baum, first release mere weeks after the
latter's death in nineteen nineteen. That's cool, let's see here.
Walter Merch had scouted a number of filming locations to
double as Oz in the film. Last minute budget cuts

(54:58):
forced the production to shoot almost entire on sound stages
and backlots. I heard he wanted to shoot I believe
in Italy and there was another place that he was
looking at but had to cut it out. Oh here
it is. The child actress of Faruza Balk was permitted
to work no more than three and a half hours
each day, restricted to between nine thirty am to four
thirty pm. This period included breaks and private education tuition,

(55:22):
so she was still getting her schooling.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
That's when they started actually looking over child labor laws
when it comes to actors and actresses and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (55:30):
Right, So, Vince Cross composed a tie in song, Returned
to Oz, which was released as a single on the
Cherry Lane label, sung by Victoria Wood. It was not
used on the soundtrack and is not on the official
soundtrack album. So you have a tie in song, but
you don't put it on your soundtrack.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
And I think that's put it on the the end credits.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
I don't. I will say this that end credit. I
was watching that music at the end. It's really good.
I really enjoyed it. It's just an instrumental, but I
really enjoy I like instrumentals, like that like Dragon Hard
or whatever. I think those are great. So the river
scenes of the film are shot in a sound stage
and the water used was warm. Emma Ridley compared it

(56:19):
to a hot jacuzzie. No wonder they didn't care if
they were going down the river. You talked about what
movies were out with this. So this was actually the
third feature length sequel to sequel. This was the third
sequel to Wizard of Oz. The first is a live
action film called The Wonderful Land of Oz in nineteen

(56:39):
sixty nine. Have you seen that one Bond? I have not.
The second is an animated feature Journey Back to Oz
in nineteen seventy two. Have you seen that one bond?

Speaker 4 (56:49):
You know what? I have seen an animated version of
like the Wizard of Oz. I wonder if that's the
what I'm thinking about.

Speaker 5 (56:54):
It could be. This film has several throwbacks to the
original Wizard of Oz. Examples include Doctor Worldy and Nurse
Wilson having Evil Oz counterparts, where the Nome King and
Momby represent Doctor Worley and Nurse Wilson respectively. The ten
man TikTok keeps freezing on the spot and at one
point cry as well. So that kind of gives you

(57:17):
the ten man thing where he would have to be oiled.
You know, it's not that far of a reach. The
Witch of the West had flying monkeys and Winkie guards
as her minions. Mumby similarly has the Willers as her minions.
Billina liked Totosters as Dorothy's pet, and most more famously,
the Nome King says the iconic line There's no place

(57:38):
like Home. Cool. So the film introduces the characters of
TikTok from the Oz novels, a prototypical robot. He was
introduced in the novel Ozma of Oz as a mechanical
man with a copper body. He runs on clockwork springs
and works similar to a mechanical clock. He supposedly feels
no emotion nor pain. There was an hour long animated

(57:59):
TV movie produced by Rank and Bass called Return to
Oz in nineteen sixty four. It has a whole different
story than this movie, So it could have been that
when you saw Bond, I know what the one you're
talking about. I've seen it too, but I can't remember.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
For the cartoon version of the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
I cannot remember for the life of me. What that
was exactly so for as a book, was the second
youngest of the approximately one thousand girls who auditioned for
the role of Dorothy. She was reportedly chosen because she
had a physical resemblance to Judy Garland. I don't see it,
but who am I. The original estimated budget for this
film was twenty million dollars. By the time the production finished,

(58:34):
the budget was estimated to be twenty eight million, So
he came in a little over budget and then didn't
make anything back. So this film opened in thirteen hundred
theaters of the United States, including the Radio City Music
Hall in New York City. The film received its initial
release for the home video market in December nineteen eighty five.
It was available in VHS, LaserDisc, and Beta Disney Spin

(59:00):
Are you ready for this? Approximately six million dollars on
printing and advertising to promote this film? Six million, dude.
They spent out half of their over half of their
profit that they're going to rake in from this.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
Man did so poorly too. That's terrible.

Speaker 5 (59:18):
Oh yeah. The film introduces a version of the character
Mamby from the Oz novels and the novels. Mamby is
the deposed wicked Witch of the North and a primary
full for the royal family of Oz. She was introduced
by L. Frank Baum in The Marvelous Land of Oz
in nineteen oh four and never appeared again in Baum's work,
but has been used by other Oz authors. This was
the one hundred and nineteenth live action film produced by Disney.

(59:40):
I thought that was pretty interesting, man, bomb, would you
say this is this might be one of their worst
live action movies out of the one hundred and ninety.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Yeah, you'd have to go back and look at some
of the early one probably like some of the ones
from the seventies.

Speaker 5 (59:57):
So like the Kurt Russell ones.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Yeah, we're like he's a remember the one where he's
like a Tarzan like figure, but he comes into it.
He comes to like becomes like a decathlete or something. Yeah,
there's some pretty bad and I'm sure the first Little
Herbie the love Bug did great, but I'm bit just
some of the sequels didn't.

Speaker 5 (01:00:14):
Yeah. According to animator Douglas Aberley, he stated that it
took him four takes to animate the Nome King's death,
So that's pretty good. Filming took him four takes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
So this had a short principal photography time is Shooting
began on February twenty, nineteen eighty four, and wrapped up
in October of nineteen eighty four, so that's not very long.
In all about eight months. This film is dark and frightening.
It was done to make the film different from The
Wizard of Oz in nineteen thirty nine, and make it darker, scarier,
and less colorful, and make it much more darker experience
for Dorothy and for the viewers. The film's darker tone

(01:00:49):
follows like any other eighty sequel that were darker, like
Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek two, the
Wrath of Khan, and you know there's a couple other
you could throw in there as well. The cameraman Freddie
Francis quit after shooting the Kansas scenes, fed up with
the delays in the film's production. He's like, I'm out,
all right, here you go. You're gonna love this. Guess

(01:01:12):
who was considered for the role of the Nome King.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
I'm hoping it was Robin Williams Christopher Lloyd.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
That would have been great. So this movie shares a
lot of King Arthur connections. Nicole Williams, who was the
Nome King, played Merlin as you had sayd earlier. Jean
marsh played Morgan le Fay in a Connecticut Yankee and
King Arthur's Court in nineteen eighty nine, and also played Morgaine,
a version of the same character in Battlefield Part one,
Battlefield Part two, Battlefield Part three, and Battlefield Part four.

(01:01:47):
We already talked about this, so yeah, I think that's
enough of the trivia bond. I'm gonna let you start
this off. I want you to give me your thoughts,
fellings rating of this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
All right, so here's here's all that good stuff. First off,
I just want to say thank you Emily for suggesting
this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:02:06):
Oh you're just saying that. You're just saying that because
you gotta work with her again.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
I gotta see her tomorrow morning, man, so if I
can lay on a layer of butter on that one.
But I really I want to thank her for suggesting
this movie. I hope more listeners and more of our
fans do the same, that they start suggesting movies too,
because I always think that's fun when they have a
connection to this movie. I personally don't know what connected

(01:02:31):
her with this movie, but it didn't connect with me
at all. I thought this movie was creepy from the beginning.
I kept asking myself who is this movie made for?
Because it wasn't dark and adult enough to be an
adult movie, but it wasn't kid funnly enough to be
for kids. I don't see how any little girl watching

(01:02:52):
this movie would have liked this movie growing up. They
would have been creeped out. I think that overall, I
gotta give this movie maybe like a four, and that's
just for the special effects. And I do think that
she played a good Dorothy. I think it's terrible she
had to follow Judy Garland.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
Oh yeah, that's harder. That's a hard shoes. That's hard
ruby slippers to fill exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
Those are some hard ruby slippers to fill. So overall,
I think that she did a good job. The special
effects are great in this movie. I can see the
Tim Burton being influenced by this movie. My overall ratings
of four. My prop is anything that doesn't have to
do with the Gump, because the Gump just freaks me out.

(01:03:40):
So I do you just have anything else? I'll have
a mechanical chicken. Well of the mechanical chickens. How about
a Billina, It looks like a real chicken.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
All right. Well, like I said, this has been a
long long time ago. In the Galaxy Far far away,
I watched this movie so emily. I thought I had
forgotten about this. I must have shoved it to an
empty compartment. But in the back of my brain that
made me forget because I don't remember a whole lot
about this movie. I will say, Dorothy, she's kind of creepy.

(01:04:14):
She's got those eyes. But this does make up for
some of the factors with its special effects, especially at
the time. But then again, you have George Lucas as
a friend. You could have called in a favor and said, hey,
what do I do with this? I don't know. I
love the lady with the interchangeable heads, Jean marsh. I
think she does a fantastic job with that. She plays

(01:04:36):
a good, bad lady. And I really liked the Nome
King expe not so much the clay animation part, but
where he's actually starting to turn human. Because if you
remember TikTok and the Pumpkin King and the Gulp or whatever,
they all had to go in there and try to
find which ornament the scarecrow was and everyone that failed.

(01:04:57):
He was turning into more human and they're when when
the princess comes, you know, she's like, oh, she's got
a chicken with her or whatever. He's almost like human
and he looks really cool. The makeup is really well done.
The ending where Dorothy's in there and the king, the

(01:05:18):
gnome King, comes out and he picks up Jack. He's
gonna eat Jack and the hen lazy egg and it
goes down his throat and poisons him. Eh. I was like,
I waste all this time for this ending. But you know,
I'll tell you what. I don't love this movie. But

(01:05:39):
I do like this movie, and I'll tell you why.
Because number one, it's different. I don't like remakes. I
sometimes you watch a movie and they just rehash the
same old, same old stuff. So for creativity, I like
this movie. It's something different. You didn't know what was
gonna happen. It's been so long, I don't really remember

(01:06:00):
what's going on. It's creepy, it's kooky, it's mysterious and spooky,
but it's not the Adams Family true. So for that,
I'm going to give this a generous six point five
stars for the summer of same month.

Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
I have to work with Emily, you know, I.

Speaker 5 (01:06:17):
Know, I know. That's why I gave her six point
five and you gave it a four, so she'll say
I'm her favorite, right, Yeah, But I would like to
know about Emily. Have Emily message me because I want
to know what she ranks this as. And also you
the listeners. When I put it on Facebook, I want
you guys to tell me what you guys thought of
this movie. If you liked it, you didn't like it,

(01:06:37):
and why. Because this is so different. It's not what
you're you're expecting the movie to be about. It's what
the movie's about. Now. Don't get me wrong. When you
watch it, it's like somebody was high on acid and
drugs and drunk or whatever when they created some of

(01:06:58):
these sets or whatever, because some of them are really
really weird. But I do like the gloomy side of it.
There's some good cinematography shots and the special effects that
the guy had to deal with. I get it, you know,
but maybe you should have looked at your budget and
budgeted in some more make it easier for yourself instead

(01:07:21):
of having to, you know, go right up to the
date or actually get fired because or let go because
you were running behind and not getting your daily production
shots done and had to call in the three amigos
of Francis Porcoppola, Spielberg and George Lucas to come help you,
and then to have George say, hey, I'll come over
and finish this for you. If if he doesn't get

(01:07:41):
it done, I mean I would have been all over that.
So there you have it. Six' five for, me four For.
Bond jimbo. Wins but we are The tragedy Of cinema.
Podcast you can follow us On. Facebook we have a
lot of fun on. There if you want to email
us and give us some movie. Suggestions we are The
tragedy Of cinema at gmail dot. Com and speaking of,

(01:08:03):
THAT i don't know If i've Told we haven't told.
ANYBODY i Told, bond but we were just. Yesterday as
a matter of, fact we were contacted through email from
a director of a movie that just came out On august,
thirteenth which is. Today but they gave us an email, asking,

(01:08:25):
hey do you want to interview? Us we can talk
about the different things of this. Movie AND i got
a screener of this. Movie i'm not going to say
what it is yet BECAUSE i want to set it
up and watch That bond watch it, too but we
are going to possibly have them on real. SOON i
watched the movie Before bond AND i started recording, tonight

(01:08:46):
and you know, what for an indie, Film i'm pleasantly
surprised with the. Outcome SO i can't wait to talk
about it With bond AND i can't wait to talk
about it with the director or producer whoever it is
that's going to be coming. On so be on the
lookout for that Because i'm really, excited so hopefully at
that recorded in a couple of, Weeks, bond you got
any last farewell, words BECAUSE i do believe this is
probably our last summer of sequel for this for the.

(01:09:09):
Season not that we won't do sequels throughout the, year
but as far as the special summer of, SEQUELS i
can think of no other better way to go out
on top than With return To.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
Oz this will definitely maybe not be a summer to be.
REMEMBERED i think some of our sequels this, year this
summer we're pretty hard to.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
Swallow and who can forget the great meatballs you made us.

Speaker 4 (01:09:33):
Watch don't blame me for the summer of, sequel BUT
i think this is a great one to end it on,
it that's for, sure all.

Speaker 5 (01:09:41):
Right so if you want to leave us, review leave us.
Review i'll Have bond reason on the. Air BUT i
think this episode's coming to a close and that's a
wrap and.

Speaker 6 (01:09:51):
Cut Sm, well Then Marie, shimmer join us as we
toast to the tales we love the.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Most for, TRAGEDY i. Said, oh Then Marie shimmer joy
in us, says we toast to the.

Speaker 5 (01:10:17):
Tales we love the, most.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
Those we love the, most.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
The tragedy of.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Cinema Mary, shimmer joy us.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
If we toast through the tails we love the, most
to the tells we love the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Most trugy of saying of mo Remem Marie, schiller join
us as we toast to the tales we love the, most.

Speaker 5 (01:11:21):
To the tails we love the, most.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
To the tails we love the.

Speaker 5 (01:11:28):
Most bond's gonna get you and your little dog. Too