The Wizard of Oz (1939) | Episode #471

Welcome to Thankful Thursdays, a new series from Victims and Villains, where every Thursday in November we’ll be looking at movies we are thankful for. In this finale, Micah Kimber, co-host of That’s High Praise joins Josh to talk about the impact Wizard has had on media, their own lives, film trivia & more.

If you or someone you know is reading this right now and struggling with suicide, depression, addiction, or self-harm - please reach out. Comment, message, or tweet at us. Go to victimsandvillains.net/hope for more resources. Call the suicide lifeline at 988. Text "HELP" to 741-741. There is hope & you DO have so much value and worth!

This episode of Victims and Villains is written by Josh “Captain Nostalgia” Burkey. It is produced by Burkey. Music by Mallory Jameson (https://bit.ly/expandmal) & Purple Planet (https://bit.ly/ppcoms). Help us get mental health resources into schools and get exclusive content at the same time. Click here (http://bit.ly/vavpatreon) to support us today!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to the Victims End Villain's podcast feed. If
you guys are new to Victims and Villains. We are
a multi media nonprofit that creates content like what you
are listening to right now to talk about mental health
through pop culture. And this is the last in our
series that we're doing this month called Thankful Thursdays, a

(00:29):
series where we are talking about movies and people that
we are thankful for this year, and having four weeks
to do a year's worth of gratitude is extremely challenging.
My name is Josh. I am the founder and one
of the co hosts of two of our podcast networks shows, Bisgazing,

(00:53):
a horror podcast, as well as That's High Praise. And
I'm joined by my co host of That's High Praise,
mister Micah Kimber.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hello. Hello, Yeah, it's good to be here. I am
thank you. Yeah. I'm very confused as to what any
of these four movies have had to do with Thanksgiving,
but I'm here. Well, to quote.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Doctor Loomis from Halloween two, read the book as they say,
were in this case listen to the podcast as they
would say. All right, but this entire series is just
dedicated to giving thanks, not necessarily for Thanksgiving, but because

(01:37):
gratitude can increase your mental health positivity by statistically speaking,
thirty five percent. So this entire series is encouraging people
to give thanks. And one of the films that I'm
very thankful for in all of existence is this movie,

(01:58):
The Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
The house began to pitch, the kitchen took a slitch,
It landed on the Wicked Witch.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
In the middle of a ditcheating.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
We're not in Kansas anymore.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
It lands in theaters everywhere for the first time, digitally
restored and remastered a digital stereo.

Speaker 5 (02:43):
Sound, with all the songs, There's no Place like Home,
the magic Copy, all.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
The yellow the fun generations have waited to see the
most beloved movie of the century.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
On the big screen, and.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Put him up.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
The Wizard of.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Oz Special Edition, digitally restored and remastered in digital stereo sound.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
You've never seen Oz like this?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah? Absolutely, I was. I actually volunteered did this episode.
Josh had posted a couple of weeks ago about this
series and who was co hosting, uh and he did
not have a co host lined up for this episode,
and I volunteered myself. I was like, hey, can I
do Wizard of Oz and apparently you had asked like
two three other people and couldn't get any can get

(04:06):
anybody to do it, And I freaking volunteered on nowhere.
So I'm glad to be here. It's cool.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I love this movie. This movie is kind of
what got me started into being a centophile. It has
really made me into somewhat as cliche as it sounds,
it's it's part of the reason I am the way
that I am today. I love everything about this film.

(04:30):
It's and it's also probably one of my favorite books
of all time as well. So this just kind of
felt like a no brainer.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah. Yeah, I in my mind like this is where
I know this is not true, but I'm gonna say
it this way anyway because it makes sense to me.
But this is where movies started.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
No, this is not the first movie. And like it's
not the first movie, and it like it. There are
plenty of things it didn't do first. Yeah, but it's.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Become so influential throughout the years.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, it's it might be the most iconic movie.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I would argue that you're probably onto something. I mean,
you know, looking in our studio now, my office I'm
looking at Pearl and when we Biscazing did Pearl earlier
this year. Pearl is basically a twisted horror version of
Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
That's fun.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
But yeah, this movie, like there's so many iconic moments
in this movie. But before we jump into the conversation,
I'm kind of curious, like what your relationship is with
this movie in terms of like first seeing it too,
like where you are like with it now?

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Sure? Yeah, well I grew up with for my age.
I grew up with parents who are a little bit older,
and we're very much into music and musicals. We're talking
about the other day with my mom my grandfather, like
just sing opera every day, Like you get off work

(06:03):
and just come home and just sing operas and things
like that. And my mom's side of the family are
very much like musical theater people and theater kids, if
you will, And so I was raised very very much
on musicals and older musical singing in the rain Yentle

(06:25):
Fiddler on the Roof, what have You, and of course
The Wizard of Oz. And which is interesting, I don't
know that like every movie or the predominant movies in
the thirties were musicals. When I think of old movies,
I don't necessarily think of musicals, but this one, this
one just is one, you know, And I think that's

(06:46):
part of why it has become iconic, is because movies
aren't always catchy, but this movie is catchy. And I
think the songs are a big part of that. But yeah,
so I grew up on this movie, you know. I
always remember being excited about the color change, you know,
when Dorothy walks out of the house into oz and

(07:08):
things like that, and like the Lollipop Guild and all that,
like just little fun stuff that you like think is
fun and silly as a kid, you know. And then
I read the book. I didn't read any of the books.
I've only read the first one, but I read the
book as an adult, and I went through this phase
of just like I'm gonna read old children's books that

(07:30):
I never read, and this was one of them, and
I loved it. It really made me appreciate the movie
more how much they like little Easter eggs that are
in the movie, but also how much they kind of
left out and did just differently interpreted differently. And I
love the movie a lot, you know. I think I

(07:50):
have some criticisms now that I didn't used to have
because I just love books and so now I've read
the book and care about it. But yeah, I still
love the movie. To me, it's just it's the it's
the movie. It's the most iconic movie ever.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah. I also have very similar journeys with this one.
I mean I didn't have like families that like we
didn't watch a bunch of musicals, but there were like music.
There were movies that my grandmother was like very adamant
to show me growing up and outside of like Disney
and like probably the Back to the Future trilogy. This

(08:31):
was the one that we watched every year, and so
I watched this movie pretty much every October November.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
So for me, in my mind, I don't know how
other people see this. This movie is always a fall movie. Yeah.
And Turner Classic Movies used to play this movie just
on nauseum every like throughout the Thanksgiving and I loved
most people looked forward to like Thanksgiving Day Parade. I
loved getting to revisit and jump back into the land

(09:01):
of Oz and just how weird it is. And I
blame this movie somewhat for like probably being in love
with the medium of film the way that I am now,
but also at the same time probably why I enjoyed
directors like Cronenberg and Lynch. Yeah, because there's this kind

(09:24):
of almost surreal element to the Wizard of Oz. Then
I think Kana gets overlooked sometimes I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, I think like we think of painted sets now
as outdated because we just don't have a need for them.
But you know, yeah, you look back and you see
things like the sprawling landscape or would be landscape of
Oz behind you know, a fifty foot little set that

(09:55):
they're filming on, and yeah, it is very that, it's
very surreal. It's very just like, you know, they want
you and you have no reason not to believe that
they want you, to believe that Dorothy just walked all
those miles of winding road behind her that he's clearly
just painted on. And but it's beautiful, you know, it's not. Yeah,

(10:16):
it's not trite. You know, it's easy to take it
for granted. But like I never grew up being like, oh,
that's fake. You just don't. You just don't. And I
think that's that's kind of the point of surrealism, is
like you just accept what you're given, you know, and
you let it like affect you know, just how the

(10:39):
movie is kind of coming at you. You know, you
don't analyze every little bit. You can some movies are
made that way, but yeah, this movie is just it's weird.
It's so freaking weird, but it's beautiful, you know, and
it comes at you with recurring themes and character. And

(11:02):
it's a children's story, yes, but it's so like there's
something in for everybody. It's so timeless.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, there's this element of it that is just kind
of I feel like, growing up on it, you don't
really look at it as weird. It probably wasn't until
I started like diving into the book series and really
got it a grasp on what Frank Baum was really
going for in terms of crafting this world and just

(11:32):
how surreal and really weird it is and how colorful.
Like I've seen this movie countless number of times, and
there's something about it that's always really summersive to me,
and I think, like the paint it sets, like we're
watching this tonight. This was the first time I'd watched
it on Blu Ray since I bought it, and upgrade

(11:55):
it last year, and this is just one. I just
was like so taken back by just how gorgeous Oz
and the Emerald City and just the attention to details. Yeah,
and I feel like it sounds like really cliche to say,
you know that, not them being like they don't make
movies like they used to, but like having worked in

(12:18):
theater in high school like I like, and having crafted
sets and you know, painted and what like that, I
feel like I have a finer appreciation for a lot
more of like the finer details that this movie makes.
And it's funny we were talking about this earlier this morning,
where like you had said that for this episode, like

(12:40):
you really dove in really deep to the world of Oz.
And there's like three or four like different adaptations before
we even get to this one in nineteen thirty nine.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, there are I I am pulling up my letterbox
here now. So I watched The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
from nineteen ten. It's about a fifteen or so thirteen
apparently minute long silent film, and then The Wizard of

(13:10):
Oz from nineteen twenty five, again a silent film, but
that one's future length. And then His Majesty The Scarecrow
of Oz from nineteen fourteen, so they jumping back a
little bit there. That one's an alto also a future length.
It's kind of an adaptation of the Wizard of Oz.
It borrows some of the elements, but it does have

(13:32):
a different focus. And then a weird, weird, little nine
minute long cartoon from thirty three, just a few years
before this one was made, and that one also is
just called the Wizard of Oz. That one has no
cowardly lion. But yeah, it's fascinating, Like it's really fascinating that,
like this story was just people were just captivated by it.

(13:55):
They were, in fact, one of those Frank bomb l
Frank Baum, the guy who wrote it, like he directed
one of those movies. Just crazy.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
That's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, like that's that's so rare that that has ever happened,
but he did it.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
You know, look behind you.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, I mean that's true, Clive Parker. But I mean
that's kind of your play.

Speaker 6 (14:19):
Right, It's like it doesn't happen often, but yeah, it
doesn't happen often, and then when it does, it's like,
oh why, Like so like the beginning of it all
was a children's book and now we've got movies like
Hell Razor.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
You know, it's kind of weird to think about, but yeah,
it's interesting, and they all kind of some of them
really do the story of disservice, in my opinion, it's
just almost nothing like the book. And then some of
them just pick on little little little things that you
never think about, and they just really embellish them in
really neat ways, like one of them, I believe it
was the nineteen twenty five one. No, No, that one sucked.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I'm trying to remember which ones were good and which
one side, because there are some that were bad.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
While you're looking that up, I will say the one
that you brought up from nineteen fourteen is.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
That's what I'm going to talk about.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yep is Actually I believe it takes from the second
story because after Oz goes back, Dorothy goes back to
Kansas in the original story in it follows an entirely
new protagonist in the second book, and when they returned

(15:32):
to Oz, specifically the Emerald City, one of the three
I think it's the Scarecrow, but I also might be
the tin Man actually leads in the place of the Wizards.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, so yeah, the second book. I have not finished
the second book, but I don't think Dorothy's in it.
At the end of the first book, just like at
the end of the nineteen thirty nine movie, Scarecrow really
become he is crowned king. And then this this movie
I'm referring to here, the nineteen fourteen to one, His Majesty,

(16:08):
the Scarecrow of Oz is actually the inspiration for the
next book that comes out. It comes out a year
or two after the movie, so it's kind of weird,
but it does have elements of the Wizard of Oz.
The first book. There is like an element of like, oh,
they meet the two men and the cowardly Lion and
they all travel together and the Wizard helps them, and
it's a lot of it's very different. But then like

(16:29):
one of the really cool things about the movie, and
this is not going to be the most PC thing
in the world, but this is nineteen fourteen, so it's
not my fault. But the Scarecrow is in his field
and he's just like up there on his beams and
he's not alive at this point, and you see this
like this girl come on the screen with a feather

(16:53):
sticking up and she does like a little dance around him,
and then he comes to life and then the girls
never seen before after that part, that's uncomfortable. Again, not
very PC, not very PC. But it was also like
the book completely takes for granted that he could ever talk. Yeah,

(17:14):
So to see that them put like some sort of intentionality,
like Bomb himself directed that one. Like to see him
put some intentionality into like why the Scarecrow can talk
at all was really freaking cool because he didn't always
do that with some characters. Some characters just couldn't talk, yeah,
and some characters had to be made to talk, you know,

(17:35):
so really really neat they even did that. And then
like the cartoon one from thirty three, they that little
cone thing on top of the Tim Woodman's head. It's
a funnel in the thirty nine movie, but in the
thirty three movie they actually take it off his head
and it's the oil can. And there's just really fun

(17:58):
little things like that that the those preceding movies did.
They're mostly bad movies, but there are some really neat things.
And that's kind of how I personally feel about film
back then, is like their need at best are usually
not good.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Well, I think what I often find, you know, now
programming a film festival is sometimes it's not necessarily the
quality of the storytelling, but the limit of the budget
and how that budget was used. Sure, And so when
you think about this one, you know, we talked about this,
you you brought this up when we watched it. But

(18:35):
one of the trivia facts being that like the Cowardly Lion,
and this was almost played by the MGM Lion, and
the MGM was was a major studio, so you had
like the actual like studio backings where I would imagine
a lot of those other ones because like I thought

(18:56):
this was like the first adaptation, then you've got like
several other adaptation since then. I was wrong in that one,
And so I would imagine that the reason that a
large portion of like those other adaptations don't have the
legacy that this one does is because of you know,

(19:19):
probably budgetary reasons.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
But silent films, like silent films don't really track. I
personally don't think they have the longevity.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
You know, No, And I would probably say, like nos
Feratu is maybe like the one inception to that.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I mean you could make some you can make
some arguments for Charlie Chaplin. But even then, I don't
remember any of the names of Chaplain's movies. I just
remember them as being iconic for their era. You know
that's true.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
I mean if you can also say the same about
like Buster Keaton, sure, yeah, yeah, Marx Brothers, the Silent
Film right some yeah, not all of them, Okay, yeah,
but like yeah, like you still like you you can
name like the actors, but it's it's really hard to
like name like specific films from that era.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Right exactly. And that's where like No Sparatu yeah, really
holds its own.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
It's like that's just the entire Silent era. It's just.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
And then other movies that wish is they were that
there's there's no there's two types of silent films, No
Saratu and not No Sparatu. That's right, That's right.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
So yeah, I I feel like this movie is like
so layered though that I don't even know like really
where to start with it in terms of like wanting
to do this film like justice.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, it's really tough. Like something that I was just
sort of picking on this time around is how much
this movie really is. It both is and is not
about Dorothy, Like Dorothy is the centerpiece, but everything that
she is so in Kansas she's affected by the actions

(21:05):
of everyone else. In Oz, everyone else is affected by
her actions. And I thought that was really interesting. And
of course they do these really neat parallels with like
the actors, right, so the actors in the actor of
the Wizard is plays this character named Marvel, and he
is a charlatan, complete and total charlatan, you know, when

(21:26):
she meets him in Kansas. That's actually somewhat accurate to
the book. He plays, uh when he where he was
from before he was the quote unquote wizard is he
was basically like a circus worker and he could just
he was a ventriloquist. He could throw his voice. That
was what he did, you know. So he's still dealt
in deception, you know, in a way, you know. And

(21:48):
then you have like the guy who plays the Cowardly
Lion is like, come on, growth you oh you need
you just need to be brave, You need to have
a little courage, and and you know you get that too.
Of like the guy who plays the Scarecrow is like, oh,
you just got to use your head. And so they
mirror they kind of Echo, they foreshadow their the characters
that they then play in in OZ, but again, like

(22:12):
instead of them helping her because she's this helpless little
girl and her wanting to run away from home because
she just doesn't think that she's cared for or she
wants to live her own life or whatever, you know,
they kind of backfires and then she goes through this
journey of you know, realizing that like, yeah, she wants

(22:34):
to be at home, but also like home is where
everyone she loves and needs already is.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really is like one of those
like uh long jit long format of like you don't
know what you have until it's gone it is, yeah,
And I think that's kind of one of the most
fascinating things about this movie is that we always is.
I feel like we're never quite satisfied. And I feel

(23:04):
like that was kind of something that I had as
a kid to where like I could accumulate but like
still want it.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
More, oh sure.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
And the reason that I bring that up is because,
like I talked about, like earlier about this this movie
of like really being thankful for what you have and
being thankful for and being content, right, Like that's one
of those things that I've really struggled with, and I
feel like I've noticed it a lot more in the
last probably five years or so, you know. And the

(23:34):
thing that kind of is the centerpiece for me is
that old is that Bible verse from Paul where he
talks about, I know what it's like to be content
in all things? Yeah, you know, and so it's kind
of really changed my advantage point from that, you know,
because he talks about being both poor and rich, being
both hungry and full clothed and naked, and like he

(23:57):
gives like five or six examples, but they're all they
always kind of juxtapose to one another. If you were
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Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, yeah, I feel that I was. I listened to
the first book, I listened to the audiobook last week
again in preparation for their watch in the podcast, and
I have been like listening to and reading like Proverbs
and Proverbs is just it's a lot of the same
sort of themes regurgitated and but so much of it

(26:07):
talks about like wisdom and knowledge the people. The person
who is wise is the person who seeks wisdom. Sure,
the person who is knowledgeable also desires knowledge, you know,
And so like you and I saw it all throughout
the book of Like the scarecrow is the one who
is like, oh, we got to get across river. We

(26:29):
just need to build a raft. We just need to
do this, We just need to do that. Every idea
is from the scarecrow on this way to get his brain.
There's the lions and tigers and bears songs that is
kind of comes from when they meet the cowardly Lion.
They go into this wood and there are these creatures,

(26:51):
I forget what they're called, that they have the bodies
of bears and the heads of tigers. And who stands
up to them, the cowardly lion, you know. And then
who's who you are? You're away gonna know this one, right,
But like, who's the character in the book that's most
prone to tears, the one without a heart. Yeah, and
it's that way the entire book. And so they're going

(27:14):
to the Wizard and being like, oh, hey, we lack
these things. We need them, and he's like, and they
do a great job of this in the movie, where
he's like, no, you don't. You don't lack those things
at all. You know, like anybody else would want just
as much heart as you already have, yeah, you know,
and you realize that, like that's the beauty of like

(27:37):
the Scarecrow in particular, is just like he is already
knowledgeable and wise because he's the one who wants knowledge
and wisdom. Yeah, you know, and it's about like, and
the same is fairly true for Dorothy. Of like Dorothy
finds a home wherever she is, you know, people just

(27:58):
surround her and help her wherever she is, and it's
just yeah, really really cool. Yeah, themes about just not
taking yourself or your situation for granted at all.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, perception is like really key in those types of environments. Yeah,
And I think that's one of the most fascinating things
this film gets right. Especially the one scene that I'm
thinking about is like after the guard kind of rejects
them and says, hey, the Wizard's not going to see
you anymore. And yeah, you know she's like, oh, I
wish that like I could see my aunt, you know,

(28:32):
one more time, like and she's probably worried, sick, and
I just want to bring your peace. And you know,
you bring up all those other great examples of moments
where you know, the line, the cowardly line has courage,
or the tin Man you know, shows affection and has
these moments of like showcasing what it looks like to

(28:53):
have a heart, and the Scarecrow with having brains and
you know, smarts and whiz and an understanding and all
of these things. And it's it is this matter of
perception really of like you can literally have everything that
you would ever need, be one satisfied. Yeah, but because

(29:16):
we live in a modern era where it's really hard
to kind of exist on that where you know, we
phones get upgraded every year, cars get upgraded every year.
You know, there's a there's a number of things that
just kind of say if you don't upgrade, then you suck.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Basically Yeah, yeah, yeah, very very true, very very true.
It it just becomes a war of things like comparison.
You know, it becomes a war of like comparison and
expectation instead of what the opposite is of expectation. The
opposite of expectation is gosh, that's hard to say, but

(30:01):
the opposite of comparison is probably thankfulness. It probably is. Yeah,
you know, if you were learned, if you learned to
be thankful and content where you are, who you are,
with what you have, then comparison would fall short. You know,
it wouldn't do you any good anymore.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, that's part of the reason we did the series
was to encourage people to give things, because I think
we give thanks. You know, we're taught as a society
that we give thanks once a year, gather around a
meal and we watch some football. Like that's kind of
the norm of what we do, you know. And maybe

(30:38):
we give thanks for you know, families or you know,
maybe jobs or whatever situation. These really basic answers, but
when it boils down to it, it's like, what are
you like really thankful for? And dude, I don't know
about you, but like I get like really like overwhelmed
where I'm like, man, I'm really thankful for like my
board of directors, I'm really great for people that I

(31:02):
get to podcast with, like you, Billy and Mark, and
all the friends and that I've made in this past
you know, eight years doing Victims and Villains, off the
frequent collaborators that we've been able to do, all the
people that like I talk to on a daily basis
and that like I support and they support us, and
you know, like those are the people that, like, I'm

(31:23):
like really genuinely thankful for. And I thought to say that,
like I'm not thankful for like the media we talk about,
but at the end of the day, like media is
going to be like gone, yea, and those people and
those relationships are what's gonna be what's gonna matter. And
but again it comes down to gratitude, like has an

(31:44):
impact on your mental health. And I think you see
that at the end of this movie when she kind
of wakes up and she's surrounded by literally everyone that
she was trying to get back to and she's just
kind of has this like happy ending. I think as
far as happy endings go, this is the best.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Sure, yeah, yeah, it's it's a really it's really satisfying
like happy ending, and you know, I want to go back,
like I love what you said about like it's the
importance of being thankful for people and like media is
gonna you know, media can go away. But also, like
like you said, media in a manner of speaking, upgrades. Sure,

(32:26):
you know, it changes. It changes with technology and preference
and whether or not the label says a twenty four
on it or you know, like what have you. It's
a bit of commentary there. But uh, you know, like
media has that of evolving nature. You can't replace a person.

(32:48):
I mean if you could, then you know that. I
mean that's what victims and Bills is all about, right,
you can't replace a person. No, you know, that's just
the whole deal, and.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
It's kind of been our whole mantra. This year of
of things is the beginning of this. I think it
was the end of last year. Cam our secretary also
editor in chief, can invests like a secretary. I'll sample
this and make sure he hears this. But he went

(33:15):
to he went to a conference and one of the
pastors there like said something in one of their sermons
and kind of like got this entire mantra of you know,
you are not repeatable, and he brought that up in
a board meeting, and it just kind of stuck with us,
It's kind of stuck with everyone, and it's been so
much of the emphasis that when I speak at shows

(33:39):
or at conventions or film festivals, really hammering that in
because you know, for us, that's that's a biblical truth,
like you know, confusions talks about were God's own original masterpiece,
like you know, but also at the same time, like
that's something there's something beautiful in that where it's like

(34:02):
you are not reputable, there's one of me, there's one
of you. And if I was to end my life today,
there would you know, the world, I think would be
a much worse place, the same way that if anyone
was to take their life, the world would be a
much worse place.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah. Yeah, the world now lacks potential that it had,
you know out absolutely for sure. And even if that
world is even if that world is just four or
five people, big chances are those four or five people
have worlds of their own that are four or five
people big. And now all of a sudden, you're already
out to you know, twenty five people that are being

(34:41):
affected by the death of one person. Yeah, you know, potentially,
and that's a big deal. You know, that's a that's
a it's a butterfly effect, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, I mean I think about the I think about
my own story, like Victims would not have started had
I not lost out of the suicide fifteen years ago.
And it's so crazy for me to think about, like
how taking a job and befriending a fellow metal head

(35:11):
would like just the trajectory it took my life, like
it completely, like just reroute it in my entire life,
and you know there are it's it's the reason that
I know you, It's the reason I know Ronnie Brandon Mark,
you know Cam it's and it's the reason I met

(35:32):
my wife. It's like so like this entire thing is
like quite literally shaped my entire existence. And I think
about that. It's just like, man, like, it's kind of
crazy to think about that, Like you know that world.
Like you said, like maybe maybe there are ten people
in our own respective universes, and if we were to

(35:55):
not if we were ceased to exist, we die by suicide,
then we've now affected those ten Those ten people have
now affected ten more people. Yeah, so on and so forth.
And it is this butterfly effect, you said, you Trivia
for me.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, Yeah, there's so much there's so much trivia for
the os it's crazy, and I mean, I mean, I
guess you could consider things like differences between the book
and the movie trivia, which we can get into that
sum But some of the trivia in this movie is
real dark, real sad. A lot of the makeup and
effects that we use were very harmful to the actors

(36:36):
and actresses. Forget her name, but the lady who plays
the Wicked Witch of the West.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Margaret Hamilton actress.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
You know what she looks like a Margaret, it's the
nose she uh. She suffered like second or third degree
burns from like that first like yeah, disappearance scene, disappearance scene. Yeah,
and part of it to do I think with the
makeup they used as well, was like partially flammable her
like green skin. And then like we're talking about this, uh,

(37:09):
the the tin Woodman Jack Hayley, Yeah, that's his name
in the book. Sorry, The tin Woodman, The Tin Man,
if you will, that's a horror movie. I've never seen it.
Hed he was poisoned because they use actual ground up
ten in in his makeup. Scarecrow had permanent scars on

(37:33):
his face.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
That's I forgot about that one.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah yeah, because of like his makeup and prosthetics or
as proto prosthetics at the time, things like that. Dorothy
was fine as far as her makeup goes, but her
like mom or or somebody in control of her life
basically basically like it made her a user. She would

(38:01):
give her like I forget what it was, but basically
like they would They would film for so many hours
in a row that she would give her drugs to
keep her awake, and then when she needed rest, she
would just like feed her sleeping pills and just crap
like that just really not good. So uppers and down
Uppers and Downer is basically yeah, yeah, really not good. Uh.

(38:23):
There the real people that was a I forget where
they were from, but only one of them could speak English.
So any English that you hear spoken by a little
person is just spoken by one of them because only
one of them was American. All right, So with that,

(38:45):
I don't know if you know this or not, but
given the fact that you are, you're especially also in
costume and in makeup for that and also dubbing for
like a couple of yeah characters, Well some of there
were children, Okay, to be fair, a couple of dozen people. Yeah, characters.

(39:07):
Did they get paid paid higher? I don't know. But
what I do know is that Toto the Dog made
more money than the little people.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
And know I'm like almost half the cast too.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, Toto made I think I might pledge the figures here,
but Toto made like one hundred and twenty five or
one hundred and fifty a week and the little people
made fifty. So it was something like that. Yeah, And
we were discussing, like, you know what, like there's gonna
be especially for that point in time, like women were

(39:40):
not paid as well and things like that, so there's
gonna be a bit of that mistreatment. But also there's
some like there's some things we're not really sure how
to figure out, Like some of the actors had multiple roles,
particularly the guy who played Oz had five different roles
in the movie, So it's like, well, they pay them
based off of role? Did they pay them based off

(40:02):
of screen time? Did they pay them based off of
what they had to undergo as far as their makeup went?
Like there, you know, I kind of wonder things like that.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
I think this is less so like when I think
about this, like, there's not a whole lot of movies
from around this time, with the exception of The Universal Monsters.
And there's a great documentary that came out on Shutter
a few years ago about Bella Lagosi and kind of

(40:33):
his like legacy in The Universal Monsters, and they talked
about like the different like makeup challenges for that he
had to undergo.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
And but.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
I can't really think of any any other makeup at
this time. But I think that this was probably in
terms of makeup, this was for the time it was made.
This was probably kind of like the biggest production. So
I don't think that there was like a lot of knowledge, sure,
probably about a lot of that stuff and a lot

(41:12):
of the dangers of its like lasting effects in terms
of stuff like that. Because you know the scene where
they are, what is like during the they're in the
flout of the poppy field, the poppy field they have
the rain from Glinda come down, it's all that's one
hundred percent of asbestos. So like, yeah, I just some

(41:37):
of the stuff by today's standards, you're just like you
read this and you're just like, ah, it's kind of cringe.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
It's kind of like, wow, it's really cringe. There are
some neat things, just fun er trivia, like dorothy shoes
the slippers are silver in the books. Don't know why
they made them read in the movies. But yeah, there's
like little things like that. Yeah, when you started comparing

(42:05):
the book and the movies the book in the movie,
you learn a lot. There's some interesting things there that
are kind of fun to find out. I'm so the
Wicked Witch of the Rest rules over and enslaved people
called the Winkies and they're meant to be yellow. Not
really sure why they made them all green. And then
the tin Woodman. They love the tin Woodman. He rules

(42:28):
over them as king. Actually when when Dorothy leaves, just
like the Scarecrow rules over the Emerald City is king.
Things like that. So there's fun things. The wind of
the good Witch doesn't come back after that first scene.
She's the good Witch of the North. There's a good

(42:49):
Witch in the South that they go see the monkeys,
the winged monkeys. That was only one guy in the movie. Yeah,
which was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
And uh, what's his name? Are gonna look it up
for you real quick?

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah, Yeah, it was just neat. Uh that was only
one guy in the book. They are they they don't
work for the witch except for because of like she
has this golden golden cap that has an incantation on
it that she can summon them up to three times,
and she does summon them, and then she can't use

(43:27):
the cap anymore. So Dorothy actually gets it and Dorothy
is able to to to summon them and and basically
has like this casual little friendship with them. They're not
they're good people, They're just slave to this cap. They
don't actually just do the bidding of the witch.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Uh So the which two things I'll say real quick. Yeah,
the first one is going to be the The actor's
name is Pat Walsh. Yeah, yeah, you primarily see and
I know that there are like there's a couple other
like different actors that do play, but he's like the
primary wing wing at monkey. But two, the scene where

(44:09):
like Dorothy like melts or as Oz would say, liquidates
yea through the dialogue and it's going to be as
strong to the West, it makes sense that the wing
at monkey would like go over and like would first off,
would like tap the the hat. It's like the first

(44:30):
thing he does. I don't know if you remember that.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, that's true. Wow, I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah,
that's really cool. The horses of a different color, the
multiple horses were used. You see horses and like three
different colors. They of all the creatures in the movie
were humanely colored. They were colored with jello and they

(44:54):
kept trying to eat it.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Like when you say jello, do you mean and like
Jello is a brand? I mean Jello, yeah, yeah, but
I mean like like the power the Yeah, okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
I don't know why I couldn't treat the humans better,
but the words, they just jello on them.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Again, I think we're still like and again you have
to consider when this film was made. This film was
probably made, given the fact that it was slower. This
came out in sep. Thirty nine, It probably started production
on thirty seven. Yeah, if not thirty six. And so
this is still like very very early into the talkies,

(45:39):
that's true. Yeah, so like with the talkies, like you know,
we brought this up still in the talkie era.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
H what's next?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Right before four dy obviously know where you get to
smell baby diapers?

Speaker 2 (45:53):
It was Feelies.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Squish Squish, what's for where you But you know, like
we talked about this like color, like the idea of
color on screen, like we we know that is like
the version that this film was. But yeah, I don't
think a color version of this film was existed until

(46:17):
probably the mid fifties.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, which is crazy. First of all, it's crazy to
me because again, like you said, our paradigm is that
this movie is mostly in color. Yeah, but it's crazy
to me because I know there were other colorized movies
and just none of them looked this good, none of
them at all.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
I think I think the you know, we talked about
this at the beginning of the podcast, but there's there's
just an immersive quality about Oz. Yeah, and it's part
of the reason that I think this movie works as
well as it does and has this like legacy that's
just withstandard. Now that's not to say that there haven't
been other adaptations, and but I think the reason that

(47:01):
this one has survived as long as it has is
because it is a you know, it's it's colorful, yeah,
and you can tell me, you can tell the attention
in detail, and it makes it timeless because of how
colorful and how vibrant it is.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah, and the books too, Like that book came out
in nineteen hundred, it's one hundred and twenty four years
old this year, and it doesn't read dated hardly at all.
It's just it's crazy. It feels very very timeless. It's
all very intuitive. It makes a lot of sense. Even

(47:42):
other books at the time, books like Peter Pan feel
more dated, like automatically, and I don't know what it is,
but the Wizard of Oz holds up. It's very very strong,
it's very very good.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Well, I think when you look at The Wizard of
Oz as a story, it is a story worry about
the power of kindness, the power of redemption, the power
of forgiveness, the power of you know, really wanting to
have an understanding of like what's important in life. And

(48:17):
you know, I think even in later books that the
idea of when you under when you when you finally
also understand like that the Wizards kind of like the
he's kind of like the anomaly to those themes. But
even later in other books and other sequels in the series,
redeems him and so you you find that like this

(48:40):
this is just a land of like opportunity and new beginnings,
and I think a lot of those themes just continuously
resonate with people on and on and on, and it's
just the power of not only good storytelling, but also
at the same time crafting stories that are are deeply

(49:01):
rooted into themes that connect and hit all of us
on a deep emotional, microscopic level.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, how would you guys like to help us get
mental health resources into schools, conventions, and other events. Well,
now you can simply go to Patreon dot com Ford Sage,
Victims and Villains. For as little as one dollar a month,
you guys can help us get mental health resources into

(49:30):
current and upcoming generations, educate and break down stigma surrounding
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Speaker 7 (49:38):
And depression, and to get exclusive content that you can't
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Speaker 8 (49:49):
All it takes to get started is to go to
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Speaker 7 (50:00):
So pick your tier and get started today. Yes, it's
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help us get hope.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Into the hands of the depressed and the suicidal today.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Yeah. And two, just like there's the legacy aspect of it,
there's the the sort of cultural impact of OZ. Like, yeah,
we can talk about how movies and satire and stuff
have always referenced OZ. Sure, you know, the whole world
thing and like all all yeah, and you're like all

(50:35):
those little like all those things that everybody references and
stuff and all that's fun. But like, you know, there
are some really famous, really amazing stories, like I guess
on the older end of things, stuff like Narnia, you know,
and then on the newer end of things, things like
maybe even Stranger Things of like there's these stories of

(50:58):
kids finding other works worlds and going and exploring them
and they all that all comes from OZ.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yeah, all of it. I never never really have kind
of built this bridge between OZ and and Stranger Things.
But I think you're right. I think it's just a
matter of how you interpret that, because I mean, at
its core, that's really what this story is is a
is a girl that goes to a far off land

(51:26):
and essentially tries to get home. Yep, you know. And
that's that's forbatim what we see with with stranger things
and other things that are like it, you know, or
maybe maybe it's not quite that route, but maybe it's like,
you know, something like you know, Monster Squad or Goony's
where you have you know, elements that are like they're

(51:50):
trying to, you know, get back home, but they got
to face off against this like.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Weird Little Monsters, Little Monsters, great example. Yeah yep, yeah, yeah, yeah,
goody is a good one. Little Monsters never Knowing story.
I mean it's just yeah, property after property after property
is the whole like, oh, somebody found a world underneath
their staircase or whatever and they go explore and it's
crazy and yeah, Oz was the pregenerator of all of that.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
I gotta say Little Monsters might be high on my
list favorite one. Yeah, so good.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Wow that movie is. That movie gets away with a lot.
It really does.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
I rewatched it like probably two years ago, and I
was like, man, I was like, I love the mess
out of this movie.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
So good. But man, they got away with a lot.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
But that's it's like the eighties, man, like you know,
you could just those were just the things the days
where you could get and then yeah, in the nineties
and it got crazier and weirder. Yeah, and then it
kind of mellowed out by the time we hit the
new millennium.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Yeah, yeah, kind of yeah, except for yeah, that's true. Yeah,
even gosh, I'm still thinking of people under the stairs,
Richard Terabithia. Yeah, like there's so many Harry Potter, like
so many. Of course, Harry Potter is a bunch of
different stories mashed together. But anyway, we have our own
podcast episode of talking about how bad Harry Potter is.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
But that's not the point. So Star Wars star Wars. Yeah, no,
I'm saying Harry Potter ripped off Star Wars. Oh yes, yes,
that's true. I'm just losing listenership as we can. Uh So,
I will hit you with some trivia since that's normally
my cup of tea Doctor Who, uh yeah, especially Doctor Who.

(53:45):
Many shots were trimmed down or edited down because the
film was too intense for families and children.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
It's like a tammy the t Rex situation.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
It might be. In particular, I want the Gore cut
of sort of oz One. Deleted scene shows the tornado
completely enveloping the Farmhouse. Also later in the film, a
lot of the Wicked Witch of the Witch's scenes were
either trimmed or deleted, as Margaret Hamilton's performance was thought

(54:16):
to be too frightening for audiences.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Amazing, I want to see that. Yeah, same, Where are
these scenes? Those scenes will the MGM cutting room floor? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Probably never to see the light of day, unless some
of them have landed on my blu Ray we'll check
after we get done.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Judy Garland found it difficult to be afraid of Margaret
Hamilton because she was such a nice person off camera. Ah,
there's a wholesome one for you to kind of offsets
the breaood. I want you, I want you to imagine
this when you think of The Wizard of Oz. What
is the one song that you think most people associate

(55:04):
with this movie.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
We're off to see the Wizard and I'll tell you why. Okay,
because you can't sing that song and it not be
a reference to this movie. Now, this movie did win
an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Somewhere Over
the Rainbow, But Somewhere Over the Rainbow has been covered
and done and associated with other things since. Okay, So

(55:30):
I think we're obviously the Wizard.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
So that's the one that the latter song is the
one I want to vote because MGM was this close
from scrapping it in the film. Yeah, which makes no
sense to me.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Now, like Somewhere over the Rainbow, I think it has
this like quality about it that's very thematic. It's very moving,
it's very emotional when you think of, you know, we're
off to see the Wizard. That one is very whimsical
and it's very much like ingrained into the DNA of
this film. However, the with the former, I think that

(56:09):
the former has a has its own carved out legacy
and I can't I'm so baffled reading that that this
that one almost did not get found its way into
this film. They felt that the Kansas sequence took too long,
and as well as for being over the heads of

(56:32):
the children from whom it was intended, study also thought
that it was degrading for Judy Garland to sing in
a barnyard. A reprise of the song was cut. Dorothy
sang it to Remember Kansas while imprisoned in the Witch's Castle,
and Garland began to cry along with the cast and

(56:52):
crew because the song was so sad.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Wow, that's wild, but I want to see it. There's
a speaking of things that like stories about people in
other worlds, you know, like we're talking about was Robots.
Princess Bride. The guy who plays Enigo Mondoya, his name

(57:17):
is Manny Patinkin. He is an actor, yes, but he
is also very predominantly a singer. And Manny Patinkin has
a He sings a a Yiddish version of Somewhere Over
the Rainbow and it is just beautiful. Really, if you
haven't heard it, I recommend it.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
I will check it out tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It's awesome.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
The the other thing that, like you bring up Princess Bride,
the we talked about this, this film's influence on like
leader films, and you know we're talking about this movie.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It's eighty five.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Yeah, eighty it'll be eighty four this year. No, it
came out thirty nine, yeah yeah, yeah, eighty five years.
You're right, So eighty five years you were still talking
about this. It's you know, fifteen years away from being
a century old, and but you still feel it's influence
throughout the media. You know, we are constantly still you know,

(58:15):
upgrading this to you know four K or the you know,
the leg latest thing. But that scene in particular with
the Winkies, when the core cast of characters gets there
to rescue Dorothy, Yeah, and they kind of overlook That
reminds me of that Princess that scene in Princess Bride
when the three of them get there to rescue Buttercup.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
And stop the wedding.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
And it never dawned on me until this rewatch. Yeah,
like this looks familiar.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah. Yeah, I mentioned during that scene it was like
nobody talks about how this movie becomes a heist movie
for like five minutes.

Speaker 9 (58:50):
Yeah, but it does, you know, And that's that's kind
of what I think that like makes this movie, Like
you mentioned having some issues with it, the order you
get this movie to me is like, this is the
movie I.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Would show film that like people that like, if ever
were like, hey, I'm interested in becoming like a centophile.
What's a good place to start. This is the first
thing I'm showing.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
No, totally, Yeah, and my issues are only in comparing
it to the book.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, it has nothing to do with me or you know,
aging and watching this movie back. I think this movie
ages very very well. But yeah, in comparison, in comparison
comparing certain things of the book, it's just like why
did they do this this tray? Little things like that,
like we brought it, you brought up the winkies, Like
why are the winkies green? They're supposed to be yellow.

(59:42):
Just little things like that. But also like I don't know,
like there's some monotony I think that they tried to avoid.
You know, if you had really made munchkin Land look
like what munch Land's supposed to look like, it wouldn't
have been as vibrant. Yeah, you know, and that's that's
a good thing. That's okay for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Yeah, And you know that's the that's the power of adaptation,
is that like even if you know, I don't always
agree with it, I can respect them and sometimes I
do agree, sometimes I don't, But you know, at the
end of the day, it's somebody making a creative decision
off of, you know, a existing property that they are
interpreting through their own lens. Yeah. But yeah, I like

(01:00:24):
this film to me, I think is like just perfect
start to finish. Yeah, it's it hits all the right
notes that you wanted to hit, and the fact that
it goes from you know, being a this like CPIA
musical to this like grand adventure film to a heist
movie in this like very vibrant setting. And there's like

(01:00:46):
we talked about the writing earlier, like this movie is
so funny, yeah, and it's like surprisingly yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
And there's like there's not a lot of movies from
this era that I'd look to and be like, man,
this movie's hysterical, you know, Like I think about I
brought the Universal Monsters movies up earlier, and those movies
are fantastic. Yeah, don't don't not a hint of comedy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Well I laugh at Bride of Frankenstein, but I know,
I don't know that you're supposed to. You know, you
end up laughing because that one did in Age as well.
There are characters that are just kooky and you end
up getting a laugh, you know. And I do love
old comedy, So I do actually genuinely think that movies
like ab and Kells still meet Frankenstein. I think those

(01:01:33):
are still funny. They hold up as funny. That's also
the first horror comedy, so it's kind of a special
place in my art. But yeah, and like you don't
just nowadays, you might have a movie of any genre
and it might just be funny sure, and not be
a comedy. Back then you don't think of movies that way,
But Wizard of Oss is very much that way.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
It's like I've always I feel like I've said over
the last couple of years that it takes like a
true like it's a threw someone that is true in
their craft and like understands the magnitude of storytelling to
like move through genres in this way like it's a masterclass.
Like I think we talked about this on the dream

(01:02:14):
Scenario episode, the way that it kind of like weaved
in and out of like different genres and like kind
of floated in and out of certain things like and
I think that's what Wizard of Oz does, and it
does so well. It just like nothing feels out of place.
It just kind of feels like it's a continuation and
it's a new branch that's grafting off the existing one.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It hit me this time.
I think it's hit me before, but this time when
we first get into Kansas and just like wow, courage
the Cowardly Dog. This has courage, the cowardly dog.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Yeah, just the.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Whole setting and everything, and like just the immediate chaos
is just every episode, you know, and the whole like
oh yeah, they lived in a gray land, in a
gray farmhouse and a great like all of it. All
of that too. The beautiful thing about the movie is
that's one of the most accurate parts of the movie
compared to the book, is that Kansas is one hundred

(01:03:14):
percent gray. It's completely described as gray except for Toto
because Toto is black, and that's like it. Yeah, and
they capture I mean, they couldn't do black and white
at the time. But I think that's part of why
this movie is so good for its era, is like

(01:03:35):
it needed to be the only thing that it could be, yeah,
which was black and white. Yeah, you know, it suited
it so well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
So we talked about this earlier, but this being one
of the most iconic movies, if not the most iconic
movie of all time. A recent study claimed that this
is the most watched movie in film history, largely due
to the number of television screenings every year, as well
as various video DVD, Blu ray and four K release,

(01:04:03):
which has enabled kids of every and all generations to
watch it, and that this I think is one of
those very few films that, like, again I go back to, like,
everyone should see the Wizard of Oz at least once absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Yeah. I don't know if the once is enough, but
at least once for sure? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think too,
Like we could spend a brief amount of time to
talking about the offshoots, the other things that Wizard of
Oz has kind of spawned outside of just the books, right,
because the books are their own thing. Not a lot
of people have read the books, but you might be

(01:04:40):
very familiar with Obviously, this is November. We're get We've
we're getting. By the time this episode comes out, we
will have gotten Wicked finally. Yeah, Wicked art one on
the big screen, and I, for one, like I was
first introduced to Wicked. I've never seen it. I've only
ever heard the soundtrack. But I've heard the soundtrack a
stupid amount of times. You know, I was first interested,
introduce used into that over twenty years ago, now, yeah,

(01:05:03):
you know, and as a fan of like a musical
musical film like I am over the moon excited about it,
and and then also too, I was listening to another
movie podcast earlier this year, and they were talking about
they're just giving Halloween recommendations, and they were like, this

(01:05:23):
movie is not a Halloween movie, but it feels like Halloween.
And that is the return to Oz, you know, the
nineteen eighty five Disney movie with Ferrusa Bulk as Dorothy.
The movie is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. It is and is
not anything like the original in nineteen thirty nine, but

(01:05:43):
it like it's not a musical at all. There's no
black and white, but like, and it's not for children,
that much is for sure. But it's a blast. You
get to see more of Oz, you get to see
more of Dorothy and Toto, you know, and it's just
it's so freaking fun if you've never seen it, so

(01:06:05):
weird and so good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Uh The Wicked, I was gonna say, actually started out
as a book before it was a Broadway play.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Was it a book first two?

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I think so yes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
I thought it was just a play.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Uh No, And apparently the book is like supposed that
it is not for children.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
No, it's not. It's like it's like a fan fiction
feel to it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
I've I've I don't know anything about Wicked or I've
I've heard of like I've heard a handful of songs
on the soundtrack. I'm going in as blind as possible,
just because I'm such a huge fan of the the
the inspiration for it. As we're sitting here talking about
this movie, yeah, you know, and and I think about

(01:06:51):
like just yeah, like I'm I'm very excited for it. Yeah,
and I can't remember, like you know, it's I feel
like we're starting to get like a like a slow
resurgence of musicals because we got Wonka last year, we
had Me and Girls earlier this year, and you know,
now we're getting not Wicked, and I'm just I I

(01:07:14):
can get behind that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Yeah. Yeah, forever waiting for a Nicholas Cage musical but.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Wild Heart guy. Yeah, but not a musical, but it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
He produced a single for it, and I have it
on vinyl thanks to you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Hey, that's right. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. But I'm really
really excited. And there's been so many other really neat,
fun cool things muppets, Muppets.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Are a Wizard of Oss.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Stuff like that, and like all that stuff. I feel
like I was saying this earlier, but I would wager
that this is probably the most adapted book series to
TV and film of any other. Just The Wizard of
Oz has in and of itself, like twelve or so
adaptations own any of the other books, you know, returned

(01:08:03):
to Oz, the Whiz Tin Man, Oz of It and
Powerful and then all just loads of cartoons and other things.
It's wild. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
I was just gonna say, there's a there's a series
from the nineteen sixties, I think it was sixty one
sixty two, right, for over one hundred episodes and its
tales from the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yeah. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah, And it's like you think about like this like late,
and you never realize how big this legacy was because
like I think it was in you know, Toho has
a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Yeah, freaking tell these people, these people own Godzilla and
they're doing Wizard of Oz cartoons in the.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Early eighties, nineteen eighty man. Crazy, But like you think
about it, like I didn't actually know how why did
it extended up probably until like maybe eight years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Yeah, because like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
I was like, oh, they there's just one book, and
like I like sat down and like actually read it
and I was like whoa, whoa, there's fourteen books.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Yeah, but by Baum himself, and there are a bunch
of other authors who continued. Some people say like, oh,
there's forty official books, but there's honestly even more than that,
and some of them are actually written by relatives the
original author.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
Like I was gonna say, like, you know, OZ is
even talking about different mediums, like OZ has made its
way into comic books.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Xenoscope has done like an higher line of like OZ
related themes and books and with their grim fairy tale
line and you know, so it's not like a huge
shock to me that it's hit. Like every type of
medium exists in existence.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Yeah, even uh Stephen in the Dark Tower series, OZ
pops up yep in one of the books. I've never
read those books, but I was again just doing research
about OZ and like it's crazy, it's insane, Like how
far re whaching the book became. There's just that one
that one book just you know, blew up bomb. Wasn't

(01:10:07):
even going to do a sequel, but the first book
just did super super well. And I think I was
reading his Wikipedia the other day and it said something
like he even he was like, yeah, the book like
it was so easy to write, like it kind of
just came to him. It was one of those things,
and uh yeah, and then he just continued to write

(01:10:28):
more and you get crazy, crazy characters like Bac Pumpkinhead
as seen as in Return to Oz and TikTok and
I also in Return to Oz and like really Mom
be the Witch and just really fun, weird, crazy characters.
Oz has a flag.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
I was really surprised by, Like, uh, because I have
a leather bound the first six books in the series,
like a leather bound yeah book, And you know, I've
read I've read a fifth of that series. I read
the first three books, and I really over the next
year would like to really like finish reading the rest

(01:11:05):
of them. They're not hard reads, but I think for me,
like you know, one of the things that I love
just kind of visiting is like how different in tone
every single book is and how it just hits different themes.
And there's like Frank Baum would do these like these

(01:11:27):
like introductions the beginning of every story, and he would
explain why he wrote another one when he thought that
the last one was going to be his last one,
and he like how of organizes and like basically talks
about like you kind of get to see his like
relationship with like his own children, his nieces and his

(01:11:47):
nephews kind of grow as this world grows.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
It's really cool to.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Kind of get to see life imitating art.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, literally life life imitating our or
or irmotating life. Yeah yeah yeah. Super super freaking crazy cool. So,
while filming the scene in which Dorothy slaps the cowardly lion,
Judy Garland got the giggles so badly that they had

(01:12:16):
to take a break from shooting, where she was pulled
aside by director Victor Fleming. He gave her a quick
lecture and then he slapped her. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
He returned to the set and filmed the scene in
one take. Fleming was so afraid that this would damage
his relationship with Garland and even told a coworker he
wished that he would have gotten someone to hit him
in the nose and break it again because of how
bad he felt. But Garland overheard the conversation and gave
him a kiss on the nose to show that she

(01:12:49):
bore no hard feelings.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
In the film, she can be seen still sniffling a
smile between the lines. Well, of course not, and my goodness,
what us you're making. This is at the midpoint of
the movie, at fifty minutes and fifty three seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Wow, that's wild. That's wild nowadays, Straight.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
To jail, Straight to jail. I think I think I
might do it for us. Yeah, in this episode, man,
I think this was like a really good episode. If
people have not you've gotten this far and you haven't
checked out The Wizard of Oz, what are what are
the top three reasons you'd give someone to check out
this movie?

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Yeah? First of all, like I said, in my mind,
this is where movies start, especially if you know now
that we live in a world where like the colorized
version is the predominant one. Like yeah, So to me,
like this movie really helps to define the direction of
movies in general after it. So that's one h two

(01:13:54):
is simply like the timelessness of it. And there are
plenty of timeless stories, right, but a lot of timeless
stories that we're used to are not as old. This
movie is one hundred The story is one hundred and
twenty four years old, and yeah, it is still very timeless.
It still holds up very very well. Uh, this is

(01:14:16):
still a world where tornadoes can pull your house up
off the ground that's not that hasn't changed, and fantasy
is still very, very very relevant to people. People still
love fantasy as a genre, you know. Yeah, But I
think the other thing is uh gosh, top three, I

(01:14:37):
don't know, just just the story, just the story itself
of just like not taking for granted what you have,
learning to like recognize who you are and what you
have despite not feeling like certain things might be true
about yourself, you know, really easy to get stuck in comparison,

(01:15:00):
easy to wish you have something that you are just
taking for granted in your own life. Yeah. I love
moral tales a whole whole lot. I think that's what
most of story is in some way, shape and form. Uh,
And this movie does a really good job at like
capturing that without hitting you over the head with it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna say It's It's themes
are are really good and it's uh, it's it sets
are timeless and also just at the same the same time, like,
I love just the way that this movie just kind
of maneuvers through genre. I think introducing this to someone

(01:15:41):
for the first time showcases you not only what the
power of storytelling is is capable of doing. But what
also the medium of film is can do, because I
think that that's something that can be overlooked at the
same time. Yeah, so, but thank you guys for tuning in.

(01:16:02):
If you guys haven't checked out this episode, our other
episodes in our Thankful Thursday's series We'll Chalking about now.
There are episodes on pop Star Never Stop, Never Stopping,
Big Fat Liar, at Night of the Rock Sperry and
this this now concludes it. But every other Monday we

(01:16:22):
are hosting our other podcast called.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Well That's High Praise.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Yeah, it's a Nicholas Cage podcast where we dictate whether
or not every movie made by Nicholas Cage is truly
worthy of high prays high praise, that's right. But where
can people find you online?

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Yeah, you can find me on Letterbox at vh zest
and you can find me on right now on Instagram.
I'm on there for probably a couple more weeks, at
Mullet Stash, Underscore, st a h E.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
And you guys and follow me. I'm all on Letterbox
at Captain Nostalgia and on the other my other podcast,
a Biscaysing Horror podcast, where you guys can catch new
episodes every Wednesday night at six until next time. Stay
classy and stay thankful. You guys can go to Victims

(01:17:20):
and Villains dot net for more information on who we
are as an organization, more information about our podcast network,
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So stay thankful.