Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears.
Written: October 9, 2006 at 4:15AM EST
For some strange reason I have been obsessed with The Wizard of OZ lately. About a week ago I was looking through snopes.com, and they had a small section on the Wizard of Oz. After reading about the munchkin who supposidly hung himself during the Tin Man scene and how Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West) once was severly burned in the scene in Munchkinland; I had the strangest urge to watch the movie. So after searching for two days I found it (down in a box in extra room in the basement). I rushed upstairs and watched it.
The movie began with the really old “FBI Warning (it scrolled up, and didn’t have a blue background!). Then the MGM Lion roared and it was like I was six all over again. Dorothy and Toto running down the road.
Its so amazing to watch a movie you’ve watched a hundred times when you were little, then after years, rewatching it and it making much more sense (and being almost like an entirely different movie). In fact, the entire scene at the farm seemed to flow better than I remembered it was a child. The scene where Dorothy visits Professor Marvel and he looks into the crystal ball even made more sense. Then the tornado scene. The special effects workers did an AMAZING job with that. The tornado was extremely realistic looking, and was close to that of “Twister”, and this was done nearly sixty years earlier.
All in all the movie was amazing, it was as though I saw the movie through new eyes. New connections were made, and I was inclined to research the movie even more…
(Wow, that’s pretty sad)
Anyways, through my research I discovered some interesting facts about the movie, and the OZ series.
Did you know…
*Shirley Temple was originally wanted to play Dorothy, but was not able to due to a contract problem with FOX.
*The tornado scene cost nearly $8,000, before they scraped it and started over.
*There is an animated sequel to the movie called “Journey Back to Oz” and Dorothy was voiced by Judy Garlands daughter.
*Disney made an unofficial sequel called “Return to Oz,” this story was much darker than the original and became a cult-classic.
*Glinda, The Good Witch of the North, was actually a combination of “Glinda The Sourceress of the South,” and “The Good Witch of the North.”
*Oz is a square land divided into 4 quadrants. Munchkin Country in the east, Winkie Country in the West (east and west are backwards in Oz), Gillikan Country in the North, and Quadling Country in the South. In the direct center is Emerald City.
Anyways, to wrap it up, theres a ton more I learned, but as I am as of now unable to see straight, I will end this post. Want to learn more? Be sure to check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz
If you are so interested in the movie, check out these names of the living munchkins. I have met all the surviving munchkins and it is a real hoot. Flowerpot lady was margaret pelligrini, karl slover, clarence swenson ,mickey carroll, jerry maren(lollipop guild gut who hands it to dorothy) ,meinhardt raabe..he was the coronor. He is the oldest, i think he is 92. btw, he has a new book called memories of a munchkin, excellent reading.