Episode 26: Return to Oz (1964)

Welcome to Ranking on Bass, an offhanded joke that became a long running podcast. I'm your host. Mike Wi joined me as a lion who scared of his own shadow, mister Chris Stashee. You know, Mike, are you saying that I am the coded gay character from this because you're right if that denied boy boy, and I thought Ermie the elf was gay, also along for the right as a scarecrow looking for a brain, mister Richard had him. I got nothing, not even gonna say the whole Euclidean thing incorrectly.

No, okay, look he's I don't recognize this character because his name is Socrates. Yeah, that's true. And he looks like an onion, sack befoor. He just looks like an onion with a face that hand with the whole new cast of characters, a whole new cast of characters in a whole new story you've totally never seen before. On this podcast, we discussed the worst of Arthur Rinkin Junior and Jules Bass usually talking about their stop ocean work, but this is an animated tale.

It is one of the first things that they did. Though. As I was doing my research, returned Oz is a sequel of sorts to Tales of the Wizard of Oz, which Rinkin and Bass produced from nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty one. There were three months and a hundred and ten episodes. What the hell?

Because there are five minutes each? Wasn't it? Was it one hundred ten or one hundred thirty? Oh maybe it's one hundred and thirty. I Wikipedia is telling me one hundred and ten.

I want to make sure for all the completionists out there who really want to not just subject themselves to this movie, but one hundred and fifty more five minute vignette episodes of this movie go right for it. Be my guest. I don't need ten thousand emails saying that we got that background. Man, that's a big number. Minus the ten thousand.

Yeah, my inbox is crammed with ranking on bass complaints. Oh boy, wow? Is that where they go? No, a few compliments, a few fans out there, but mostly just thousands and thousands of people saying you got this small detail wrong. So I don't.

I don't want for them because they're good people. I don't want to screw anything up. I was thinking right out of this podcast as soon as they made one mistake. The first mistake was watching this right. Yeah, boy returned to As nineteen sixty four, produced by Crawley Films.

That was Fr. Crawley's company. Fr Crawley, who seems like he's got to be Canadian from his filmography. He just is all over Canadian stuff. He did a whole series called the RCMP.

He's done some things for Newfoundland scene Great Lakes. Yeah, a lot of a lot of Canadian content there. But this was an early production of Rankin and Bass. There are three directors listed on this thing, which is just amazing. Though it was written by our old friend Romeo Muller, so we are kind of starting things off right there.

This should not be confused with the nineteen eighty five Walter Merch Nightmare Fuel film Returned to Oz, though maybe there's some similarities, just that it's Dorothy going back. She's being tricked by the Wicked Witch of the West, who has returned somehow, because it's just like Palpatine, somehow the wicked Witch has returned. Hold on a second, it's because it became winter time and she rose, she was water and she froze and that brought her back. That's totally legit. By the way, I think the smallest amount of effort was made to stitch together some logic that allows them to basically retell the story of the Wizard of Oz, right, But it would be nice if there was something else, like I don't know, a much more iconic movie that existed that told this story with songs that like I don't know if there's a version of this with songs that everybody remembers that are still being today, that are pinball machines are being made of and people are still talking.

I don't know if there's anything like that about the Wizard of Oz, but somebody should do that, because if this is all we ever get for the Wizard of Oz, man, what a shame. I can't believe they just retold the goddamn story as if there weren't so many other What's crazy is because guess what I did for this. I read the first Wizard of Oz book in the last day, and you know what it's. It's It is exactly what you would expect. It is charming, and it's delightful, and it's modern American mythology.

Because that's why L. Frank Baum admittedly wanted to write it because he wanted to create mythology that can more contemporary children could understand, versus you know, the Tales of King Arthur. And it feels that way when you read it. But they're like so many of these books, so many of these books to use as a source material like Sonles. Okay, so is there is this second book?

Is the second L. Frank Baum book returned to Oz? And is it this story? No? No, it's about a boy named Tip who's an orphan.

Okay, yeah, like that, I'm not I'm not even sure Dorothy is immediately returns to Oz, if ever returns to Oz. I'm assuming she probably comes back at some point. She definitely does. I think, like the fourth book is called Dorothy of Oz or something like that, right, but she's not like immediately coming back though. No, But these books there, it's one of those things where there are a bunch of sequels, but they're not beloved, right, I mean even if look, for my generation, you experienced Wizard of Oz through the Judy Garland MGM movie.

You didn't experience it by reading the books. And if like, I don't know anyone who read the books, and I certainly don't know anyone who read all the books and recommends them, right, So that was a different generation. And I am a little bit surprised. I mean because it really is. It's an odd It's just they came up with a way to retell almost beat for beat in order the same structure with a few added scenes.

You know. It's just a redo of the famous Wizard of Oz. That's it. They're fourteen books set in the Land of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum, starting in nineteen hundred and ending in nineteen twenty, with the last book being published posthumously.

So it's very strange to me that. I mean, I get it, but at the time, wouldn't these have been in the public domain. I mean, they're making them because they are I'm assuming, right, Yeah, I guess. Look, Dorothy Dorothy is when you look like you just mentioned Richard, I didn't grow up reading The Wizard of Oz, Mike, I'm gonna assume you didn't either. But we know the movie, so Dorothy is the character that we all associate with Oz.

Doesn't matter if there are any other characters. I think now maybe a different generation of kids, maybe a little bit more into with the wicked Witch of the West only because of something like Wicked, which came out when I was in high school, which I had to perform in Marching Band of all places, which is why I kind of don't It's not that I have a negative feeling towards Oz, but it's weird that this is just that story again, because that story is told so wonderfully in the original movie. It feels like a fool's errand to ever do it again because nobody can hit the highs. It's really telling of how high highs the movie hits when this is as low as it gets. In my childhood, the Big The only other version of Note of the Wizard of Oz was The Whiz.

Yeah. Same here He's on down the road baby, that's right. Yeah, Well, there you go. There's a song we know from The Whiz. I don't know if I don't think there's any other songs we know.

Even though there was a ton of talent behind that movie, I don't think anything ever kind of jumped into popular culture other than well knowing he's on down the road. That's because it was Michael Jackson singing yeah. Well, but I gotta assume he's sang more than one song, right, Yeah, I would think that there's more obviously, but I mean it really, you know, it wasn't made for us. Richard definitely whoa, whoa, I'm not allowed. I can't go see you can watch it.

And Richard really likes Dion Warwick. Okay, I loved you. Yeah, he was in a few episodes of The Rockford Files. I'm all about Nipsey Russell myself. But you know that's fair, and I know we can look it up.

I know we all have our hand computers. But who was in that movie and who was behind it? Was that a Jones? Yeah, it was very Gordy and Quincy Jones yep, doing it up. I mean Diana Ross is Dorothy Diana Ross, that's right.

I was trying to think, who do He was directed by Sydney LeMay, Yeah, exactly. Why didn't they get an African American director? I believe a question? Yeah, yeah, I mean it is really out of Sydney Lamit's wheelhouse there, but you know, the gritty streets. Yeah, but yeah, I mean this one.

Yes, they seem to all have freaking amnesia when it comes to what the Wizard is, what he can do that he's just kind of a humbug and isn't really doesn't really have any sort of powers whatsoever, but they treat him like he is a powerful wizard again, and it's like, what what are you doing? I honestly thought they would have recognized him from his stint later in life as literally the design for Captain Crunch without a mustache. Wow, he looks just like, yeah did Crunch Like it's to the point where or or or as a deeper cut animated elijahcy Scugs, which is also you know, Captain Crunch adjacent. So yeah, we've got the introduction of Susan Conway is Dorothy Gale, though it is Susan Morris who does hear singing?

You would think that they would have a person that can sing and act at the same time doing one thing rather than paying two people. And yeah, this is real rough. This is really really rough. The animation style is really rough. The speaking of rough, the Toto animation and him breaking the fourth wall all the time, constantly looking at us smiling, laughing.

I guess he's kind of supposed to be the main character more than anybody else. Well, he knows he's in a cartoon, that's true. He's just so excited to be here. I really kind of realized that the animation style was not only not going to get any better, but it had already shown its hand when Dorothy meets the Munchkins for the first boy who looked like colorful of garbage bags is the only way of putting it. They look like trash bags with leg they do, and we can't understand them at all.

They speak and spent up language. Oh yeah, that was really She can understand it, but for us it just sounds like, yeah, it's it's all you know, a hyper speed but didn't remind you Chris of um the point the oh yeah, but you know, not as good. Yeah, but that same that same kind of nineteen sixties, you know, kind of stylize with the weird watercolor backgrounds that are sort of in a different dimension. Oh yeah. And the minute those yeah, the minute those little weird bag munchkin things showed up, I'm like, oh, oh, this is like that that Harry Milson.

But but like it's not it's not charming though, like it's weird, like it's it's it. It has a style that again, like I kind of the style doesn't really necessarily work for me, but it's so charmless in its presentation of this story. It feels like it is personally going through the motions to the point where there are no full songs. Not that I'm begging for them, because all I was begging for them and this was to be over, but there is nothing in this that feels like they actually attempted to put any effort in down to this animation style that is so just okay, like this is what's going on at the time, so we're just gonna do that again. Yeah, it feels very Chuck Jones to me, the way that he has those weird backgrounds and the animation style the characters to me really reminds me of like Bullwinkle Dudley Do Right, that style of animation.

I mean, the way that Dorothy looks. She looks so much like Nell from Dudley Do Right. Yeah. Yeah, But I have to say the most disturbing thing of this whole thing is that which is laugh thank you every single time. Oh, and I'm so glad it was.

I'm so glad it only happened like once or twice, Like I'm I'm so glad that it didn't happen every minute for fifty minutes. I'm really glad that that didn't that that wasn't a choice that they made, because if they had made that choice, well, it would have really put my ability to enjoy this at odds with what I was watching. Guys, they knew it was the best thing they had, right and once you know that, you don't just use it once. You're going to use it every single time you see that character, at least once. They went to the Rod school, Rod Sterling school of Midnight Gallery or night Night Gallery, where it's just used the werewolf sound a million times, just over and over again until we just get sick of it.

They recycled that from that Tales of Ods special. I mean, that was her thing and that and so now she's got it in this return to ODZ. Well, and now it's a good time to mention the hundred ten or one hundred thirty five minute episodes that were running in nineteen sixty one, as I guess it would, These were things that would either bookend or be dropped into a half hour sort of there's a bunch of we're going to check in on a bunch of cartoons, And they made a ton of these, and so I guess once that was done, this was sort of a hey kids, you like that, Now there's going to be a primetime special with kind of the same characters and sort of the same voices a little bit. But the thing is this was first.

This was February of nineteen sixty four, so in terms of their Evening Network TV specials, this was first, followed then in that December by Rudolph that was so popular they segued into that style of animation and left this style for the most part behind. Yeah, I don't know. I think I checked the credits and I can't remember if there are any Japanese people that are involved with this. One didn't look like at just Canadians. Yeah, so that's where Crowley's influence comes from, I guess.

And then to your point, Richard, this has very familiar voice voices here Larry d Man who was Yukon Cornelius, and then Carl Baness who was the head Elf, as well as a few other voices, and he is Dandy Lyon. I don't know. Alfie Scop was Socrates the scarecrow. Yeah, he was. Also he was Charlie in the box Nobody wants Charlie.

Oh nice, I love that voice. I do that one all the time, and my friends they love it. But can you do Socrates the straw man? No? Good, great, not at all.

What's funny is so in the book they, at least in the first book, they don't have names. So I don't know where did the names come from? Here? Well, it's weird. Oh no, there's always been this weird sort of ping pong back and forth between the Frank Baum books and then what became sort of trademarked through the MGM film.

In the l Frank Bound books they are silver slippers. They became ruby slippers in the movie, right, And so you can never use the ruby slippers again unless you are, like I guess, given direct permission from MGM. That's an element of that movie. And and so I think what happened was, even though they didn't have to change the names, they wanted to distinguish this from whatever had gone on in the MGM film because it was so well known. So they're like, okay, to distance from that, we're going to rename those characters and give them slightly different personalities, so we don't even risk any sort of copyright infringement lawsuits.

So we'll kind of make the tin Man kind of the head guy, and we'll sort of change the personalities a little bit here and there, and and that'll let people know we're not trying to do the Judy guard One movie. Right, And then like the tin Man, just he needs something other than a heart this time. Oh no, wait, oh wait, And what does the Scarecrow He needs a brain? But he and then it has and then it not only does it have them trying to get the same things, echoing the plot of the movie, but then at the end they do the thing that just frustrates the hell out of me where because you didn't need it all along, because you had it. And it's like, right, but in the original story, they actually fucking didn't have it, guys, they actually did not have it.

So but they never lost it then, or they did get it, or the wizard was an idiot, like, please explain story because I'm lost now. They don't even get a representation of it. No, but they are told that a very small part of their personality does contain the things they want it. It's like, Rusty, you're not a total hostile jerk all the time, Socrates, you're not a complete moron, and you know, a dandelion kind of you know, baled baled up if that's a term for one moment, maybe out of pure stupidity, but you did. So you're good, you got you know what, You're fine.

Just say about it to earthing. Let's wrap this up. Well, and in this story, don't they change the wizard as well? The wizard this time is a wizard. He's not the dude from Nebraska like he is in the story.

So, like, what I that is such a massive part because I thought you were the dude from Nebras. I am the Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is from Omaha, Nebraska, of all places, I see, that's a serious guy. Is Kansas Nebraska is where the real magic happens. All right, that's what it is.

But they change it too, Like that's a huge part of that story is that, oh you're from Earth, America, Kansas whatever too, And then they go back at the end of that. That's at least in the movie. But it's so weird to me. That's a that's a very weird conscious decision to make for the for the Wizard of Oz to now just be like actually a wizard the whole time. Well, it's really weird in those Tales of Wizard of Oz shorts.

He his style, actually all of the animation is much simpler, believe it or not. And he speaks like WC. Fields in that, and I'm like why, And he's just drunk all the time, drinking. I'm not sure about the drinking, but he's definitely a little out of it. But he Yeah, he is an actual wizard in that as well, because there's one part where like the cowardly Lion is stuck in this chandelier, so he pulls a whole ladder out of his bag.

So he's got that power and he seems to be a legit wizard, though maybe not the best in the world. I love that nineteen sixties thing. Looney Tunes did it a lot where characters would have voices that were sociated with like old studio system film stars. Yeah, and as kids, you didn't really get it. You just knew that a lot of times people would talk in this certain way that sounds like a person that you later realized was supposed to be Humphrey Bogart or something like how many kids are watching this going WC.

Fields that scientists that would chase bugs bunny around and he was totally Peter Laurie, you know, oh coming here, mister bunny rabbits. I mean just I mean think about the I mean and for people my age, the thing that we always have that I don't know how many people by age you're like Pinky in the brain. The voice of brain is one supposed to be Orson Welles to a T, and I don't know how many people. I mean, I would assume some people know, but also also looks like Orson Welles, kind of if Orson Welles was a mouse well and m ren and stimpy, it's supposed to Yeah, it's like Peter Laurie and Larry from The Three Stooges. I think, yeah and yeah.

Some of his lines, like the very first time I ever watched the Maltese Falcon and he's Peter Laurie's attacking Sydney Green Street. He's just like you, you fat blow did idiot, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, it's it's it's right. But there's none of that here, right, not in this one. I wish there had been well Dandy Lion isn't Bert Laar. But he's a little ed Win.

I mean he is y. I mean it sounds more like Charlie in the Box. Yeah, like I would have assumed that guy was Charlie in the Box, not Socrates. The lion cracks me up. And the lion is such a it's like the gayest gay coded character.

No, I'm not making this up right, I'm not looking out for it. I'm not. I'm not hunting for gay lions, folks. They just are presenting themselves in front of me. No way isolate I want to isolate that.

That line that Chris just spoke, and I wanted to be just dropped in future episodes. I'm not hunting for gay lions. I'm not hunting for gay lions. They're just presenting themselves. They was just there, your honor.

He was standing in the path and I saw him. I didn't know what to do when I shot him. A gay lion just presented presenting himself. I just I found it funny that the word that they used to classify the lion is the dandy lion, And I mean, I get it, play on dandelion, but also then he opens his mouth and it's well, right, wolf, I mean, that's a line right from you know, the Cowardly Lions song in the thirty is it thirty nine the film? Yeah, yeah, original right, yeah, and Bert Lard definitely is playing at very fay as well, and especially when he's got the ribbons in his hair and the one on his tail and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he has that thing. But but yeah, it is. I mean, well, I don't know, why do you have to get us into this, Christ It's just I'll tell you what, it's funny. As someone who is gay, I laughed, because it's it's just this is the way you used to do coded gay characters. Just give him like a kind of over the top bombastic voice.

There you go. But is it? Is it homophobic? Because it's the cowardly lion, the unmanly, you know, unmasculine lion. That is for somebody else to determine, not me.

I would be inclined to say if the idea is he's a big sissy and he's the lion, it kind of it doesn't feel great. But at the same time, again like I get it, I get it, I get it, you know, Richard, we just need to write the Wizard of Oz to end a Wizard of Oz is that's super inclusive and diverse, and then you know, no one can ever complain. Well, you know, that's the weird thing about these these fantasy things. I mean, because the joke is that that the Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland and like like a lot about that movie, uh, is sort of joined with gay culture. So so what was that right old phrase?

Was it? Friends of Dorothy? Was that the yeah? Yeah, exactly right, yeah, And you can you can go into a lot of genre movies, genre literature which again is often very very popular in in queer culture, and find metaphors for the outsider, you know, and the secret within me that that that I cannot show the world because it is considered monstrous. So, I mean, libraries full of papers have been written.

This is not you know, I'm not presenting this a new but it is kind of funny because you say that, Chris, and it's like, yeah, we should do like we should do like a new Wizard of where the characters are gay, and it's sort of like do we do we need? Isn't that just coals to Newcastle at this point? Right? That's that's the joke though, It's like what's the point again, Like the Friends of Dorothy thing alone, It just it reminds It reminds me of in The Sopranos when they're talking about Billy Budd and they're trying to convince the mom that Billy Budd is a it's it's gay. I mean, it's very has a lot of homo rotiss me.

And she's like, no, no, no, not gay, no way, and it's like, oh no, no, no, no no like it totally again. I don't think the again like whatever, though I don't think the Lions offensive. It's just it's funny how hard in this one they lean on it versus just again. The frame of reference that I was using, other than the Return to Oz that you mentioned Mike, was obviously the thirty nine movie, so where he's played up but it's not it goes real far here. Oh yeah, Now I have to look up that and make sure that it's nineteen thirty nine because I don't want those ten thousand emails to double.

Okay, yes, nineteen thirty nine. Who okay, Richard, you can rest easy. No emails for this episode. Well, you know, being who I am, I felt fairly confident saying that The Wizard of Oz was a nineteen thirty nine film. Nineteen thirty nine considered a big year for movies.

Yeah, what were the five Oscar nomine Is that the top five Box Officer Of the top five the Oscar nominees, they're like five classic movies. It's almost like I'd give them each one a Best Picture. One of the other ones is Casablanca in there. I remember for sure, Gun with the Wind was one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't mister Smith goes to Washington Stagecoach, Love Affair, Goodbye, mister Chips.

Yeah that was You're Gone with the Wind one. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think I think, Mike, because you mentioned it, and obviously I I am a fan of that, that Disney remake that they did again, it's not even a remake though, like this is. They share it in name only, But that is something, well, something entirely different and kind of a fucking we like you said, Nightmare Fuel Guide Away and it gets us closer to some of the books, like it at least pretends and says this is based on two of the books. I mean, they just barely introduced the OZMA character.

She's just there to help Dorothy out a little bit and then shows up at the end and boof, that's it. Yeah. The two books that's based on are The Wizard of Oz and then a few things stolen from the other books well and Jack and and in that Return to Oz, it has like Jack Pumpkinhead and Took and TikTok, and I mean Jack Pumpkinhead as as iconic as so many of the characters are from the first story, Like Jack Pumpkinhead, in my mind, is just as iconic, primarily because of the design is just so fucking weird and frankly creepy frankly but again like in a creepy in like a childish way. But at the same time, if you go and look at the illustrations in those L Frank Bomb books, I don't think many of them are not unsettling.

They're all very kind of strange to look at. But again, this is modern mythology, so it's trading in things that we know, and that art style is so I don't know that art style to those books, at least when I think of them, I can close my eyes and see them. It's that distinct and that Return to Oz, I think does a very good job of leaning on the source materials illustrations. Again, it makes it into its own weird thing that works half of the time, but at least it's trying to do something different. Like really, that for me has always been the takeaway, Like it's one of the few things that goes further than most of the ODZ stuff we ever see else ever does.

There's not a whole lot of stories of Dorothy in film past. Go to Oz and come back. Yeah, yeah, I like the idea of sidelining the Lion and the tin Man and having them frozen through most of Return to Oz and you just get little bit of the Scarecrow mostly and what the third act really they rescue him and yeah, to your point, it is almost all the what was he called the Gump? The Gump, Yeah, yeah, the head, the disembodied head, Jack Pumpkin who looks like Jack Skellington quite a bit, Bollina the Chicken, and then who's the other Oh TikTok Like you said, so, it's like really taking us away from those three characters that we really are familiar with, and even taking us away from the Wicked Witch though I'd say Momby is kind of similar, but yeah, the whole thing with Momby and all the different heads, and especially when the heads, I'll start screaming, Oh my god, I'm terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

Well, I don't understand about a movie like Return to Ozen. I mean it came out an eighty five, it made like half of its budget. It as an adult watching it because I never saw it as a kid. I don't know what fucking child this was made for, like right, good God in Heaven, Like I'm it bums me out that we don't get stuff like this now for kids that age, because there's so much different content that you know, there probably is this kind of content, but it's not being made stream like this. I appreciate that there was a time where you could make this for kids and expect that kids were going to go see this, and then when they went and sat down to watch, everybody in the theaters like, what nightmare are we walking into?

Somehow it makes the never ending story look tame and that's for kids too, Like that's how disturbing some of the imagery is in this, and also at times kind of how just like strange it is to I don't know how else to say, but like strange to look at, just not unintelligible, but like I can't make heads or tails of some of the things I'm saying. Sometimes, yeah, the well so much stuff like I don't know the eighty five one. Was it made for children or was it made for teenagers? And adults who remember Wizard of Oz would be willing to pay money to go see a thing with the word Oz and the title. But the feeling on the part of the creators was, but let's give them stuff they haven't seen.

So so again we distinguished that we're not we're not a musical. We're not trying to do what you know the nineteen thirty nine film did. It's it's like this weird game where people are always trying to get what they can from the name recognition, but then not have to deliver on the things that made that movie so great because you know, because you can't, you can't really capture that, I mean, doing anything Oz. Look, they made this. Rankin and Bass did this for the same reasons they did Wacky World of Mother Goose.

It was like, well, let's go back to the Great American Songbook of children's literature that's all in public domain and put it out there and it'll be recognizable enough that parents will go, oh, Jimmy, Johnny Janey comes in front of the television tonight, there'll be one hour voted to your shitty taste. And then they put on this stuff and it's not Look, I didn't I did not dislike this as much as I disliked the experience of watching Wacky World of Mother Goose. You know, at a certain point it became very clear they were just going to remake Wizard of Oz in terms of those beats. So it's like, oh, okay, you know whatever. But but that's a lot of their specials were you know, and their TV shows were just dipping into Pinocchio.

You know. The last thing we watch Cricket on the Hearth was oh, we found this Charles Dickens story, and then they did their I mean again, they completely did their own thing with it. But at the same time they didn't. It was like you just said, Richard, they're just telling they're just regurging the story. Yeah.

Yeah, And it's funny because like, really their best stuff is more invented, you know, Rudolf, you know, Santa Claus is coming to town the year without a Santa Claus. Those are stories that they've got familiar characters of Santa and Missus Claus, but they're just they're making up a new story. It's not based on anything, and those tended to be I know, maybe I'm conflating it because I was a kid then and those are my favorites, but those were original stories that were really fun and basically worked. Had great songs, you know, I mean they stand there, they tower over something like this that does feel like, all right, we're gonna do Wizard of Oz. We'll put it in a few songs.

No one's breaking a sweat and put it on TV. If you could even consider them songs, because they're like two chres, like like two verses and one or two two verses and two choruses maybe, and they're not memorable, you know, like we mentioned with Larry d Man as the witch who has this it. What's weird is that laugh like verges on sounding like a chimp like a monkey. Noise like a monkey, like a monkey, um like like a monkey like a call to like what's like a mating call. And I was like that like thing like at the end.

Yeah, they have him or that ter sing at one point, and the song is as atrocious as you would expect it to be to go along with again, what's what's the problem with something like this, like you just mentioned, Richard, is we already know the narrative beats because they're telling the story again and instead of changing up the songs. Yeah, they can't do the songs that you know, you know, if I only had a brain, which, like everybody knows, it's part of the common fabric of our pop culture. At this point, you take it upon yourself to make up a song where that song would have gone. That's not good as opposed to just maybe going over that part of the movie and introducing a song at another point where I'm not thinking to myself, oh yeah, this is where that other better song is.

That actually is a fully realized song as opposed to what would what would amount to thirty seconds on TikTok in our like this is perfect for you know, it's perfect for kids with a short attention span. You get to watch the entire Wizard of Oz story in fifty minutes. Yeah. Well, and it's funny to think that right on the heels of this came Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, which had great songs. I mean, it's based on a song, and yet the songs they wrote for the special are arguably better than the song of the Red Nose.

I'd rather listen to the misfit. You know, we're a couple of misfits. I'd rather listen to you know, we're on the island of unwanted toys. Silver and gold, speaking of Larry demand silver and Gold. All of those songs are so are so great.

So it's clear that you know, as producers, they can they they can put their you know, pedal to the metal when they want to. Um. They just the elements all came together a little later in nineteen sixty four. Let's put it that way. This was an inauspicious beginning to their TV primetime specials, soon to be outshone by Rudolph.

Well, and I do wonder and maybe you know again to play a little bit of a devil's advocate here, might we have been a little easier on this if it had been what they did with Rudolph, if it been AnimagiC. Imagine if this had been AnimagiC, like maybe we might be a little bit more kind of willing to accept the flaws here because you know what, I would actually like to see what these characters look like in AnimagiC walking around and doing their thing, because you know what, they probably would have been pretty close to what we saw in thirty nine. Maybe not carbon copies, but I feel like what they would have had to have done would have had to had worked technically, and to work technically, some of the things they did, like those little bag creatures could not work technically, so they would have to do something more akin to a humanoid creature, which solves maybe some of the design issues where they yeah, just were like, man, you know whatever, it's animation and it's easy.

We don't have to worry about it. It's cheap. Yeah, I think for sure for me personally, because this style of cell animation is not my favorite. No, no, it's it's just it's weird and disconcerting, and it's I mean, I'm fine with weird animation style. You know.

You mentioned the point that's perfect for that, but with this one, it's just like, ah, these these characters don't look right. They look sloppy, and again and again, like we have a frame of I think again, the problem does come back to we have a frame of reference for these characters before, like right, we know what they can look like, what they should look like, and what they don't look like is anything I think for me, the Scarecrow is the most indicative outside of the Munchkins of poor design. Where he looks like he looks like a munchkin upside down. He looks like he's a munchkin turned upside down with a body on the bottom. He looks like a trash bag with a body.

And it's it's like ugly to look at. It's ugly to look at, to the point where Mother Goose was ugly to look at. It's like a just like an off putting animation style. And again, you set yourself an impossible goal to do something that's going to be compared with The Wizard of Oz. You're you're already starting so far behind the starting line.

You're never going to catch up. Yeah, it's never going to be none of it. It's never gonna be a classic film that has lived for decades. I got an idea, let's quit our jobs right now and open up a business that sells books to people online. Exactly has a great idea.

It's the same thing, like, what are you doing? You have all the look, you have all these places to go with this story. Why go back to where we've been before, where you've even been before, and to the points that we've been making Tales of the Wizard of Oz went other places than the original story did. On top of everything else, they knew that there was plenty of other interactions with weird things in the world. There's a there's a whole area in Oz called winky Land.

That's where the Witch of the West lives is in winky Land, that's what she maintains her. Yeah, it's like there's all kinds of weird stuff going on at Oz. It's a fully realized world. So it's just, yeah, I get, I get going back to the same story. But even when returned to Oz kind of went back to the same story, they did something different.

I mean, TikTok and the Pumpkin are essentially the tin Man and the Scarecrow, but they're different enough where I can notice the difference and appreciate that they're trying as opposed to here's Socrates aka the Scarecrow. Great. All right, well, you know Wizard of Oz is so great, and you ever think about it. But the movie, you know, there's like a there's a good fifteen minutes of that movie that's in Kansas. It's just her life, right, the farm hands, the mean old lady on the bicycle, the very sort of you know, prosaic altar.

Kid, it's like your dog bits someone. We're gonna have to get rid of your dog. Like like you would watch that movie as a kid, You're like, this is a movie about a girl losing her dog. Oh, you're totally involved with all the details of that. And and she runs away, and she meets up fortune teller, and you're you're worried about You're already worried about her relatives back home.

Then there's a tornado. You're you're deep into a human story before you go to OZ and realize that you're just getting the same themes, just now in color. And you're having more fun because there's songs now that are fun songs, so so all that, you know. I only say this because to me, the magical elements of OZ only kind of work once you are in the point of view of Dorothy that you've been given by the movie, right that you're you're just like I is she's living a life where she's surrounded by people who love her, but there's danger out there. And now we're going to Oz, where it's kind of the same thing, only heightened.

And that's great that. I mean that that is totally solid. And I don't know how much any of these other movies ever bother to do that. And that's of the creation of those thirty nine filmmakers, because none of that is in the beginning of that book. There is none of the Oh, the lion looks like, you know, one of the farm hands.

And that for me, I know that people might find that a little kind of cute cute. See, I always think that really works for me because it does exactly what you just said, Richard. It reinforces the idea that this story, like, it's the same story where we're regardless of where it's taking place. It's just the stakes have been elevated and the world is unrecognizable. But again, OZ is more or less recognizable.

It's just some of the things maybe need a little explanation kind of for you to understand maybe what's going on. And it's a very childlike wish as you're experiencing your own life and the troubles that you encounter on a daily basis when you're sort of pre adolescent to wish yourself into a different life. It's like, this life is terrible. I hate my life. I wish I had someone else's life.

Oh, and that's that's where you also get the whole game metaphor, where it's just like, people don't understand me. I'm an outcast, I don't belong. And then you get to go to this wonderful place where you do belong and you do have friends, right. But then but then of course it's like, oh no, it's it's I've got problems there too. I've got you know, there's a mean old lady there too, so so you can eat I mean again, it's just the joke, of course, is that the studio wanted to cut the song somewhere over the rainbow.

They were like, oh, it just slows us down. We just want to get to Oz quicker. And it's always the mistake. It's like, no, you don't get it. You're not gonna like Oz.

You're gonna like it less. The less of Dorothy's life you get setting you up for it, and because you're just looking at the top level of stuff. Like, there's all kinds of stories about test screenings of movies where a particular character that's important to the narrative will test poorly. It's like everyone hates the mom, so the studio says, cut the mom. Just to cut the mom down to the bare minimum.

Nobody likes the mom, and then the filmmakers go, let us try something else. First, they add more of the mom, more context. They're like, I think they don't like the mom because they don't get them all. I think if we put that scene back in where you understand why the mom is acting that way, we're actually going to add five minutes more of the mom. And then they do, and now she's everyone's favorite character.

So it's not just a matter of less yellow. There's too much yellow in the movie. It's like, no, there's not too much yellow. We just have to understand why there is yellow stuff in the movie anyway. Blah blah blah.

All of which is to say, the nineteen thirty nine movie is awesome, this one not so much well. And I think to your your point, Richard, and you've kind of mentioned it, and it is kind of hard really to look at everything post thirty nine and say, what are we doing here? Man? Like, the amount of stuff that we have gotten OZ related I think in the last decade is a lot. I mean I mentioned Wicked, We got that Sam Raymie Wizard of Oz movie or is it Sam Ramy director.

Yeah, I really wanted to like that. But and then Dorothy Must Die, which was like a y A series, which is totally worth checking out and is actually kind of fun in a Again, if you're into reading and into hya books, it's kind of like what It's very similar to a lot of other things that were happening at the time. Even Stephen King is doing it now with fairy Tale, where it's a darker version of the world that you recognize. So there's characters and munchkins and stuff, but they're not called munchkins, but it's like a dark story. And again, people are doing that for a while.

But Oz and the Wizard of Oz I feel like the thirty nine one just it's such a masterpiece period. I don't know why you would ever want to approach it. It feels like just a again, like there's something about it so intangible to so many people that to try and do something like it you really have to transform it, Like you really have to transform it. It can't just be we're telling the story again. Well, I'm very curious if you know, Chris, if you're like one of the last generations that knows the Wizard of Oz from thirty nine, like would somebody ten years younger than you even know that movie.

I genuinely believe the entry point for the Wizard of Oz now is Wicked, and and you know what, we're about to get a Wicked movie here in the next sometime in the next They've been talking about it since I was in high school when that thing came out, when it was a book, before it was even the musical, they were talking about making a movie of it. And I actually think that the reason the movie never came out they have to do with the movie that came out in thirty nine, because again, like it feels like there's nothing you can do to prevent yourself from being compared to it. And I don't know if I would want to make something that's going to be compared to something like the thirty nine Wizard of Oz, because, like you've already said, Richard, you're starting ten miles behind everybody else, Like come on, because you're trying to remake it, and Wicked is actually a brilliant concept going back to the the Gregory Maguire book.

I think that's the author's name. I think you're right, um he because it's like, well, we're not we're not going to retell the story of Dorothy. We're we're going to tell you the story of another character. We're going to and you know, probably the second most popular character and certainly the most psychologically rich character of the Wicked Witch. Let's find out why she's like she is and tell that story.

And now you're you're in the world, but you're in a different town, and you're doing a more modern thing. You're you're doing the biography of the bad guy, the anti hero, and that's very modern and you never would have done it in thirty nine that you can do. They they found a door you can walk through to tell a new oz story. And also it wasn't trying to do the exact same thing. It was trying to tell a different story and address other things that young people are desperately interested in.

Why is the bully the bully? Who is the real bully? I mean, that's like, that's brilliant, right, so the book was brilliant. The movie they made, okay, the musical sort of really stuck the landing. And now we're getting a versions over and over of that, which is great because it's a new story, right, and I agree, like I think that for me is the way to do it is to take something that's already there and go somewhere else with it, not continue down the same path because Wick, I mean, yeah, fuck Jesus Christ, Wicked is such a great idea that everybody else has ripped it off since in however, many ways, like even something like Dorothy Must Die is just looking at the source material and going Okay, so Wicked did this, so we can't do that.

Let's do something else that is similar to what Wicked is doing, which is focusing on one aspect of that story and just going down the rabbit hole with that as far as you can, and like that. It's I know, it's a contemporary way of thinking about it. Like you said, they could never have done that in thirty nine, not because people didn't think about it. I mean, I'm sure that there were people thinking about it, but I just don't think that's what people at the time wanted, which is fine, but I'm glad we are where we are now, and we do have all different kinds of ways of even deconstructing the most again straightforward of characters like the Wicked Witch of the West, who, for all intensive purposes.

Realistically, if Wicked had never been made, would have just been the Wicked Witch of the West forever and never would have been alphabu, no defying gravity and none of that, which that's just just seared in my mind. So yeah, I mean, And the reason why I think we haven't had a Wicked movie is because it still is selling out when it comes to the showings, you know, the actual theatrical version of it is still making money that I'm curious if they'll ever because McGuire has done Wicked, Son of a Witch, a Line among Men out of Oz, so I don't know if they'll ever come up with musical versions of those as well, if they'll try to do a sequel to Wicked before they do a movie version, or if they strike and they get the movie version and then they say, oh cool, now we can do Son of a Witch.

The movie. Movie's coming out in twenty twenty four. The movies. The movie is a Wicked Part one is coming out in December of twenty twenty four. Okay, Arianna Grande is playing Glinda and Jeff Goldbloom is playing the Wizard of Oz folks, which that's great, Sign me up, yeah, oh yes, uh yes, it's a beautiful thing.

Yes, like what the funk would that? That's look makes perfect sense. It's you know, now are they doing that as an actual movie movie? Are they going to do it as one of these Broadway on TV things? Two movies to actually wow too?

Yeah? Two whole directed by John Chew of all people, so even better music from the musical, right, I mean it's yeah, it's the Broadway musical, which has been an ongoing hit. It's one again one of those things that you know, twelve year old girls want to go see and if how could you escape that? But how could you escape Wicked? Like I don't even know how you wouldn't know what Wicked is?

Right like? Yeah? Yeah, oh, by by being me, I'm the only age group that would that could conceivably not know what it is. By my age who did not have daughters. So I've never been to I have not seen it.

I'm aware of it, but I just I have not seen a stage production of Wicked. I know what it is. People have told me about it. I know the person who did it. I mean, I know a lot about it except sitting through it and absorbing it as a you know, as an audience.

Interesting. Um but um but yeah, but it's like it's like frozen. You know again. If you if you can tell a story about what it's like to be a young woman, um and address some of those big issues, you can you can write your own ticket. I agree with you.

I agree. I you know what, as as weird of a relationship as I have with Wicked, I will watch the movie. I am not even going to complain about having to watch the movie, And I'll probably sing along with as many of those goddamn songs as I know, because my phone is still called Dear Old Shiz, because there's a song in Wicked called dear Old Shiz, and dear old Shiz, I believe is where I think it's dear old chis is the school that they go to, I believe, or has something to do with the school it. Wicked is just what's weird. Is like when I think of Wizard of Oz, I do think of the thirty nine movie, like you mentioned, Mike, But I think to long answer this question, Wicked will be what it is.

And now with this Wicked movie coming out in twenty twenty four, that may be a reference point for a lot of kids moving forward, and there may never even be a revisiting of the thirty nine movie, which is why I'm saying that's sixty four now is right for everybody. They can watch this Rank and Bass special and just enjoy the hell out of it like we did exactly. Yes, yes, what a lot? What what lies are? You're putting an arm now, you know what?

I honestly think that for me, the thing that I would push people too if they haven't seen it is returned to Oz from eighty five, And I think the thing that could have actually fixed that movie entirely is just cast someone who's a little older than farousa Bulk, and I think a lot of the issues with the movie kind of disappear because it's weird that it is so dark tonally and it is a child old. If it hadn't have been a small girl, I think the audience would have been apparent for that movie in a way that never ending stories audience found it because she's just a little too young and a tray you in that or not a tray. I guess the tray was the horse. Whatever the hell of the kid's name is a never ending story is like a couple years older to the point where he's believable.

And I think that for USA Ball because just a couple of years too young, just a couple and I think that would have fixed maybe some of the weird tonal inconsistencies and would have helped it find a different audience I think at the time. And if it found a different audience at the time, I think it would still be kind of mentioned now in the canon of Oz stuff that's worth checking out, not the things that people have kind of forgotten, because that's where it kind of sits right now, at least the Return to Oz movie. I mean, I was thirteen when Turned to Oz came out, and it fit into that real dark kids film genre for me, so like something Wicked, This Way Comes the Dark, Crystal Secret of Nim, Watership Down, Plague Dogs, like these films that kids watched, maybe they shouldn't have watched, but there were a lot of kids films that were very dark and returned to Oz just felt like another one of those, and I don't know, I was okay rewatching it with her being so young.

I remember it being very aimed at my age group and seeing a lot of specials like on Nickelodeon talking about how it was being made and we could see the poor guy that's inside of the TikTok costume and all these things. So, I don't know. I think in eighty five this was kind of more derigor that's fair. I mean again, I also totally get that, so we didn't mention. But there was another Wizard of Oz thing in seventy two that featured Liza Minnelli as Dorothy Gale.

Oh what feels a little on the nose? Doesn't it very on the nose? And Mickey Rudy as the Scarecrow Wow, Danny Thomas as the tin Woodman and TV thing or what was this? Yes, it was a t It was a TV thing I think at one point or it like came out on TV. It was in theaters and then it came out on TV.

And it also had Milton Burl as the cowardly Lion. Oh boy, talk about talk about a weel boy that puts that on perspective in a new way, and Margaret Hamilton plays Anny m in another piece of hilarious casting. So yeah, this is this seems interesting. But it's a mix of the first book and Marvelous Land of Oz, which is the second one. So and the art style looks like completely insane in a way that this one doesn't, so maybe that's the one worth checking out.

I don't know. Is this live action? No? This is animated? Oh okay, I mean, because there have been tons of animated versions of this over the years, and live action, I mean there were versions of was Suit of Oz that were coming out when Baum was still wive, right, but I don't know how many of them feature Liza Manelli playing that's I mean, that's what you're there for, right, So of course, yeah, and I guess at one point it featured Bill Cosby as well, so lovely, But it's a full length feature feature, so I don't know.

Again, I'm not a Wizard of Oz person, Like, I know that that's a thing, and I know that there are plenty of people that are super duper into Wizard of Oz. You said you said you were gay, so you have to be that's true. You got me I do have a pair of ruby red slippers with my clasets. We're good to wrap up, gentlemen. Yeah yeah, let me take a quick bathroom break and I'll be back in like forty five seconds.

All right, go for it. Hey, this was fun. Now I have to find that Liza Manelli thing. I put it in chat. Oh you mean five?

Oh back to oz Yeah, okay, oh you mean like five ID find it? It was released it, it was released. It was released by who. That was released by film Ammation filmmation. The art style looks bizarre, a very particular out art style.

Yeah, that's what I was saying. It's like kind of strange. Look like if if the one if the one we just watch doesn't have a lot of style, this one is like replete with it. So there we go. It's all hopefully in full on YouTube.

Oh yeah, five minutes. Honestly, this art style looks pretty nice. Yeah you know, but then again, when we when you spent fifty minutes watching ugly shit thrown on screen? Right exactly? God, Oh yeah, there's Jack Pumpkinhead.

She looks a very she looks very snow whiteish. Yes, like I think it's weird. They probably should have made her dress checked as opposed to just blue and white. Oh and there's a pink horse at twenty seven minutes. Okay, yeah, I see Ozma.

Ozma looks like she ra trying to find Ozma. Where's Ozma? Where it was? Just that one fourteen she's standing behind the scarecrow. Oh holy shit, she does my god?

Yeah, not like the scarecrow looks pretty good. Man, yeah, ranking and bass man. I don't know what they were thinking some of this shit. I mean again, I get it, like that's what the Astounding Tales of the public Domain effectively is for us, Like right, just doing somebody else's thing. The lion looks they did not do any effort on that lion, the most generic looking lion possible.

Yes, I am a lion, and you will be able to tell that I am. M. Let's see. So the King and I is going to be a little tough to find because there was version. Yeah, isn't the one that we're watching?

Have tell us about? No? No, who does the voice? Is it chow yun fat? No?

He was on a live action version, damn it. A guy who doesn't even have IMDb listing. Wow, alrighty I guess take take us home to the next stop on the Ranking and Bass train. All right, So Chris, before we check out of here, what are you up to these days? Well, you can find everything that I work on, which is uh, lots of things over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you can find my show, the Culture Cast, Mike Show, the Projection Booth, and Richard's show Ranking on Bass and and but more importantly, Richard's wife's show Eighties TV Ladies, where it's women talking about TV shows from the eighties with women in it.

Like, what what are you listening to dashmos for? We're just talking about dumb animated potato sack people. Go check it all out Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Go now, stop what you're doing. This is the end of the episode.

Just go there. I look, how you refer to this as my show. That's what I was going to say, Show, this is your show as much as it's my show, as much as it's Mike show. We're the co host of R Get a Bass Good as long as the blame is spread even yes, yes, thirty three, Well you get thirty four percent, Mike and I get whatever is one percent less. So it is technically your fault.

Yeah, you get See here's the thing. You get one percent extra because you are the reason the show is happening, because you came up with the name. Proof of that on recording folks, never make a pun in an unguarded moment. You'll never have a free Sunday again. Wow.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we ride Richard so hard that we ask him to show up once a month. What about you, Mike? Where can people find you when you're not spending every Sunday recording rankin and Bass with Richard every Sunday? There are so many episodes of people will never hear because we record every Sunday. Fifty two weeks a year, we record, and we released one a month.

What are that's wild? It's like Prince, the way that Prince recorded all those songs that are still the vaults. Right, Okay, Okay, you've got a point. Maybe we're not doing Ranking on Bass every Sunday. No, that would be a weekly podcast, Richard, which is what Mike does over at the Projection Booth.

But I'm going to tell you if we don't bump it up to weekly, we're never going to get through because I was looking at the book. Oh god, I still don't think we've scratched this surface. No, there's a long way before we can sleep. So, Richard, when you're not podcasting here about Ranking and Bass, what are you doing? Well?

I was working on HBO Max's Titans. But you know, we're we're still waiting to hear about season five and we've all got our fingers crossed. But right now you can watch seasons one through three in their entirety. You can watch the first half of season four, the first six episodes, people are loving them, and the final six episodes of season four drop. Rumor has it in April.

Now we're in mid January, and so that seems like a long time to wait. But the episodes are done. They are coming your way sooner or later, and then, hopefully, fingers crossed, there will be a season five and we'll keep going very cool. Well, I want to thank everybody for tuning in. I want to thank Abby Stabby for our artwork, as well as the Great Octopus for our theme music.

Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform. We will be back next month with a look at the only animated feature film from Ranking A bassa we haven't talked about yet nineteen ninety nine, The King and I. Until then, be sure to rate and review the podcast wherever you get it, tell your friends, tell your family, and please stay weird, stay day. The sh