10 Bizarre Wizard of Oz Myths & Urban Legends, DEBUNKED

MsMojo

Time to head down the yellow brick road to truth! Join us as we explore the weirdest and most persistent myths surrounding "The Wizard of Oz." From cursed sets to Munchkin mayhem and poppy field conspiracies, we're separating fact from fiction when it comes to this Hollywood classic. Get ready to have your childhood memories either confirmed or completely shattered!

Transcript

00:00Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're busting some major myths surrounding the fabled behind-the-scenes story of the Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz.

00:13It doesn't seem like there's a lot of evidence to support that it's intentional, but that certainly doesn't undermine how cool it is to sit and watch it.

00:22The movie was cursed.

00:24Everything that can happen on a film happened to that film.

00:28The joy you see on the screen in The Wizard of Oz, that was an illusion.

00:37The Wizard of Oz is constantly listed among movies with so-called cursed productions.

00:42Regardless of your stance on the supernatural, the movie's hazards and challenges are not very mysterious.

00:48Making the movie was an arduous process.

00:50The shoot took over half a year, seeing dramatic personnel changes and requiring long and tiring days.

00:58All these things make accidents and workplace tensions way more likely.

01:02How about a little fire, scarecrow?

01:04No!

01:05No!

01:06No!

01:07No!

01:08No!

01:09No!

01:10No!

01:11No!

01:12No!

01:13No!

01:14No!

01:15No!

01:16No!

01:17No!

01:18No!

01:19No!

01:20No!

01:21No!

01:22No!

01:23No!

01:24activists are most likely helped along by the movie's allegorical nature, and our unwavering

01:29desire to ruin our own childhoods.

01:31I'm afraid Danny, I'm afraid.

01:35Over the rainbow's origins.

01:37We had finished most of the songs, all of the songs, but the one for Judy in Kansas, and

01:46I knew what I wanted.

01:47Songwriters Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's now classic ballad was almost cut from The Wizard of Oz.

01:54It's alleged that executives at MGM thought it slowed the film down,

01:57but without the song's beauty and wistful optimism, and Judy Garland's excellent performance,

02:03the movie wouldn't be the same.

02:17A land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

02:25A rumor sprouted up that its writers wrote it about the Holocaust.

02:29While it was written in 1938, as the groundwork was being set for the coming genocide,

02:33it was not written as a response to it.

02:35The myth-busting website Snopes.com suggests this false history came from misquoted passages

02:41of a piece written by Rabbi Bernard Rosenberg.

02:44It's a flattering testament to the power of the song's sense of hope and escapism, though.

02:49Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops,

02:54that's where you'll find me.

03:03L. Frank Baum's coat is worn in the film.

03:06Some claims seem a little too outlandish and serendipitous to be true, like this one.

03:11I never do anything without consulting my crystal first.

03:15Let's go inside here, we'll just come along, I'll show you.

03:19An oft-repeated claim is that a coat worn by Frank Morgan,

03:22the actor who played the Wizard of Oz among several other roles,

03:25was once owned by L. Frank Baum, the author of the Oz books.

03:29The story goes that it was purchased by the studio's costume department in a second-hand store,

03:33and Baum's name was later found in it.

03:36Sometimes, the story goes that only his initials, L. F. B., were found in the coat.

03:40There was always something more, and so there was a quest.

03:44There's no documentation anywhere to support the claim, except the studio's marketing materials,

03:49some of which cast further doubt by asserting the coat is worn by the Scarecrow rather than Morgan.

03:54Either way, it's also widely known that studios in this era could and would say anything to sell a movie.

04:00It's exactly so, I'm a humbug.

04:03Oh, you're a very bad man.

04:06The dog playing Toto was paid more than Judy Garland.

04:09Oh, Toto, that's not polite. We haven't been asked yet.

04:12Oh, he's perfectly welcome.

04:15As one dog to another, huh?

04:17This is a case of a fact being blown out of proportion.

04:21Terry, the Terrier who co-starred as Toto, did make a pretty penny for her appearance.

04:26Her owners actually made more on the movie than most Americans did in a week.

04:30However, this has given way to the click-baity claim that the dog made even more than star Judy Garland.

04:35I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas.

04:38Oh, well, is that the witch?

04:41Oh, Toto?

04:42Toto's my dog.

04:43Well, I'm a little muddled.

04:45While this is probably an exaggeration to illustrate how the studio system lowballed its stars, it's far from true.

04:52Toto's performer did make more than the actors cast as munchkins, though.

04:56The performers allegedly made only $50 a week, as opposed to the dog's $125.

05:00It all depended on who you were connected with.

05:05Toto had better connections than you?

05:06I guess he did.

05:08What was Toto's connection?

05:09I don't know.

05:10He got that for my dog.

05:11The munchkins' behavior.

05:13One of the enduring stories about the making of The Wizard of Oz involves the little people cast as Oz's munchkins.

05:19They were drunk.

05:20They were a little drunk.

05:20And they put them all in one hotel room.

05:26Not one room.

05:27One hotel in Culver City.

05:29And they got smashed every night.

05:31And they'd pick them up in butterfly nets.

05:34Stories told over the years by Judy Garland and other stars at MGM during the shoot paint a picture of the performers that feels completely opposed to their on-screen nature.

05:45In fact, the surviving actors spent many of their later years combating stories of their hotel rowdiness and substance-fueled antics offset.

05:53You know, as Jerry Marin, one of the munchkins, says, you know, they got up at 5 a.m., you know, had to be in the studio for makeup and all.

05:59They didn't have that much time for a lot of the parties and going-ons.

06:02But I think a lot of it's just blown out of proportion.

06:05These stories became the basis for the 1981 movie Under the Rainbow, which was widely panned for many reasons, including its dehumanizing treatment of little people.

06:14If I was six foot tall, I'd go to every one of those guys that wrote those stupid things.

06:19You know, it was awful.

06:20I'd have grabbed them up against the wall and said, you know what you did?

06:24Bam!

06:24The alternate ending.

06:26Even The Wizard of Oz isn't immune from the Mandela effect.

06:29Some fans swear they've seen a deleted ending.

06:32But it wasn't a dream.

06:34It was a place.

06:36And you, and you, and you, and you were there.

06:39The movie famously ends with Dorothy waking from her extended dream of Oz to find none of it really happened.

06:45This supposed alternate ending, often claimed as the version for television,

06:49supposedly includes a shot of Dorothy's ruby slippers, suggesting it wasn't a dream after all.

06:55However, some viewers remember the slippers on her feet, while some say under the bed.

07:00Keep tight inside of them.

07:01Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly.

07:04While modern, this twist doesn't really make much sense with the message the movie leaves us with.

07:09There's no evidence that another ending was ever broadcast, or added to a home video release.

07:17Doesn't anybody believe me?

07:19Of course we believe you don't.

07:21The Poppy Trip.

07:22Over time, theories have implied that The Wizard of Oz makes covert references to substance use.

07:27But how many of them are true, and how many have been placed on the film retrospectively?

07:31Something with poison in it, I think.

07:35With poison in it.

07:37But attractive to the eye.

07:39And soothing to the smell.

07:42Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

07:44Poppy.

07:46Poppy.

07:47Audiences have surmised that the poppy fields that Dorothy and the gang enter are meant to represent opioids,

07:53as poppy flowers are a natural source of opium.

07:55While this initial connection is true, some further reads on the scene are a bit extreme.

08:01It's snowing!

08:04Snowing.

08:07Yes, it is!

08:10Maybe that will help!

08:11In the film, Glinda wakes the sleeping quartet with sprinkled snow,

08:15which some viewers have assumed must represent another illicit substance.

08:19There is no confirmation to this claim,

08:21though we could understand why such a connection was drawn after giving this scene another watch.

08:25Step into the sun, step into the light.

08:29Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place.

08:33On the face, on the earth, for the sky.

08:37The Dark Side of the Rainbow.

08:39Sometime in the 1990s, a fun, slightly ominous anecdote began to spring up around Oz.

08:45Fans of Pink Floyd's classic The Dark Side of the Moon album swore that the album synced up perfectly with The Wizard of Oz.

08:51Now simply kick back and judge for yourself both the lyrical and musical synchronicity.

08:56Balance on the biggest wave.

09:00Race to us and I'm afraid.

09:05It became part of the legend that the band did this on purpose.

09:09Its members vehemently deny this, going so far as to call BS.

09:13Quote, it's absolute nonsense, it has nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz.

09:15It was all based on the sound of music.

09:17Presumably he's joking, although with Nick it's hard to know sometimes.

09:20Coincidental music cues and lyrics are sometimes uncanny.

09:24The proof that it's unintentional is evidenced more by what doesn't sync up with the movie, which is most of it.

09:30At 42 minutes and 50 seconds, Pink Floyd's album is less than half of the movie's runtime,

09:35and there are only a few eerie moments of true synchronicity.

09:38And there are these strange coincidences.

09:42I'll call them coincidences.

09:43So maybe if you play this while you watch the movie Wicked.

09:46Yeah.

09:47Who knows?

09:48Who knows? We never know.

09:49The book the movie was based on was a populist allegory.

09:52Professor Henry Littlefield was adamant that L. Frank Baum's fairy tale about a girl who lands in a vibrant fantasy land

09:58was a covert populist parable.

10:00Frank Baum's talent was turning these visual symbols into meaningful and sometimes spiritual symbols that worked in the context of the story.

10:11He proposed that Dorothy's silver slippers, changed to ruby for the film,

10:15represented the movement to move toward a silver standard.

10:19Meanwhile, the gold standard was supposedly represented by the yellow brick road.

10:23Follow the yellow brick road.

10:25Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road.

10:28While there's a lot more to Littlefield's interpretation,

10:31it's been heavily criticized by historians of the era.

10:34That hasn't stopped the internet from claiming this was Baum's intention, though.

10:38This is also just one of the many political frameworks others have mapped onto Baum's story,

10:43proving its power to remain relevant and timeless.

10:46Uncle Henry never laughed.

10:49He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was.

10:54He looked stern and solemn and rarely spoke.

10:58Baum, in many ways, is saying that this Western dream seems to have hit a wall.

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11:22What's in the background?

11:24By far the darkest and most common myth about The Wizard of Oz involves a tragic death.

11:29Before remastering, a shape in the background of the set looked vaguely like a swinging body.

11:34It's not on every copy.

11:35You have to have the collector's editions.

11:37This is the one you want to own because this is the only place to actually see.

11:40Legend goes that a Munchkin performer took their own life on set, and the aftermath is in the shot.

11:45Apparently, no one at MGM bothered to edit it out of the original release.

11:50Only years later, after the movie was compressed for grainy home video releases, did anyone notice.

11:55I wasn't interested enough to get out a magnifier and check the validity.

11:59I bought it.

12:01Good story.

12:01This myth has been thoroughly debunked.

12:04It's actually an exotic bird, many of which can be seen in earlier scenes.

12:08But that can't keep a good conspiracy theorist down.

12:11A YouTube user has even edited the footage to keep the ruse going.

12:15I haven't got a brain.

12:17Only story.

12:19How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?

12:21I don't know.

12:23But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?

12:27What's your favorite story from the set of The Wizard of Oz?

12:30Tell us in the comments.

12:31People believe a lot of the things that she has told, which in fact, we know are not true.

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