High Time We Continue...
...our encore presentation of The Wizard of Wu
The movie of The Wizard of Oz holds on to a big chunk of the real estate in my brain (this could be why I can remember most of the plot and dialogue of an 84 year old movie , but can’t remember what I went in the other room for.) The original L Frank Baum book was published in the very first part of the 20th century, but the movie reached theaters in 1939, as things were getting particularly dark in Europe and fascism gripped hard.
It’s hard not to see the story as an allegory for what was happening in Europe and the evil of the wicked witch, with the flying monkeys, as Hitler and the SS. Maybe that’s why it still has resonance today. We are still faced with evil on almost every front, from without and within.
My version is a little lighter (after all— it has pandas!) but it still has a touch of evil in it!
On with the show!
Stay ‘tooned! More next week!
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Delightful. We read ALL the Frank L Baum Oz books to our daughter Penny as a young'un. She's now in her early 30s and can still quote some of them. They were a perfect combination of entertaining for her, with enough depth of creativity and amusement for us adults.