Asked at Checkers Food Store, 23rd and Louisiana streets on September 23, 2009

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“My favorite scene is when the witch says to Dorothy, ‘I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog Toto too.’”

— Rica Silvey, barista, Lawrence

“I like the Scarecrow and the scene when they are just starting on the yellow brick road.”

— Marian Cashatt, retired, Baldwin City

“The dog Toto, I like his personality.”

— Bill Shilling, retired, Lawrence

“The Tin Man, he was looking for something that he already had, a heart.”

— William Tyler, retired, De Soto

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RoeDapple 3 years, 8 months ago

Glinda the Good Witch. She was hot!

http://hisvorpal.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/wasillawitch.jpg

Personally, I'm really tired of fact that the only association the outside world has of Kansas is from a movie that is 70 years old. It even more of a shame that it has to be supported in the media like this in Kansas, Let's move past this.

Boosh 3 years, 8 months ago

Flying monkeys are Poo flinging flying monkeys woulda been awesome

RETICENT_IRREVERENT 3 years, 8 months ago

Character? Nikko of course.

geekin_topekan 3 years, 8 months ago

I like the part where they are all lined up and the transvestite has them all costumed for a floorshow. He unfreezes them and they each sing their individual testimonials to him.

"...what's this? Lets see..I feel...sexy. What's come over me? Whooo! Here it comes again!!!"

greenlid79 3 years, 8 months ago

Yeah, those monkeys!!! So creepily captivating!

greenlid79 3 years, 8 months ago

Nuts, there is definitely a deeper story there than we're led to believe. Or maybe it's as simple as that is where he got his best thinking done... a good place to get your "business" done.

milkman_dan 3 years, 8 months ago

http://video.libero.it/app/play?id=359cfd77b195b8104288a464b08dd805

http://video.libero.it/app/play/?id=0bf003a1c6cbcccace8e3269f4d9f28f

snap_pop_no_crackle 3 years, 8 months ago

Gotta be the flying monkeys.

"Ook, ook, look out below!"

ksmax 3 years, 8 months ago

My favorite part is getting to see my great great aunt who was one of the munchkins! Her name was Anne Rice Leslie. It is always a fond memory of watching the Wizard of Oz with my family!

RETICENT_IRREVERENT 3 years, 8 months ago

There is always one in the crowd...

RETICENT_IRREVERENT 3 years, 8 months ago

I have watched it 37 times. The only thing thing that kinda freaks me out, is where in the hell did an unstable scarecrow get the revolver?

trinity 3 years, 8 months ago

i like the evil trees...are you saying my apples aren't what they ought to be??? :)

artichokeheart 3 years, 8 months ago

"Why no she just doesn't like little green worms"

mjwgoku 3 years, 8 months ago

I like it when Dorothy sings her song, a classic. I don't care for the Munchkins at all. Carnies, Nomads you know, smell like cabbage, small hands...

egress 3 years, 8 months ago

The flying monkeys scared me silly! My favorite part is still when Lion freaks out before getting into the Wizard and runs down the hall & jumps out the window. Cracks me up every time!

Oh, and the King of the Forest song.

charliejohnson 3 years, 8 months ago

When they go into the poppy meadow. I always thought, how pretty. And, of course when she clicks her and says "There's no place like home."

vwelch 3 years, 8 months ago

I loved Dorothy and, of course, Judy Garland!

cait48 3 years, 8 months ago

“I'll say it… I never liked that movie. Saw it as a kid and didn't like it. Saw it again a couple years ago and still don't like it.”

Turn off the sound and play Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon".

jehovah_bob 3 years, 8 months ago

My favorite part is at the end, when it's over.

And everybody knows that the best way to do coke is off of a toilet seat, therefore I submit that Fonzi was a coke dealer and the bathroom stall was the sampling room. I believe he was also a pimp.

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

I like the part where they trip out on morphine and pass out as a group.

brujablanco 3 years, 8 months ago

Glinda the Good Witch, of course.

"You have no power here! Now begone, before somebody drops a house on you!"

puzzler 3 years, 8 months ago

What about the "I'm melting!" scene? Always good for a laugh.

I love the four characters singing, "We're off to see the wizard" together and skipping down the yellow brick road.

Boosh 3 years, 8 months ago

Dark Side of the Rainbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGlGOQJUyw

sunshine_noise 3 years, 8 months ago

"If I were King of the foressssst, not Duke, not Prince, but Kiiiiinnnnnggg" the Cowardly Lion is my favorite.

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

"What about the “I'm melting!” scene? Always good for a laugh."

Futurama parody priceless. "I'm melting! Who would have ever thought that a small amount of liquid would fall on ME?"

somedude20 3 years, 8 months ago

I liked in the director's cut when one of the flying monkeys has his way with little Dorothy

fleeba 3 years, 8 months ago

"I declare the wicked witch dead".. but only because I grew up with that munchkin, mickey carroll. He was one of my dad's best friends.

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 8 months ago

hey willie tyler (isn't that also the name of a famous ventriliquist?), dude, that's the whole point of the story: everyone had what they were looking for the entire time. it wasn't just the tin man! geesh!

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 8 months ago

jonas, i heart me some futurama. :)

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 8 months ago

boosh, my boyfriend has done the dark side of the rainbow thing several times at home. its pretty effing freaky, i tell ya.

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 8 months ago

jonas, i like that poppy scene in the wiz as well.

Wallythewalrus 3 years, 8 months ago

To much lead in the silver paint for the tin man. The snow in the poppy field was pure Chrysotile Asbestos. The tornado Asbestos wrapped around wire, the broom also made with asbestos. The movie was an environmental hazard.

Pywacket 3 years, 8 months ago

I always loved the Cowardly Lion. I'm with everyone else who was afraid of the flying monkeys, which were so well done. Just think what a disaster it would have been if the movie had been made in these times, by Disney... All the creepy delicious darkness would have been bled out and the monkeys and witches would be played for comedy--they would be wisecracking like Timon & Pumba (shudder). Thank goodness the movie was made in 1939.

When I was a kid, the movie was shown once a year on TV and it was a HUGE big deal. We had a b/w TV, as did all my friends. We always drove across town to my grandma's because she had a color TV. Grandma made ice cream sodas and all of us kids watched in rapt silence. I got to take my best friend with me and it was something we looked forward to for weeks and talked to death afterward.

I look at my kids, who grew up with color TVs and the ability to rent or buy their favorite movies and watch them any old time and I have to feel that they are truly missing something.

I know every generation has that feeling about some technology or other that we (nonetheless) would not trade, but I can't help it--I don't believe TWOZ or any movie can ever hold the breathtaking appeal to younger generations that it held for us, simply because getting to see it--and seeing that b/w morph into blooming color-- was such a special occasion.

And I can't even imagine what it must've been like for original movie-goers to see it in the theatre, in those days, when you didn't see the whole movie in trailers for 6 months before it came out, ruining any surprises. For those times, the tornado was a stunningly crafted special effect (and has held up remarkably well, at that). It must've awed theatre goers. Same thing for the blast of fire in which the witch disappeared. (And which actually burned Margaret Hamilton in one take.) My mother was a newborn when that movie debuted. My dad was five. That really puts it into perspective for me.

Mel Briscoe 3 years, 8 months ago

py, i totally agree... i'm glad this was done when it was and not nowadays. i am soooo sick and tired of CGI. its the lazy man's way of creating special effects and animation. i am really pleased to see that the newest disney movie is DRAWN and that it features a black character (gasp!... really?!).

the flying monkeys apparently freaked everyone out as much as they did me.

my mom is from sedan, ks and when they debuted their downtown attraction: the yellowbrick road (which is actually just a sidewalk but hey-- they get an A for effort), they had alot of fanfare surrounding it. they actually had a few of the surviving munchkins attend (mind you, this was the late 80s, early 90s). my mom got her picture taken w/ one of them. the thing about the munchkins, i assume some of those folks were only 15 or 16 when they shot that film (i guess around the age judy garland was), so they outlived the other members... too bad judy liked the sauce so much.

ksmax 3 years, 8 months ago

Another great memory of the Wizard of Oz is watching my brother try and adjust the color in the beginning of the movie LOL He will NEVER live that down.

tangential_reasoners_anonymous 3 years, 8 months ago

There, in the background...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKrJoih_uCQ

( menacing )

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

Comment 999,000 mine?

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

not mine :(

mommyoffour 3 years, 8 months ago

My favorite all time movie! Dorathy of course :)

mommyoffour 3 years, 8 months ago

Oops Dorothy :)

remember_username 3 years, 8 months ago

jonas_opines - "I like the part where they trip out on morphine and pass out as a group."

It's interesting to note that summoning snow (a early slang term for cocaine or amphetamines) woke them up from their opium exposure.

My favorite scene was when they switched from sepia tones to technicolor when Dorthy walks out the door into Munchkin Land.

anaughtymouse 3 years, 8 months ago

The best part is and always will be Judy Garland singing 'Over the Rainbow'. Though the front door opening to all that color is such an iconic moment in film.

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

That opening of the door is one of the few parts where Dark Side of the Moon actually seemed to sync to the movie enough to see where that myth came from. It happens right at the start of the bass-line for Money, and is actually really cool.

The other one of note that I remember is that right when the evil lady of the real world (who becomes the witch in Oz) first is seen on her bicycle is when all of those clocks go off in one loud cacophone.

Past that, not much there that I could see.

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

Remember-Username: Ha, now that is an interesting point isn't it? I hadn't really thought about that, but it's been a long time since I've seen the movie all of the way through.

SpiritTat 3 years, 8 months ago

Is it sacriligious to say that I really can't stand the movie? perhaps if I'd first seen it with someone who didn't idolize the 'old movies' and 'the old days' but couldn't be nice on a good day in the present..... but I digress.

sorry ~ can't stand the film but i can appreciate what it means cinematically.

artichokeheart 3 years, 8 months ago

Come on Marion the wizard is the only one who didn't know what he was doing.

remember_username 3 years, 8 months ago

When I was in the service (years ago), and it was learned I was from Kansas, I was always (well 90+%) asked "Oh, do you know Dorothy?". I started to really hate that movie. But then I learned to mimic the wicked witch perfectly and get right in their face with "Oh yes, my pretty, and her little dog too." It's surprising how that creeps people out.

OldEnuf2BYurDad 3 years, 8 months ago

The part when my mother-in-law melts.

jonas_opines 3 years, 8 months ago

"Come on Marion the wizard is the only one who didn't know what he was doing."

Haha. The one who thinks he knows what he's doing but in fact doesn't? How perfectly metaphorical it is then!

artichokeheart 3 years, 8 months ago

No marion the wizard took advantage of the others by deception. Watch out for carnies. Small hands, smell like cabbage.

Pywacket 3 years, 8 months ago

Good one, OldEnuf! ;-)

I'm lucky--if my MIL were someone in the movie, I guess she'd be one of those cheerful ladies in the Emerald City who fixes everybody up--curls the lion's mane, pretties up Dorothy, buffs the Tin Man 'til he shines... The caretaker type..

That should be the topic of another thread: If your MIL were a Wizard of Oz character, which one would she be?

Jay_lo 3 years, 8 months ago

Pywacket (Anonymous) says…

Good one, OldEnuf! ;-)

I'm lucky—if my MIL were someone in the movie, I guess she'd be one of those cheerful ladies in the Emerald City who fixes everybody up—curls the lion's mane, pretties up Dorothy, buffs the Tin Man 'til he shines… The caretaker type..

That should be the topic of another thread: If your MIL were a Wizard of Oz character, which one would she be?

Didn't you see her breaking wind on her bicycle?