By Jim Raykie
I was working at the computer Sunday evening when I heard a familiar yapping on the TV up in the living room. I knew instantly that the unmistakable barking was from Toto in the movie of L. Frank Baum’s classic “The Wizard of Oz.”
After taking a small break from my work, I walked into the room in time to watch Almira Gulch peddling her bicycle down the narrow lane in the Kansas country. Dorothy’s little dog escapes from the basket on the bicycle, setting the stage for the unfolding of one of America’s most beloved films.
As I briefly watched, I remembered when Miss Gulch (Wicked Witch of the West later in the film) scared me to death when I was a kid. But as I walked away from the widescreen TV displaying the film in detailed, vivid color, I couldn’t help but compare that to my early exposure to the classic.
I can’t remember exactly when I first saw “The Wizard of Oz,” but I was very young and I remember it being a favorite film of my parents as well as my grandparents. I had to have been around 8 years old, according to some fast research.
The movie, based on Baum’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” written in 1900, debuted on the big screen in 1939 to modest success. One can only imagine how much it cost to produce it.
It was telecast in 1956, but not again until 1959. But from 1959 until 1991, it was shown annually on commercial TV around this time of year, and it was during one of those pre-holiday family gatherings that I watched it for the first time.
We had a black-and-white TV like most folks in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that’s how I remember watching the movie. Because you could only see it once a year, it was a real treat, and something that we looked forward to with great anticipation.
Whether it was at our house or at my grandparents, we would huddle around the TV, usually some sort of snacks at hand, and watch with little interruption. After several years of watching, you learned where the commercial breaks were (they were always in the same spots), so you could plan trips to the bathroom or the kitchen. In essence, we were glued to that old TV set every year.
Long after I had returned to the computer Sunday night, I could hear that the movie was nearing the end. I took another short break and watched Dorothy melt the Wicked Witch with a pail of water, call out The Wizard from behind the curtain, and eventually end up back at the farm in Kansas with Professor Marvel, Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, Hunk, Zeke, Hickory and Toto too.
When the short list of credits rolled at the end, it took me back to that living room in Farrell, and I realized that the reason “The Wizard of Oz” has been special to many generations for a long time was because of that lack of availability. It was a once-a-year deal when we were young.
That nostalgic experience faded with the advent of cable TV, VCRs and DVD players. When the film hit the market for sale as a video and later as a DVD, you could watch it as many times as you liked. Better yet, technology improved the viewing experience tremendously with digitized formats and enhanced video and sound.
I’m a big fan of technology, and watching “The Wizard of Oz” in the 21st Century is a much different experience than it was 50 years ago. It’s like comparing night and day. But for all of the advances, I’ll never forget the special times of watching the characters follow that yellow brick road on our small black-and-white Philco, without even the thought of a computer to lure me away.
Jim Raykie is the editor of The Herald and his column appears on Mondays. His e-mail is jraykie@sharonherald.com
