document_title: Monsters, Inc.

question_text: who plays the voice of mike wazowski in monsters inc

text: Monsters, Inc.

text: Plot[edit]

text: The city of Monstropolis in the monster world is powered by energy from the screams of human children. At the Monsters, Inc. factory, skilled monsters employed as "scarers" venture into the human world to scare children and harvest their screams, through doors that activate portals to the children's bedroom closets. It is considered dangerous work, as human children are believed to be "toxic". Energy production is falling because children are becoming less easily scared, and company chairman, Henry J. Waternoose, is determined to find a solution. James P. "Sulley" Sullivan is the organization's top scarer, but his chief rival Randall Boggs is close behind.

text: One day, Sulley discovers that Randall has left a door activated on the scare floor and a small girl has entered the factory. After several failed attempts to put her back, Sulley conceals her and takes her out of the factory. He interrupts his best friend Mike Wazowski's date with his girlfriend, Celia, at a sushi restaurant, and chaos erupts when the child is discovered. Sulley and Mike manage to escape with the child before the Child Detection Agency (CDA) quarantines the restaurant. They soon discover that she is not really toxic after all; Sulley grows attached to her and calls her "Boo," while Mike is just anxious to be rid of her.

text: When they smuggle her back into the factory disguised as a baby monster in an attempt to send her home, Randall discovers her and tries to kidnap her, but he mistakenly kidnaps Mike instead. He straps Mike to a large machine called "The Scream Extractor," which he intends to use to revolutionize the scaring industry and solve the monster world's energy problems by forcefully extracting screams from kidnapped human children. Before Randall can use the machine on Mike, Sulley intervenes and reports Randall to Waternoose. Waternoose, secretly in league with Randall, instead exiles Mike and Sulley to the Himalayas. The two are taken in by a Yeti, who tells them about a nearby village which Sulley realizes he can use to return to the factory. Sulley prepares to leave, but Mike refuses to go with him. Meanwhile, Randall is preparing to use the Scream Extractor on Boo, but Sulley arrives and saves her. Randall and Sulley fight, and after Mike returns and the two reconcile, they overpower Randall, take Boo, and flee.

text: Randall pursues them to the door vault, and a wild chase ensues among the millions of doors as they move in and out of the storage vault on rails to the factory floor. Boo's laughter causes all the doors to activate, allowing the monsters to pass in and out of the human world. Randall attempts to kill Sulley, but Boo overcomes her fear and attacks him. Sulley and Mike trap Randall in the human world, where two residents at a trailer park mistake him for an alligator and beat him with a shovel. Sulley and Mike then trick Waternoose into revealing his plot with Randall, while Mike secretly records the entire conversation for the CDA to view. The CDA arrests Waternoose, while Sulley and Mike say goodbye to Boo and return her home before her door is shredded to prevent any more contact with her.

text: With the factory temporarily shut down, Sulley is named the new CEO of Monsters, Inc. Under his leadership, the energy crisis is solved by harvesting children's laughter instead of screams, as laughter has been found to be much more potent. Mike takes Sulley aside, revealing he has rebuilt Boo's door and only needs one final piece, which Sulley took as a memento. Sulley enters and joyfully reunites with Boo.

text: Voice cast[edit]

text:
John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, a large, furry blue monster with horns and purple spots. Even though Sulley excels at scaring children, he is a gentle giant by nature. At the film's beginning, Sulley has been the "Best Scarer" at Monsters, Inc. for several months running.
Billy Crystal as Michael "Mike" Wazowski, a short, round green monster with a single big eyeball and skinny limbs. Mike is Sulley's station runner and coach on the scare floor, and the two are close friends and roommates. Mike is charming and generally the more organized of the two, but is prone to neurotics and his ego sometimes leads him astray. He is dating Celia Mae, who calls him "Googly-Bear".
Mary Gibbs as Mary "Boo", a three-year-old[3][4][5] human girl who is unafraid of any monster except Randall, the scarer assigned to her door. She believes Sulley is a large cat and refers to him as "Kitty". The book based on the film gives Boo's "real" name as Mary Gibbs, the name of her voice actress. In the film, one of Boo's drawings is covered with the name "Mary".
Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs, a purple eight-legged lizard monster with a chameleon-like ability to change skin color and blend in completely with his surroundings. He is a snide and preening character who makes himself a rival to Sulley and Mike in scream collection.
James Coburn as Henry J. Waternoose III, an arthropodic monster with a crab-like lower body. Waternoose is the CEO of Monsters, Inc., a job passed down through his family for three generations. He acts as a mentor to Sulley, holding great faith in him as a scarer.
Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae, a gorgon-like monster with one eye and tentacle-like legs. Celia is the receptionist for Monsters, Inc. and Mike's girlfriend.
Bob Peterson as Roz, a slug-like monster with a raspy voice reminiscent of Selma Diamond's who administrates for Scarefloor F where Sulley, Mike, and Randall work. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that Roz is "agent number 1" of the CDA, and has worked undercover at Monsters, Inc. for two and a half years.
John Ratzenberger as Yeti[6] aka. The Abominable Snowman,[7] a furry white monster who was banished to the Himalayas. He was inspired by the Abominable Snowman from the 1964 Rankin/Bass animated special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.[8]
Frank Oz as Jeff Fungus, Randall's red-skinned, three-eyed assistant. He is generally incompetent and is often bullied by Randall.
Dan Gerson as Smitty and Needleman, two goofy adolescent monsters with cracking voices who work as janitors and operate the Door Shredder when required. The pair of them idolize Sulley and are generally seen as a nuisance by Mike.
Steve Susskind as Jerry Slugworth, a red seven-fingered monster who manages Scare Floor F and is a good friend of Waternoose.
Bonnie Hunt as Ms. Flint, a female monster who trains new monsters to scare children.
Jeff Pidgeon as Thaddeus "Phlegm" Bile, a trainee scarer for Monsters, Inc.
Samuel Lord Black as George Sanderson, a chubby, oranged-furred monster with a sole horn on top of his head. A running gag throughout the film involves George repeatedly making contact with human artifacts (such as socks and the like which cling to his fur via static), prompting his scare coach to trigger "23–19" incidents with the CDA resulting in him mobbed, shaved bald, and sterilized.
Phil Proctor as Charlie, George's assistant with sea-green skin and tendrils for limbs. He is friends with George, Mike, and Sulley but is quick to call the CDA on his scarer at the drop of a hat.
Joe Ranft as Pete "Claws" Ward, a blue monster with razor-sharp claws and horrifying breath.

text: Production[edit]

text: Development[edit]

text: The idea for Monsters, Inc. was conceived in a lunch in 1994 attended by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft during the production of Toy Story.[9] One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming session was a film about monsters. "When we were making Toy Story", Docter said, "everybody came up to me and said 'Hey, I totally believed that my toys came to life when I left the room.' So when Disney asked us to do some more films, I wanted to tap into a childlike notion that was similar to that. I knew monsters were coming out of my closet when I was a kid. So I said, 'Hey, let's do a film about monsters.'"[10]

text: Docter began work on the film that would become Monsters, Inc. in 1996 while others focused on A Bug's Life (1998) and Toy Story 2 (1999). Its code name was Hidden City, named for Docter's favorite restaurant in Point Richmond.[11] By early-February 1997, Docter had drafted a treatment together with Harley Jessup, Jill Culton, and Jeff Pidgeon that bore some resemblance to the final film. Docter pitched the story to Disney with some initial artwork on February 4 that year. He and his story team left with some suggestions in hand and returned to pitch a refined version of the story on May 30. At this pitch meeting, longtime Disney animator Joe Grant – whose work stretched back to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – suggested the title Monsters, Inc., a play on the title of a gangster film Murder, Inc.,[12] which stuck.[13] The film marks the first Pixar feature to not be directed by Lasseter instead being helmed by Docter, as well as Lee Unkrich and David Silverman who served as co-directors.[14]

text: Writing[edit]

text: The story line took on many forms during production.[15] His original idea featured a 30-year-old man dealing with monsters that he drew in a book as a child coming back to bother him as an adult. Each monster represented a fear he had, and conquering those fears caused the monsters eventually to disappear.[16]

text: After Docter scrapped the initial concept of a 30-year-old terrified of monsters, he decided on a buddy story between a monster and a child titled simply Monsters, in which the monster character of Sulley (known at this stage as Johnson) was an up-and-comer at his workplace, where the company's purpose was to scare children. Sulley's eventual sidekick, Mike Wazowski, had not yet been added.[15][17][17]

text: Between 1996 and 2000, the lead monster and child went through radical changes as the story evolved. As the story continued to develop, the child varied in age and gender. Ultimately, the story team decided that a girl would be the best counterpart for a furry, 8-foot-tall (96 in) co-star.[15] After a girl was settled upon, the character continued to undergo changes, at one point being from Ireland and at another time being an African-American character.[13] Originally the character of the little girl, known as Mary, became a fearless seven-year-old who has been toughened by years of teasing and pranks from four older brothers.[13] In stark contrast, Johnson is nervous about the possibility of losing his job after the boss at Monsters, Inc. announces a downsizing is on the way. He feels envious because another scarer, Ned (who later became Randall), is the company's top performer.[13] Through various drafts, Johnson's occupation went back-and-forth from being a scarer and from working in another area of the company such as a janitor or a refinery worker, until his final incarnation as the best scarer at Monsters, Inc.[13] Throughout development Pixar worried that having a main character whose main goal was to scare children would alienate audiences and make them not empathize with him. Docter would later describe that the team "bent over backwards trying to create a story that still had monsters " while still solving the problem,[14] A key moment came when the team decided "Okay, he’s the BEST scarer there. He’s the star quarterback" with Docter noting that before that moment "design after design, we really didn’t know what he was about."[14] Disney noted to Pixar early on that they did not want the character to "look like a guy in a suit." [14] To this end Johnson was originally planned to have tentacles for feet; however, this caused many problems in early animation tests. The idea was later largely rejected, as it was thought that audiences would be distracted by the tentacles.[18] Mary's age also differed from draft to draft until the writers settled on the age of 3. "We found that the younger she was, the more dependent she was on Sulley", Docter said.[10]

text: Eventually Johnson was renamed Sullivan. The name was suggested by an animator who had attended Texas A&M University, inspired by one of Texas A&M's historic icons, Lawrence Sullivan Ross, nicknamed "Sulley" by students. Sullivan was also planned to wear glasses throughout the film. However, the creators found it a dangerous idea because the eyes were a perfectly readable and clear way of expressing a character's personality; thus, the idea was rejected.[18]

text: The idea of a monster buddy for the lead monster emerged at an April 6, 1998 "story summit" in Burbank with employees from Disney and Pixar. A term coined by Lasseter, a "story summit" was a crash exercise that would yield a finished story in only two days.[19] Such a character, the group agreed, would give the lead monster someone to talk to about his predicament. Development artist Ricky Nierva drew a concept sketch of a rounded, one-eyed monster as a concept for the character, and everyone was generally receptive to it.[10] Docter named the character Mike for the father of his friend Frank Oz, a director and Muppet performer.[13] Jeff Pidgeon and Jason Katz story-boarded a test in which Mike helps Sulley choose a tie for work, and Mike Wazowski soon became a vital character in the film.[10] Originally, Mike had no arms and had to use his legs as appendages; however, due to some technical difficulties, arms were soon added to him.[10]

text: Screenwriter Dan Gerson joined Pixar in 1999 and worked on the film with the filmmakers on a daily basis for almost two years. He considered it his first experience in writing a feature film. He explained, "I would sit with Pete [Docter] and David Silverman and we would talk about a scene and they would tell me what they were looking for. I would make some suggestions and then go off and write the sequence. We'd get together again and review it and then hand it off to a story artist. Here's where the collaborative process really kicked in. The board artist was not beholden to my work and could take liberties here and there. Sometimes, I would suggest an idea about making the joke work better visually. Once the scene moved on to animation, the animators would plus the material even further."[15]

text: Casting[edit]

text: Bill Murray was considered for the voice role of James P. "Sulley" Sullivan. He screen tested for the role and was interested, but when Pete Docter was unable to make contact with him, he took it as a "no".[20][21] The voice role of Sulley went to John Goodman, the longtime co-star of the comedy series Roseanne and a regular in the films of the Coen brothers. Goodman interpreted the character to himself as the monster equivalent of a National Football League player. "He's like a seasoned lineman in the tenth year of his career," he said at the time. "He is totally dedicated and a total pro."[22] Billy Crystal, having regretted turning down the part of Buzz Lightyear years prior, accepted that of Mike Wazowski, Sulley's one-eyed best friend and scare assistant.[23][24] The casting of Steve Buscemi as Randall, Sulley's rival, saw a reunion between himself and John Goodman; they had previously worked together on The Big Lebowski and Barton Fink.

text: Animation[edit]

text: In November 2000, early in the production of Monsters, Inc., Pixar packed up and moved for the second time since its Lucasfilm years.[22] The company's approximately 500 employees had become spread among three buildings, separated by a busy highway. The company moved from Point Richmond to a much bigger campus in Emeryville, co-designed by Lasseter and Steve Jobs.[22]

text: In production, Monsters Inc. differed from earlier Pixar features, as every main character in this movie had its own lead animator — John Kahrs on Sulley, Andrew Gordon on Mike, and Dave DeVan on Boo.[25] Kahrs found that the "bearlike quality" of Goodman's voice provided an exceptionally good fit with the character. He faced a difficult challenge, however, in dealing with Sulley's sheer mass; traditionally, animators conveyed a figure's heaviness by giving it a slower, more belabored movement, but Kahrs was concerned that such an approach to a central character would give the film a "sluggish" feel.[25] Like Goodman, Kahrs came to think of Sulley as a football player, one whose athleticism enabled him to move quickly in spite of his size. To help the animators with Sulley and other large monsters, Pixar arranged for Rodger Kram, a University of California, Berkeley expert on the locomotion of heavy mammals, to lecture on the subject.[25]

text: Adding to Sulley's lifelike appearance was an intense effort by the technical team to refine the rendering of fur. Other production houses had tackled realistic fur, most notably Rhythm & Hues in its 1993 polar bear commercials for Coca-Cola and in its talking animals' faces in the 1995 film Babe.[25] This film, however, required fur on a far larger scale. From the standpoint of Pixar's engineers, the quest for fur posed several significant challenges; one was to figure out how to animate a large numbers of hairs — 2,320,413 of them on Sulley — in a reasonably efficient way,[25] and another was to make sure that the hairs would cast shadows on other ones. Without self-shadowing, either fur or hair takes on an unrealistic flat-colored look (e.g., in Toy Story, the hair on Andy's toddler sister, as seen in that movie's opening sequence, is hair without self-shadowing).[25]

text: The first fur test allowed Sulley to run an obstacle course. Results were not satisfactory, as such objects would catch and stretch out the fur due to the extreme amount of motion. Another similar test was also unsuccessful, because, this time, the fur would go through the objects.[18]

text: Pixar then set up a Simulation department and created a new fur simulation program called Fizt (short for "physics tool").[26] After a shot with Sulley in it had been animated, this department took the data for that shot and added Sulley's fur. Fizt allowed the fur to react in a more natural way. Every time when Sulley would have to move, his fur would (automatically) react to his movements, thus taking the effects of wind and gravity into account as well. The Fizt program also controlled the movement of Boo's clothes, which provided another "breakthrough".[26] The deceptively simple-sounding task of animating cloth was also a challenge to animate thanks to those hundreds of creases and wrinkles that automatically occurred in the clothing when the wearer moved.[27] Also, this meant they would have to solve the complex problem of how to keep cloth untangled — in other words, to keep it from passing through itself when parts of it intersect.[28] Fizt applied the same system to Boo's clothes as to Sulley's fur. First of all, Boo would be animated shirtless; the Simulation department then used Fizt to apply the shirt over Boo's body, and every time she would move, her clothes also would react to her movements in a more natural manner.

text: To solve the problem of cloth-to-cloth collisions, Michael Kass, Pixar's senior scientist, was joined on Monsters, Inc. by David Baraff and Andrew Witkin and developed an algorithm they called "global intersection analysis" to handle the problem. The complexity of the shots in the film, including elaborate sets such as the door vault, required more computing power to render than any of Pixar's earlier efforts combined. The render farm in place for Monsters, Inc. was made up of 3500 Sun Microsystems processors, compared with 1400 for Toy Story 2 and only 200 for Toy Story.[28]

text: Release[edit]

text: The film premiered on October 28, 2001, at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California.[29] It was theatrically released on November 2, 2001 in the United States, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002.[30] The theatrical release was accompanied with the Pixar short animated film For the Birds.[31]

text: As with A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2, a montage of "outtakes" and a performance of a play based on a line from the film were made and included in the end credits of the film starting on December 7, 2001.[32]

text: After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King,[33] Disney and Pixar re-released Monsters, Inc. in 3D on December 19, 2012.[34]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Monsters, Inc. was released on VHS and DVD on September 17, 2002.[35] It was then released on Blu-ray on November 10, 2009,[36] and on Blu-ray 3D on February 19, 2013.[37]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: Monsters, Inc. ranked number 1 at the box office on its opening weekend, grossing $62,577,067 in North America alone. The film had a small drop-off of 27.2% over its second weekend, earning another $45,551,028. In its third weekend, the film experienced a larger decline of 50.1%, placing itself in the second position just after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In its fourth weekend, however, there was an increase of 5.9%, making $24,055,001 that weekend for a combined total of over $525 million. As of May 2013, it is the eighth-biggest fourth weekend ever for a film.[38][39]

text: The film made $289,916,256 in North America, and $287,509,478 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $577,425,734.[2] The film is Pixar's ninth highest-grossing film worldwide and sixth in North America.[40] For a time, the film surpassed Toy Story 2 as the second highest-grossing animated film of all time, only behind 1994's The Lion King.[28]

text: In the U.K., Ireland, and Malta, it earned £37,264,502 ($53,335,579) in total, marking the sixth highest-grossing animated film of all time in the country and the thirty-second highest-grossing film of all time.[41] In Japan, although earning $4,471,902 during its opening and ranking second behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for the weekend, it moved to first place on subsequent weekends due to exceptionally small decreases or even increases and dominated for six weeks at the box office. It finally reached $74,437,612, standing as 2001's third highest-grossing film and the third largest U.S. animated feature of all time in the country behind Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo.[42]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 96% based on 192 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The critical consensus was, "Clever, funny, and delightful to look at, Monsters, Inc. delivers another resounding example of how Pixar elevated the bar for modern all-ages animation."[43] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 78 based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[44]

text: Charles Taylor from Salon.com stated, "[i]t's agreeable and often funny, and adults who take their kids to see it might be surprised to find themselves having a pretty good time."[45] Elvis Mitchell from The New York Times gave it a positive review, praising the film's use of "creative energy", saying "There hasn't been a film in years to use creative energy as efficiently as Monsters, Inc."[46] Although Mike Clark from USA Today thought the comedy was sometimes "more frenetic than inspired and viewer emotions are rarely touched to any notable degree," he also viewed the film as "visually inventive as its Pixar predecessors."[47]

text: ReelViews film critic James Berardinelli gave the film 3 1⁄2 stars out of 4 and wrote that the film was "one of those rare family films that parents can enjoy (rather than endure) along with their kids."[48] Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "cheerful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has a running supply of gags and references aimed at grownups."[49] Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" grade and praised the film's animation, stating "Everything from Pixar Animation Studios — the snazzy, cutting-edge computer animation outfit — looks really, really terrific and unspools with a liberated, heppest-moms-and-dads-on-the-block iconoclasm."[50]

text: Accolades[edit]

text: Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Original Song (Randy Newman, after fifteen previous nominations, for "If I Didn't Have You").[51] It was one of the first animated films to be nominated for Best Animated Feature (lost to Shrek).[51] It was also nominated for Best Original Score (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) and Best Sound Editing (lost to Pearl Harbor).[51] At the Kid's Choice Awards in 2002, it was nominated for "Favorite Voice in an Animated Movie" for Billy Crystal (who lost to Eddie Murphy in Shrek).[51]

text: Music[edit]

text:
Monsters, Inc.

Soundtrack album by Randy Newman

Released
October 23, 2001

Recorded
2000–2001

Genre
Score

Length
1:00:30

Label
Walt Disney

Randy Newman chronology

Meet the Parents
(2000)Meet the Parents2000
Monsters, Inc.
(2001)
Seabiscuit
(2003)Seabiscuit2003

Pixar soundtrack chronology

Toy Story 2
(1999) Toy Story 21999
Monsters, Inc.
(2001) Monsters, Inc.2001
Finding Nemo
(2003) Finding Nemo2003

text:
Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating

AllMusic
[52]

Empire
[53]

Filmtracks.com
[54]

Movie Wave
[55]

Soundtrack.net
[56]

text: Monsters Inc. was Randy Newman's fourth feature film collaboration with Pixar. The end credits song "If I Didn't Have You" was sung by John Goodman and Billy Crystal.[15]

text: The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.[51] The score lost both these awards to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, but after sixteen nominations, the song "If I Didn't Have You" finally won Newman his first Academy Award for Best Original Song.[51] It also won a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.[51]

text: Track listing[edit]

text: All tracks written by Randy Newman.

text:
No.
Title
Length

1.
"If I Didn't Have You" (performed by Billy Crystal and John Goodman)
3:41

2.
"Monsters, Inc."
2:09

3.
"School"
1:38

4.
"Walk to Work"
3:29

5.
"Sulley and Mike"
1:57

6.
"Randall Appears"
0:49

7.
"Enter the Heroes"
1:03

8.
"The Scare Floor"
2:41

9.
"Oh, Celia!"
1:09

10.
"Boo's Adventures in Monstropolis"
6:23

11.
"Boo's Tired"
1:03

12.
"Putting Boo Back"
2:22

13.
"Boo Escapes"
0:52

14.
"Celia's Mad"
1:41

15.
"Boo Is a Cube"
2:19

16.
"Mike's in Trouble"
2:19

17.
"The Scream Extractor"
2:12

18.
"Sulley Scares Boo"
1:10

19.
"Exile"
2:17

20.
"Randall's Attack"
2:22

21.
"The Ride of the Doors"
5:08

22.
"Waternoose is Waiting"
3:14

23.
"Boo's Going Home"
3:34

24.
"Kitty"
1:20

25.
"If I Didn't Have You" (performed by Newman)
3:38

Total length:
1:00:30

text: Chart positions[edit]

text:
Chart (2001)
Peak
position

US Top Soundtracks (Billboard)[57]
25

text: Lawsuits[edit]

text: Shortly before the film's release, Pixar was sued by children's songwriter Lori Madrid of Wyoming, stating that the company had stolen her ideas from her 1997 poem "There's a Boy in My Closet."

text: Madrid mailed her poem to six publishers in October 1999, notably Chronicle Books, before turning it into a local stage musical in August 2001. After seeing the trailer for Monsters, Inc., Madrid concluded that Chronicle Books had passed her work to Pixar and that the film was based on her work.[59] In October 2001, she filed the suit against Chronicle Books, Pixar, and Disney in a federal court in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Her lawyer asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction, that would forbid Pixar and Disney from releasing the film while the suit was pending.

text: In a hearing on November 1, 2001 – the day before the film's scheduled release on 5,800 screens in 3,200 theaters across the country – the judge refused to issue the injunction. On June 26, 2002, he ruled that the film had nothing in common with the poem.[60]

text: In November 2002, Stanley Mouse filed a lawsuit, in which he alleged that the characters of Mike and Sulley were based on drawings of Excuse My Dust, a film that he had tried to sell to Hollywood in 1998.[61] The lawsuit also stated that a story artist from Pixar visited Mouse in 2000, and discussed Mouse's work with him.[61] A Disney spokeswoman responded, by saying that the characters in Monsters, Inc. were "developed independently by the Pixar and Walt Disney Pictures creative teams, and do not infringe on anyone's copyrights".[58] The case was ultimately settled under undisclosed terms.[62]

text: Prequel[edit]

text: A prequel, titled Monsters University, was released on June 21, 2013. John Goodman, Billy Crystal, and Steve Buscemi reprised their roles of Sulley, Mike, and Randall, while Dan Scanlon directed the film. The prequel's plot focuses on Sulley and Mike's studies at Monsters University, where they start off as rivals but soon become best friends.

text: Other media[edit]

text: An animated short, Mike's New Car, was made by Pixar in 2002 in which the two main characters have assorted misadventures with a car Mike has just bought. This film was not screened in theaters, but is included with all home video releases of Monsters, Inc., and on Pixar's Dedicated Shorts DVD.[63] In August 2002, a manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bon magazine in Japan; the manga was published in English by Tokyopop until it went out of print.[64] A series of video games, including a multi-platform video game were created based on the film. The video games included Monsters, Inc., Monsters, Inc. Scream Team and Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena.[65] A game titled Monsters, Inc. Run was released on the App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad on December 13, 2012.[66]

text: Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Walt Disney's World on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.[67] Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks around the world. In 2006 Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! opened at Disneyland Resort's Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California.[68] In 2007, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor opened at Walt Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, replacing The Timekeeper. The show is improvisational in nature, and features the opportunity for Guests to interact with the monster comedians and submit jokes of their own via text message.[69] In 2009 Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek opened at Tokyo Disney Resort's Tokyo Disneyland in Chiba, Japan.[70]

text: In 2009, Boom! Studios produced a Monsters Inc. comic book mini-series that ran for four issues. The storyline takes place after the movie and focuses on Sulley and Mike's daily struggles to operate Monsters Inc. on its new laughter-focused company policy. At the same time, their work is impeded by the revenge schemes of Randall and Waternoose, as well as a human child (indirectly revealed to be Sid Phillips from the Toy Story franchise) who has hijacked the company's closet door technology to commit a string of toy thefts throughout the human world.[71]


document_title: The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

question_text: the wizard of oz where was it filmed

question_tokens: the wizard of oz where was it filmed

root

text: The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: The film begins in Kansas, which is depicted in a sepia tone. Dorothy Gale lives with her dog, Toto, on her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's farm. Toto gets in trouble with a mean neighbor, Miss Almira Gulch, when he bites her. However, Dorothy's family and the farmhands are all too busy to listen to her troubles. Miss Gulch produces an order from the sheriff allowing her to have Toto put down. She takes him away, but he escapes and returns to Dorothy who, fearing that Miss Gulch will return, decides to run away from home.

tag: p

text: After some miles Dorothy and Toto encounter Professor Marvel, a kindly fortune teller who, realizing Dorothy has run away, uses his crystal ball to convince her that Aunt Em is ill. Dorothy races home just as a tornado approaches. Locked out of the storm cellar, she seeks safety in the house, where a wind-blown window sash knocks her out. She awakens to find the tornado has sent the house spinning into the sky. Outside the window during the flight she and Toto see farm animals, an old lady knitting in a chair, two men rowing a boat, and finally Miss Gulch, who transforms into a cackling witch riding a broomstick.

text: Suddenly the house strikes the ground and all is quiet. As Dorothy opens the door the film changes to Technicolor – she and Toto have landed in Munchkinland, part of the Land of Oz. Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins welcome her as their heroine – the house has landed on and killed the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only her feet poking out from under. In the middle of the celebration, the Wicked Witch of the West arrives in a ball of smoke and fire to claim her sister's ruby slippers, but Glinda transports them onto Dorothy's feet before the witch can get them. The witch swears revenge on Dorothy for her sister's death. Glinda tells Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz might be able to help her get back home.

text: On her way, Dorothy meets and befriends a Scarecrow, who wants a brain, and invites him to join her on her journey. Eventually they come to an apple orchard where they find and befriend a Tin Man, who desires a heart. After they invite him to come along, the Witch appears and makes threats to them. Deep in the woods, they meet a Cowardly Lion, who is in need of courage and invite him to come along as well. After the Witch attempts to stop them using an enchanted poppy field, they finally reach the Emerald City. Inside, after being initially rejected, they are permitted to see the Wizard, who appears as a large disembodied head surrounded by fire. He agrees to grant their wishes when they bring him the Witch of the West's broomstick, implying they must kill her to get it.

text: On their journey to the Witch's castle, they pass through the Haunted Forest, while the Witch views their progress in her crystal ball. She sends her winged monkeys to attack them; they capture Dorothy and Toto. At the castle, the Witch is stymied by magic when she tries to get the ruby slippers off Dorothy's feet, then remembers that she must be dead first. Toto escapes and leads the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion to the castle. After ambushing three Winkie guards, they march inside wearing the stolen guards' uniforms and free her, but the Witch discovers and traps them. The Scarecrow provides a distraction and they attempt to escape, being chased by the Witch and her guards, but are finally surrounded. The Witch sets fire to the Scarecrow and Dorothy puts it out with a bucket of water and unwittingly melts and kills the witch as the water splashes on her. The guards rejoice that she is dead and give Dorothy the charred broomstick in gratitude.

text: Back at the Emerald City, they bring the broomstick to the Wizard. But when they ask him to keep his promises, the Wizard delays granting their requests much to their shock and frustration. During the argument, Toto pulls back a curtain and exposes the "Wizard" as a normal middle-aged man who has been projecting the fearsome image; he denies Dorothy's accusation that he is a bad man, but admits to being a humbug. He then gives the Scarecrow a diploma, the Lion a medal and the Tin Man a ticking heart-shaped clock, making them realize that they had what they wanted all along. They just did not know it yet. He then prepares to launch his hot air balloon to take Dorothy home but Toto runs off, and as she tries to get him back, the balloon leaves without them. Suddenly, Glinda returns and tells her that she can still return home by using the ruby slippers. After sharing a tearful farewell with her friends, Dorothy follows Glinda's instructions and taps her heels together three times and repeats, "There's no place like home". She wakes up in bed at her home in Kansas, surrounded by her family, the farmhands, Professor Marvel and Toto. Though they dismiss her adventure as a dream, she insists that it was all real, and that there is no place like home.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale
Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel/The Wizard/Doorman/Cabbie/Guard
Ray Bolger as Hunk/Scarecrow
Jack Haley as Hickory/Tin Man
Bert Lahr as Zeke/Cowardly Lion
Billie Burke as Glinda the Good Witch of the North
Margaret Hamilton as Miss Almira Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West
Clara Blandick as Aunt Em
Charley Grapewin as Uncle Henry
Pat Walshe as Nikko (the Winged Monkey King)
Terry as Toto (though credited as Toto)
Mitchell Lewis as the Winkie Guard Captain (credited only in the IMAX version)
Adriana Caselotti as the voice of Juliet in the Tinman's song "If I only had a heart" (uncredited).[citation needed]

tag: ul

text: Munchkins[edit]

text:
Charlie Becker as Munchkin Mayor
Meinhardt Raabe as Munchkin Coroner
Jakob "Jackie" Gerlich as Lollipop Guild/Munchkin
Jerry Maren as Lollipop Guild/Munchkin
Harry Doll Earles as Lollipop Guild/Munchkin
Billy Curtis as Braggart Munchkin
Harry Monty as Soldier/Winged Monkey
Mickey Carroll as Fiddler/Town Crier/Soldier
Karl Slover as Lead trumpeter/Soldier/"Sleepyhead"/Villager
Olga C. Nardone as the Littlest Lullaby League
Margaret Pellegrini as "Sleepyhead"
Ruth Duccini as a Munchkin Villager
The Doll Family as Munchkin Villagers
The Singer Midgets as the Munchkins
William H. O'Docharty as Munchkin Carriage Footman

text: Production[edit]

text: Development and pre-production[edit]

text: Development began when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytale folklore could be successful.[12][13] In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to the hugely popular novel from Samuel Goldwyn, who had toyed with the idea of making the film as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor, who was under contract to the Goldwyn studios and whom Goldwyn wanted to cast as the Scarecrow.[13]

text: The script went through a number of writers and revisions before the final shooting.[14] Mervyn LeRoy's assistant William H. Cannon had submitted a brief four-page outline.[14] Because recent fantasy films had not fared well, he recommended that the magical elements of the story be toned down or eliminated. In his outline, the Scarecrow was a man so stupid that the only employment open to him was literally scaring crows from cornfields, and the Tin Woodman was a criminal so heartless he was sentenced to be placed in a tin suit for eternity; this torture softened him into someone gentle and kind.[14] His vision was similar to Larry Semon's 1925 film adaptation of the story, in which the magical element is absent.

text: After that, LeRoy hired screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who soon delivered a 17-page draft of the Kansas scenes, and a few weeks later, a further 56 pages. Noel Langley and poet Ogden Nash were also hired to write separate versions of the story. None of these three knew about the others, and this was not an uncommon procedure. Nash delivered a four-page outline, Langley turned in a 43-page treatment and a full film script. He[who?] turned in three more, this time incorporating the songs that had been written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf submitted a script and were brought on board to touch up the writing. They would be responsible for making sure the story stayed true to the Baum book. However, producer Arthur Freed was unhappy with their work and reassigned it to Langley.[15] During filming, Victor Fleming and John Lee Mahin revised the script further, adding and cutting some scenes. In addition, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr are known to have written some of their own dialogue for the Kansas sequence.

text: The final draft of the script was completed on October 8, 1938, following numerous rewrites.[16] All in all, it was a mish-mash of many creative minds, but Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf got the film credits. Along with the contributors already mentioned, others who assisted with the adaptation without receiving credit include: Irving Brecher, Herbert Fields, Arthur Freed, Yip Harburg, Samuel Hoffenstein, Jack Mintz, Sid Silvers, Richard Thorpe, Cukor and Vidor.[13]

text: In addition, songwriter Harburg's son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg reported:[17]

text:
“
So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains, and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he – there was eleven screenwriters on that – and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing.
”

tag: table

text: The original producers thought that a 1939 audience was too sophisticated to accept Oz as a straight-ahead fantasy; therefore, it was reconceived as a lengthy, elaborate dream sequence. Because of a perceived need to attract a youthful audience through appealing to modern fads and styles, the score had featured a song called "The Jitterbug", and the script had featured a scene with a series of musical contests. A spoiled, selfish princess in Oz had outlawed all forms of music except classical and operetta, and went up against Dorothy in a singing contest in which her swing style enchanted listeners and won the grand prize. This part was initially written for Betty Jaynes.[18] The plan was later dropped.

text: Another scene, which was removed before final script approval and never filmed, was a concluding scene back in Kansas after Dorothy's return. Hunk (the Kansan counterpart to the Scarecrow) is leaving for agricultural college and extracts a promise from Dorothy to write to him. The implication of the scene is that romance will eventually develop between the two, which also may have been intended as an explanation for Dorothy's partiality for the Scarecrow over her other two companions. This plot idea was never totally dropped, but is especially noticeable in the final script when Dorothy, just before she is to leave Oz, tells the Scarecrow, "I think I'll miss you most of all."[19]

text: In his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum describes Kansas as being "in shades of gray". Further, Dorothy lived inside a farmhouse which had its paint blistered and washed away by the weather, giving it an air of grayness. The house and property were situated in the middle of a sweeping prairie where the grass was burnt gray by harsh sun. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were "gray with age". Effectively, the use of monochrome sepia tones for the Kansas sequences was a stylistic choice that evoked the dull and gray countryside.[citation needed] Much attention was given to the use of color in the production, with the MGM production crew favoring some hues over others. Consequently, it took the studio's art department almost a week to settle on the final shade of yellow used for the yellow brick road.[20]

text: Casting[edit]

text: LeRoy had always insisted that he wanted to cast Judy Garland to play Dorothy from the start; however, evidence suggests that negotiations occurred early in pre-production for Shirley Temple to be cast as Dorothy, on loan from 20th Century Fox. A persistent rumor also existed that Fox, in turn, was promised Clark Gable and Jean Harlow as a loan from MGM. The tale is almost certainly untrue, as Harlow died in 1937, before MGM had even purchased the rights to the story. Despite this, the story appears in many film biographies (including Temple's own autobiography). The documentary The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic states that Mervyn LeRoy was under pressure to cast Temple, then the most popular child star, but at an unofficial audition, MGM musical mainstay Roger Edens listened to her sing and felt that an actress with a different style was needed; a 50th anniversary documentary for the film suggested that Temple, then 10 years old, was slightly too young for the part. Newsreel footage is included in which Temple wisecracks, "There's no place like home", suggesting that she was being considered for the part at that time.[21] A possibility is that this consideration did indeed take place, but that Gable and Harlow were not part of the proposed deal.

text: Actress Deanna Durbin, who was under contract to Universal Studios, was also considered for the part of Dorothy. Durbin, at the time, far exceeded Garland in film experience and fan base and both had co-starred in a 1936 two-reeler titled Every Sunday. The film was most notable for exhibiting Durbin's operatic style of singing against Garland's jazzier style. Durbin was possibly passed over once it was decided to bring on Jaynes, also an operatic singer, to rival Garland's jazz in the aforementioned discarded subplot of the film.

text: Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man and Buddy Ebsen was to play the Scarecrow.[16] Bolger, however, longed to play the Scarecrow, as his childhood idol Fred Stone had done on stage in 1902; with that very performance, Stone had inspired him to become a vaudevillian in the first place. Now unhappy with his role as the Tin Man (reportedly claiming, "I'm not a tin performer; I'm fluid"), Bolger convinced producer Mervyn LeRoy to recast him in the part he so desired.[22] Ebsen did not object; after going over the basics of the Scarecrow's distinctive gait with Bolger (as a professional dancer, Ebsen had been cast because the studio was confident he would be up to the task of replicating the famous "wobbly-walk" of Stone's Scarecrow), he recorded all of his songs, went through all the rehearsals as the Tin Man and began filming with the rest of the cast.[23]

text: Bert Lahr was signed for the Cowardly Lion on July 25, 1938; the next month, Charles Grapewin was cast as Uncle Henry on August 12.

text: W. C. Fields was originally chosen for the role of the Wizard, a role turned down by Ed Wynn as he thought the part was too small, but the studio ran out of patience after protracted haggling over Fields' fee; instead, another contract player, Frank Morgan, was cast on September 22.

text: Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch. She became unhappy when the witch's persona shifted from sly and glamorous (thought to emulate the wicked queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) into the familiar "ugly hag". She turned down the role and was replaced on October 10, 1938, just three days before filming started, by MGM contract player Margaret Hamilton. Sondergaard said in an interview for a bonus feature on the DVD that she had no regrets about turning down the part, and would go on to play a glamorous villain in Fox's version of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird in 1940; Margaret Hamilton played a role remarkably similar to the Wicked Witch in the Judy Garland film Babes in Arms (1939).

text: According to Aljean Harmetz, the "gone-to-seed" coat worn by Morgan as the wizard was selected from a rack of coats purchased from a second-hand shop. According to legend, Morgan later discovered a label in the coat indicating it had once belonged to Baum, that Baum's widow confirmed this, and that the coat was eventually presented to her. But Baum biographer Michael Patrick Hearn says the Baum family denies ever seeing the coat or knowing of the story; Hamilton considered it a concocted studio rumor.[24]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Richard Thorpe as director[edit]

text: Filming commenced October 13, 1938, on the MGM lot in Culver City, California, under the direction of Richard Thorpe (replacing original director Norman Taurog, who filmed only a few early Technicolor tests and was then reassigned). Thorpe initially shot about two weeks of footage (nine days in total) involving Dorothy's first encounter with the Scarecrow, as well as a number of sequences in the Wicked Witch's castle, such as Dorothy's rescue (which, though unreleased, comprises the only footage of Ebsen's Tin Man).

text: According to most sources, ten days into the shoot, Ebsen suffered a reaction to the aluminum powder makeup he wore. He was hospitalized in critical condition, and subsequently was forced to leave the project; in a later interview (included on the 2005 DVD release of The Wizard of Oz), he recalled the studio heads appreciated the seriousness of his illness only after seeing him in the hospital. Filming halted while a replacement for him was found. No full footage of him as the Tin Man has ever been released – only photographs taken during filming and makeup test photos. His replacement, Jack Haley, simply assumed he had been fired.[25] Author and screen-writer George MacDonald Fraser offers an alternative story, told to him by Burt Lancaster's producing partner, Jim Hill, that Ebsen had refused to be painted silver and was fired.[26]

text: George Cukor's brief stint[edit]

text: LeRoy, after reviewing the footage and feeling Thorpe was rushing the production, adversely affecting the actors' performances, had Thorpe replaced. During reorganization on the production, George Cukor temporarily took over, under LeRoy's guidance. Initially, the studio had made Garland wear a blond wig and heavy "baby-doll" makeup, and she played Dorothy in an exaggerated fashion; now, Cukor changed Garland's and Hamilton's makeup and costumes, and told Garland to "be herself". This meant that all the scenes Garland and Hamilton had already completed had to be discarded and reshot. Cukor also suggested that the studio cast Jack Haley, on loan from Fox, as the Tin Man. To keep down on production costs, Haley only rerecorded "If I Only Had a Heart" and solo lines during "The Jitterbug" and "If I Only Had the Nerve"; as such, Ebsen's voice can still be heard in the remaining songs featuring the Tin Man in group vocals. The makeup used for Haley was quietly changed to an aluminum paste, with a layer of clown white greasepaint underneath to protect his skin; although it did not have the same dire effect on Haley, he did at one point suffer an eye infection from it.[citation needed]

text: In addition, Bolger's original recording of "If I Only Had a Brain" had been far more sedate compared to the version heard in the film; during this time, Cukor and LeRoy decided that a more energetic rendition would better suit Dorothy's initial meeting with the Scarecrow (initially, it was to contrast with his lively manner in Thorpe's footage), and was rerecorded as such. At first thought to be lost for over seven decades, a recording of this original version was rediscovered in 2009.[27]

text: Victor Fleming, the main director[edit]

text: Cukor did not actually shoot any scenes for the film, merely acting as something of a "creative advisor" to the troubled production, and, because of his prior commitment to direct Gone with the Wind, he left on November 3, 1938, when Victor Fleming assumed directorial responsibility. As director, Fleming chose not to shift the film from Cukor's creative realignment, as producer LeRoy had already pronounced his satisfaction with the new course the film was taking.

text: Production on the bulk of the Technicolor sequences was a long and cumbersome process that ran for over six months, from October 1938 to March 1939. Most of the cast worked six days a week and had to arrive as early as 4:00 a.m. to be fitted with makeup and costumes, and often did not leave until 7 pm or later. Cumbersome makeup and costumes were made even more uncomfortable by the daylight-bright lighting the early Technicolor process required, which could heat the set to over 100 °F (38 °C). Bolger later said that the frightening nature of the costumes prevented most of the Oz principals from eating in the studio commissary;[28] the toxicity of Hamilton's copper-based makeup forced her to eat a liquid diet on shoot days.[29] It took as many as twelve takes to have Toto run alongside the actors as they skipped down the yellow brick road.

text: All of the Oz sequences were filmed in three-strip Technicolor.[13][14] The opening and closing credits, as well as the Kansas sequences, were filmed in black and white and colored in a sepia-tone process.[13] Sepia-toned film was also used in the scene where Aunt Em appears in the Wicked Witch's crystal ball.

text: An extensive talent search produced over a hundred little people to play Munchkins; this meant that most of the film's Oz sequences would have to already be shot before work on the Munchkinland sequence could begin. According to Munchkin actor Jerry Maren, the little people were each paid over $125 a week. Meinhardt Raabe, who played the coroner, revealed in the 1990 documentary The Making of the Wizard of Oz that the MGM costume and wardrobe department, under the direction of designer Adrian, had to design over 100 costumes for the Munchkin sequences. They then had to photograph and catalog each Munchkin in his or her costume so that they could correctly apply the same costume and makeup each day of production.

text: In Hamilton's exit from the Munchkinland a concealed elevator was arranged to lower her below stage as fire and smoke erupted to dramatize and conceal her exit. The first take ran well but in the second take the flames did not go out in time. The flames set fire to her green, copper-based face paint, causing third-degree burns on her hands and face. She spent three months healing before returning to work[30].

text: King Vidor's finishing work as director[edit]

text: On February 12, 1939, Fleming hastily replaced Cukor in directing Gone with the Wind; the next day, King Vidor was assigned as director by the studio to finish the filming of The Wizard of Oz (mainly the sepia-toned Kansas sequences, including Garland's singing of "Over the Rainbow" and the tornado). In later years, when the film became firmly established as a classic, Vidor chose not to take public credit for his contribution until after the death of his friend Fleming in 1949.

text: Post-production[edit]

text: Principal photography concluded with the Kansas sequences on March 16, 1939; nonetheless, reshoots and pick-up shots were filmed throughout April and May and into June, under the direction of producer LeRoy. After the deletion of the "Over the Rainbow" reprise during subsequent test screenings in early June, Garland had to be brought back one more time to reshoot the "Auntie Em, I'm frightened!" scene without the song; the footage of Blandick's Aunt Em, as shot by Vidor, had already been set aside for rear-projection work, and was simply reused.

text: After Hamilton's torturous experience with the Munchkinland elevator, she refused to do the pick-ups for the scene in which she flies on a broomstick that billows smoke, so LeRoy chose to have stand-in Betty Danko perform the scene, instead; as a result, Danko was severely injured doing the scene due to a malfunction in the smoke mechanism.[31]

text: At this point, the film began a long arduous post-production. Herbert Stothart had to compose the film's background score, while A. Arnold Gillespie had to perfect the various special effects that the film required, including many of the rear projection shots. The MGM art department also had to create the various matte paintings for the background of many of the scenes.

text: One significant innovation planned for the film was the use of stencil printing for the transition to Technicolor. Each frame was to be hand-tinted to maintain the sepia tone; however, because this was too expensive and labor-intensive, it was abandoned and MGM used a simpler and less expensive variation of the process. During the reshoots in May, the inside of the farm house was painted sepia, and when Dorothy opens the door, it is not Garland, but her stand-in, Bobbie Koshay, wearing a sepia gingham dress, who then backs out of frame; once the camera moves through the door, Garland steps back into frame in her bright blue gingham dress (as noted in DVD extras), and the sepia-painted door briefly tints her with the same color before she emerges from the house's shadow, into the bright glare of the Technicolor lighting. This also meant that the reshoots provided the first proper shot of Munchkinland; if one looks carefully, the brief cut to Dorothy looking around outside the house bisects a single long shot, from the inside of the doorway to the pan-around that finally ends in a reverse-angle as the ruins of the house are seen behind Dorothy as she comes to a stop at the foot of the small bridge.

text: Test screenings of the film began on June 5, 1939.[32] Oz initially ran nearly two hours long. LeRoy and Fleming knew that at least a quarter of an hour needed to be deleted to get the film down to a manageable running time; the average film in 1939 ran for just about 90 minutes. Three sneak previews in Santa Barbara, Pomona and San Luis Obispo, California, helped guide LeRoy and Fleming in the cutting. Among the many cuts were "The Jitterbug" number, the Scarecrow's elaborate dance sequence following "If I Only Had a Brain", reprises of "Over the Rainbow" and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead", and a number of smaller dialogue sequences. This left the final, mostly serious portion of the film with no songs, only the dramatic underscoring.

text: One song that was almost deleted was "Over the Rainbow". MGM had felt that it made the Kansas sequence too long, as well as being far over the heads of the target audience of children. The studio also thought that it was degrading for Garland to sing in a barnyard. LeRoy, uncredited associate producer Arthur Freed and director Fleming fought to keep it in, and they all eventually won. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song of the Year, and came to be identified so strongly with Garland herself that she made it her theme song. In 2004, the song was ranked no. 1 by the American Film Institute on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list.

text: After the preview in San Luis Obispo in early July, the film was officially released in August 1939 at its current 101-minute running time.

text: Music[edit]

text: The film is widely noted for its musical selections and soundtrack. The music was composed by Harold Arlen, and the lyrics were written by Yip Harburg, both of whom won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Over the Rainbow". The song was ranked first in two lists: the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs and the Recording Industry Association of America's "365 Songs of the Century".

text: MGM composer Herbert Stothart, a well-known Hollywood composer and songwriter, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in recognition of his original score.

text: Georgie Stoll was associate conductor and screen credit was given to George Bassman, Murray Cutter, Ken Darby and Paul Marquardt for orchestral and vocal arrangements (as usual, Roger Edens was also heavily involved as an unbilled musical associate to Freed.)

text: The song "The Jitterbug", written in a swing style, was intended for the sequence in which the group is journeying to the Witch's castle. Due to time constraints, the song was cut from the final theatrical version. The film footage for the song has been lost, although silent home film footage of rehearsals for the number has survived. The sound recording for the song, however, is intact and was included in the two-CD Rhino Records deluxe edition of the film soundtrack, as well as on the VHS and DVD editions of the film. A reference to "The Jitterbug" remains in the film: the Witch remarks to her flying monkeys that they should have no trouble apprehending Dorothy and her friends because "I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them."

text: Another musical number cut before release occurred right after the Wicked Witch of the West was melted and before Dorothy and her friends returned to the Wizard. This was a reprise of "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" (blended with "We're Off to See the Wizard" and "The Merry Old Land of Oz") with the lyrics altered to "Hail! Hail! The Witch is Dead!" This started with the Witch's guard saying "Hail to Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead!" and dissolved to a huge celebration of the citizens of the Emerald City singing the song as they accompany Dorothy and her friends to see the Wizard. Today, the film of this scene is also lost and only a few stills survive, along with a few seconds of footage used on several reissue trailers. The entire audio still exists and is included on the two-CD Rhino Record deluxe edition of the film soundtrack.[33]

text: In addition, a brief reprise of "Over the Rainbow" was intended to be sung by Garland while Dorothy is trapped in the Witch's castle, but it was cut because it was considered too emotionally intense. The original soundtrack recording still exists, however, and was included as an extra in all home media releases from 1993-onwards.[34]

text: The songs were recorded in the studio's scoring stage before filming. Several of the recordings were completed while Ebsen was still with the cast. Therefore, while he had to be dropped from the cast due to illness from the aluminum powder makeup, his singing voice remained in the soundtrack (as noted in the notes for the CD Deluxe Edition). In the group vocals of "We're Off to See the Wizard", his voice can be heard. Haley spoke with a distinct Boston accent, thus did not pronounce the r in wizard. By contrast, Ebsen was a Midwesterner, like Garland, and pronounced it. Haley rerecorded Ebsen's solo parts later.

text: Song list[edit]

text:
"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale
Munchkinland Sequence:

"Come Out ..." – Billie Burke as Glinda, and the Munchkins
"It Really Was No Miracle" – Judy Garland as Dorothy, Billy Bletcher and the Munchkins
"We Thank You Very Sweetly" – Frank Cucksey and Joseph Koziel
"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" – Billie Burke as Glinda (speaking) and the Munchkins
"As Mayor of the Munchkin City"
"As Coroner, I Must Aver"
"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" (Reprise) – The Munchkins
"The Lullaby League"
"The Lollipop Guild"
"We Welcome You to Munchkinland" – The Munchkins

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road/You're Off to See the Wizard" – Judy Garland as Dorothy, and the Munchkins
"If I Only Had a Brain" – Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Judy Garland as Dorothy
"We're Off to See the Wizard" – Judy Garland as Dorothy, and Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow
"If I Only Had a Heart" – Jack Haley as the Tin Man
"If I Only Had a Heart" (original recording) – Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man
"We're Off to See the Wizard" (Reprise 1) – Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man
"If I Only Had the Nerve" – Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Judy Garland as Dorothy
"We're Off to See the Wizard" (Reprise 2) – Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man, and Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion
"Optimistic Voices" – MGM Studio Chorus
"The Merry Old Land of Oz" – Frank Morgan as Cabby, Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as Scarecrow, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion and the Emerald City townspeople
"If I Were King of the Forest" – Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow and Jack Haley as the Tin Man
"The Jitterbug" – Although this song was removed from the final film, it is still available on some extended edition CDs.[35]

text: Underscoring[edit]

text: Extensive edits in the film's final cut removed vocals from the last portion of the film. However, the film was fully underscored, with instrumental snippets from the film's various leitmotifs throughout. There was also some recognizable popular music, including:

text:
Excerpts from Schumann's "The Happy Farmer", at several points early in the film, including the opening scene when Dorothy and Toto are hurrying home after their encounter with Miss Gulch, when Toto escapes from her, and when the house is "riding" the tornado.
An excerpt of Mendelssohn's "Opus 16, #2", when Toto escapes from the Witch's castle.
An excerpt of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", when Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion are trying to escape from the Witch's castle.
"In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree", when Dorothy and the Scarecrow discover the anthropomorphic apple trees.
"Gaudeamus Igitur" during the Wizard's presentation of awards to the group.
"Home! Sweet Home!", in part of the underscore of the closing scene, at Dorothy's house in Kansas.

text: (The above list is excerpted from the liner notes on the Rhino Records collection.)

text: Release[edit]

text: The film's first sneak preview was held in San Bernardino, California.[36] The film was previewed in three test markets: on August 11, 1939, at Kenosha, Wisconsin and Cape Cod, Massachusetts,[37][38] and at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12.[39]

text: The Hollywood premiere was on August 15, 1939,[38] at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.[40] The New York City premiere, held at Loew's Capitol Theatre on August 17, 1939, was followed by a live performance with Garland and her frequent film co-star Mickey Rooney. They continued to perform there after each screening for a week, extended in Rooney's case for a second week and in Garland's to three (with Oz co-stars Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr replacing Rooney for the third and final week). The film opened nationwide on August 25, 1939.

text: Box office[edit]

text: According to MGM records, during the film's initial release, it earned $2,048,000 in the US and Canada and $969,000 in other countries throughout the world, resulting in total earnings of $3,017,000. While these were considerable earnings, the high production cost, in association with various distribution and other costs, meant the movie initially recorded a loss of $1,145,000 for the studio.[3] It did not show what MGM considered a profit until a 1949 rerelease earned an additional $1.5 million (about $15 million today). However, for all the risks and cost that MGM undertook to produce the film, it was considered at least more successful than anyone thought it would be. According to Christopher Finch, author of the Judy Garland biography Rainbow: The Stormy Life Of Judy Garland, "Fantasy is always a risk at the box office. The film had been enormously successful as a book, and it had also been a major stage hit, but previous attempts to bring it to the screen had been dismal failures." Finch also writes that after the success of the film, Garland signed a new contract with MGM giving her a substantial increase in salary, making her one of the top-ten box office stars in the United States.[41]

text: Reception[edit]

text: The film received much acclaim upon its release. Frank Nugent considered the film a "delightful piece of wonder-working which had the youngsters' eyes shining and brought a quietly amused gleam to the wiser ones of the oldsters. Not since Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has anything quite so fantastic succeeded half so well."[42] Nugent had issues with some of the film's special effects, writing, "with the best of will and ingenuity, they cannot make a Munchkin or a Flying Monkey that will not still suggest, however vaguely, a Singer's Midget in a Jack Dawn masquerade. Nor can they, without a few betraying jolts and split-screen overlappings, bring down from the sky the great soap bubble in which Glinda rides and roll it smoothly into place." According to Nugent, "Judy Garland's Dorothy is a pert and fresh-faced miss with the wonder-lit eyes of a believer in fairy tales, but the Baum fantasy is at its best when the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion are on the move."[42]

text: Writing in Variety, John C. Flinn predicted that the film was "likely to perform some record-breaking feats of box-office magic," noting, "Some of the scenic passages are so beautiful in design and composition as to stir audiences by their sheer unfoldment." He also called Garland "an appealing figure" and the musical numbers "gay and bright."[43]

text: Harrison's Reports wrote, "Even though some persons are not interested in pictures of this type, it is possible that they will be eager to see this picture just for its technical treatment. The performances are good, and the incidental music is of considerable aid. Pictures of this caliber bring credit to the industry."[44]

text: Film Daily wrote:

text:
“
Leo the Lion is privileged to herald this one with his deepest roar—the one that comes from way down—for seldom if indeed ever has the screen been so successful in its approach to fantasy and extravaganza through flesh-and-blood... handsomely mounted fairy story in Technicolor, with its wealth of humor and homespun philosophy, its stimulus to the imagination, its procession of unforgettable settings, its studding of merry tunes should click solidly at the box-office.[45]
”

text: Not all reviews were positive. Some moviegoers felt that the 16-year-old Garland was slightly too old to play the little girl who Baum originally intended his Dorothy to be. Russell Maloney of The New Yorker wrote that the film displayed "no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity" and declared it "a stinkeroo,"[46] while Otis Ferguson of The New Republic wrote, "It has dwarfs, music, Technicolor, freak characters, and Judy Garland. It can't be expected to have a sense of humor, as well - and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet."[47] Still, the film placed seventh on Film Daily's year-end nationwide poll of 542 critics naming the best films of 1939.[48]

text: Roger Ebert chose it as one of his Great Films, writing that "The Wizard of Oz has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them."[49]

text: Writer Salman Rushdie acknowledged "The Wizard of Oz was my very first literary influence" in his 2002 musings about the film.[50] He has written: "When I first saw The Wizard of Oz, it made a writer of me."[51] His first short story, written at the age of 10, was titled "Over the Rainbow".[51]

text: In a 2009 retrospective article about the film, San Francisco Chronicle film critic and author Mick LaSalle declared that the film's "entire Munchkinland sequence, from Dorothy's arrival in Oz to her departure on the yellow brick road, has to be one of the greatest in cinema history – a masterpiece of set design, costuming, choreography, music, lyrics, storytelling, and sheer imagination."[52]

text: On the film critic aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99% based on 109 reviews, with an average score of 9.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An absolute masterpiece whose groundbreaking visuals and deft storytelling are still every bit as resonant, The Wizard of Oz is a must-see film for young and old."[53] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film received the maximum score of 100 out of 100, based on 4 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim",[54] which, as of August 2017, is matched only by five other films.

text: Re-releases[edit]

text: Although the 1949 reissue used sepia tone, as in the original release, beginning with the 1955 re-issue, and continuing until the film's 50th anniversary VHS release in 1989, these opening Kansas sequences were shown in black and white instead of the sepia tone as originally printed. (This includes television showings.)[55]

text: The MGM "Children's Matinees" series rereleased the film twice, in both 1970 and 1971.[56] It was for this release that the film received a G rating from the MPAA.

text: For the film's then-upcoming 60th anniversary, Warner Bros. Pictures released a "Special Edition" on November 6, 1998, digitally restored with remastered audio.

text: In 2002, the film had a very limited re-release in U.S. theaters, earning only $139,905.[57]

text: On September 23, 2009, the film was rereleased in select theaters for a one-night-only event in honor of its 70th anniversary and as a promotion for various new disc releases later in the month. An encore of this event was released in theaters on November 17, 2009.[58]

text: An IMAX 3D theatrical re-release played at 300 theaters in North America for one week only beginning September 20, 2013, as part of the film's 75th anniversary.[59] Warner Bros. spent $25 million on advertising. The studio hosted a premiere of the film's first IMAX 3D release on September 15, 2013, from the newly remodeled TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the site of the film's Hollywood premiere) in Hollywood. It was the first to play at the new theater and served as the grand opening of Hollywood's first 3D IMAX screen. It was also shown as a special presentation at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.[60] This re-release grossed $5.6 million at the North American box office.[61]

text: In 2013, in preparation for its IMAX 3D release, the film was submitted again to the MPAA for re-classification. According to MPAA rules, a film that has been altered in any way from its original version must be submitted for re-classification, as the 3-D conversion fell within that guideline. Surprisingly, the 3D version received a PG rating for "Some scary moments", although no change was made to the film's original story content. The 2D version still retains its G rating.[62]

text: The film was rereleased on January 11 and 14, 2015, as part of the "TCM Presents" series by Turner Classic Movies.[63]

text: Television[edit]

text: The film was first shown on television on November 3, 1956, by CBS, as the last installment of the Ford Star Jubilee.[64]

text: Home media[edit]

text: The film was released multiple times for the home-video commercial market (on a limited scale) on Super 8 film (8 mm format) during the 1970s. These releases include an edited English version (roughly 10 minutes, and roughly 20 minutes), as well as edited Spanish versions of the classic. Also, a full commercial release of it was made on Super 8 (on multiple reels) that came out in the 1970s, as well, for the commercial market.[65]

text: The film was among the first videocassettes (on both VHS and Betamax format for the 1980 release) by MGM/CBS Home Video in 1980;[66] all current home video releases are by Warner Home Video (via current rights holder Turner Entertainment). The first LaserDisc release of it was in 1982, with two versions of a second (one from Turner and one from The Criterion Collection with a commentary track) for the 50th anniversary release in 1989, a third in 1991, a fourth in 1993, a fifth in 1995 and a sixth and final LaserDisc release on September 11, 1996.[67]

text: In addition to VHS (and later, LaserDisc), the film has been released multiple times during the 1980s on the Betamax format, beginning in 1980 simultaneously with the VHS release.[68]

text: The film was released for the first and only time on the CED format in 1982 by MGM/UA Home Video.[69]

text: Outside of the North American and European markets, the film has also been released multiple times on the Video CD format since the 1990s in Asia.[70]

text: The first DVD release was on March 26, 1997, by MGM/Turner and contained no special features or supplements. It was re-released by Warner Bros. for its 60th anniversary on October 19, 1999, with its soundtrack presented in a new 5.1 surround sound mix. The monochrome-to-color transition was more smoothly accomplished by digitally keeping the inside of the house in monochrome while Dorothy and the reveal of Munchkinland are in color. [clarification needed] The DVD also contained a behind-the-scenes documentary, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic, produced in 1990 and hosted by Angela Lansbury, which was originally shown on television immediately following the 1990 telecast of the film; it had been featured in the 1993 "Ultimate Oz" LaserDisc release. Outtakes, the deleted "Jitterbug" musical number, clips of pre-1939 Oz adaptations, trailers, newsreels, and a portrait gallery were also included, as well as two radio programs of the era publicizing the film.

text: In 2005, two DVD editions were released, both featuring a newly restored version of the film with an audio commentary and an isolated music and effects track. One of the two DVD releases was a "Two-Disc Special Edition", featuring production documentaries, trailers, various outtakes, newsreels, radio shows and still galleries. The other set, a "Three-Disc Collector's Edition", included these features, as well as the digitally restored 80th-anniversary edition of the 1925 feature-length silent film version of The Wizard of Oz, other silent Oz adaptations and a 1933 animated short version.

text: The film was released on Blu-ray on September 29, 2009, for its 70th anniversary in a four-disc "Ultimate Collector's Edition", including all the bonus features from the 2005 Collector's Edition DVD, new bonus features about Victor Fleming and the surviving Munchkins, the telefilm The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story, and the miniseries MGM: When the Lion Roars. For this edition, Warner commissioned a new transfer at 8K resolution from the original film negatives. The restoration job was given to Prime Focus World.[71] This restored version also features a lossless 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio track.[72] A DVD version was also released as a Two-Disc Special Edition and a Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition.[citation needed]

text: On December 1, 2009,[citation needed] three Blu-ray discs of the Ultimate Collector's Edition were repackaged as a less expensive "Emerald Edition", with an Emerald Edition four-disc DVD arriving the following week. A single-disc Blu-ray, containing the restored movie and all the extra features of the two-disc Special Edition DVD, also became available on March 16, 2010.[citation needed]

text: In 2013, the film was re-released on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and UltraViolet for the 90th anniversary of Warner Bros. and as part of its 75th anniversary.[59][73]

text: Also, multiple special editions were released in celebration of the film's the 75th anniversary in 2013, exclusively by both Best Buy (a SteelBook of the 3D Blu-ray) and another version that came with a keepsake lunch bag released by Target stores.[74][75]

text: Awards and honors[edit]

text: Academy Awards[edit]

text:
Awards

Award
Date of ceremony
Category
Recipient
Outcome

Academy Awards[76]
February 29, 1940
Best Picture
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Nominated

Best Cinematography, Color
Harold Rosson

Best Art Direction
Cedric Gibbons and William A. Horning

Best Effects, Special Effects
A. Arnold Gillespie and Douglas Shearer

Best Music, Original Score
Herbert Stothart
Won

Best Music, Original Song
"Over the Rainbow"
Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

Academy Juvenile Award
Judy Garland
For her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year. (She was jointly awarded for her performances in Babes in Arms and The Wizard of Oz).
Honorary

text: American Film Institute lists[edit]

text: The American Film Institute (AFI) has compiled various lists which include this film or elements thereof.

text:
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – No. 6
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – No. 43
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:

Wicked Witch of the West – No. 4 villain

AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:

"Over the Rainbow" – No. 1
"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" – No. 82

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." (Dorothy Gale) – No. 4
"There's no place like home." (Dorothy) – No. 23
"I'll get you, my pretty – and your little dog, too!" (Wicked Witch of the West) – No. 99

AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – No. 3
AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – No. 26
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 – No. 1 Fantasy film[77]

text: Other honors[edit]

text:
1999: Rolling Stone's 100 Maverick Movies – No. 20.[78]
1999: Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Films – No. 32.[79]
2000: The Village Voice's 100 Best Films of the 20th Century – No. 14.[80]
2002: Sight & Sound's Greatest Film Poll of Directors – No. 41.[81]
2005: Total Film's 100 Greatest Films – No. 83.[82]
2005: ranked among the top ten of the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.[83]
2007: Total Film's 23 Weirdest Films – No. 1.[84]
2007: The Observer ranked the film's songs and music at the top of its list of 50 greatest film soundtracks.[85]

text: Differences from the novel[edit]

text: Roughly 40 identifiable major differences exist between the original book and the MGM interpretation.[86][87]

text: Sequels and reinterpretations[edit]

text: The film was dramatized as a one-hour radio play on Lux Radio Theatre, which was broadcast on December 25, 1950, with Garland reprising her earlier role. In 1964, a one-hour animated cartoon called Return to Oz was shown as an afternoon weekend special on NBC.[citation needed] An official 1972 sequel, the animated Journey Back to Oz starring Liza Minnelli, daughter of Garland, was produced to commemorate the original film's 35th anniversary.[88]

text: In 1975, the stage show The Wiz premiered on Broadway. It was an African American version of The Wizard of Oz reworked for the stage. It starred Stephanie Mills and other Broadway stars and earned a number of Tony Awards. Its financing was handled by actor Geoffrey Holder. Its inspired revivals after it left the stage and an unsuccessful motion picture made in 1978, starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow.[citation needed]

text: In 1985, Walt Disney Productions released the live-action fantasy film Return to Oz, which starred (and introduced) Fairuza Balk as a young Dorothy Gale.[89] Based loosely on The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and Ozma of Oz (1907), it fared rather poorly with critics who were unfamiliar with the Oz books and was not successful at the box office, although it has since become a popular cult film, with many considering it a more loyal and faithful adaptation of what L. Frank Baum envisioned.[90][91]

text: In 1995, Gregory Maguire published the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which was adapted into the wildly successful Broadway musical Wicked. The story describes the life of the Wicked Witch of the West and other events prior to Dorothy's arrival.[citation needed]

text: For the film's 56th anniversary, a 1987 stage show also titled The Wizard of Oz was based upon it and the book by L. Frank Baum. It toured from 1995 to 2012, except for 2004.[citation needed]

text: In 2005, The Muppets Studio produced The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, a television film for ABC, starring Ashanti as Dorothy, Jeffrey Tambor as the Wizard, David Alan Grier as Uncle Henry, and Queen Latifah as Aunt Em. Kermit the Frog portrayed the Scarecrow, Gonzo portrayed the Tin Thing (Tin Man), Fozzie Bear portrayed the Lion and Miss Piggy portrayed all the Witches of the West, East, North and South.[citation needed]

text: In 2007, The Sci-Fi Channel released the three-part miniseries Tin Man, a science fiction continuation starring Zooey Deschanel as DG.

text: Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote a stage musical of the same name, which opened in 2011 at the West End's London Palladium. It features all of the songs from the film plus new songs written by Lloyd Webber and Rice. Lloyd Webber also found Danielle Hope to play Dorothy on the reality show, Over the Rainbow. Another production opened in December 2012 at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto.[92] A reality TV show, also titled Over the Rainbow, found a Canadian girl, Danielle Wade, to play Dorothy.[93][94] The Canadian production then began a North American tour in September 2013.[95] An Australian tour will begin at the Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre in November 2017, followed by a season at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney beginning December 2017.[96]

text: An animated film called Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz was released in 2011 by Warner Home Video, incorporating Tom and Jerry into the story as Dorothy's "protectors".[97] A sequel titled Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz was released on DVD on June 21, 2016.[98]

text: Writer-director Hugh Gross' independent film After the Wizard, produced in 2010, relates events after those of the film. It was released to DVD on August 7, 2012.[citation needed]

text: In 2013, Walt Disney Pictures released a spiritual prequel titled, Oz the Great and Powerful. It was directed by Sam Raimi, and starred James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. It was the second film based on Baum's Oz series to be produced by Disney, after Return to Oz. It was a commercial success and received a mixed critical reception.[99][100]

text: In 2014, now-defunct independent film company Clarius Entertainment released a big-budget animated musical film, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return,[101] which follows Dorothy's second trip to Oz. The film was a box office bomb and was received negatively by critics largely for its plot and unmemorable musical numbers.

text: Cultural impact[edit]

text: Regarding the original Baum storybook, it has been said that "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is America's greatest and best-loved home grown fairytale. The first totally American fantasy for children, it is one of the most-read children's books ... and despite its many particularly American attributes, including a wizard from Omaha, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has universal appeal."[102]

text: The film also has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress, which selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1989. In June 2007, the film was listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.[103] The film placed at number 86 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[104] In 1977, Aljean Harmetz wrote The Making of The Wizard of Oz, a detailed description of the creation of the film based on interviews and research; it was updated in 1989.[105]

text: Ruby slippers[edit]

text: Because of their iconic stature,[106] the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the film are now among the most treasured and valuable film memorabilia in movie history.[107] The silver slippers that Dorothy wore in the book series were changed to ruby to take advantage of the new Technicolor process. Adrian, MGM's chief costume designer, was responsible for the final design. A number of pairs were made, though no one knows exactly how many.

text: After filming, the slippers were stored among the studio's extensive collection of costumes and faded from attention. They were found in the basement of MGM's wardrobe department during preparations for a mammoth auction in 1970. One pair was the highlight of the auction, going for a then unheard of $15,000 to an anonymous buyer, who apparently donated them to the Smithsonian Institution in 1979. Four other pairs are known to exist; one sold for $666,000 at auction in 2000. A pair was stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and remains missing.[108]

text: Another, differently styled pair unused in the film was sold at auction with the rest of her collections by owner actress Debbie Reynolds for $510,000 (not including the buyer's premium) in June 2011.[109]

text: Impact upon LGBT culture[edit]