![]() ![]() ![]() He was abetted by a talking parrot puppet and two children (self-identified as Munchkins) who were determined to spend Christmas with their friend from Kansas. Additional footage was scripted and shot to “book-end” and permeate the program therein, Bill Cosby appeared as The Wizard himself, searching for Dorothy while aloft in his balloon over the United States and Oz. It was quite a turnaround from the initial excitement caused a dozen years earlier by the preliminary announcements of its all-star voice casting and happily-heralded original songs.įilmation, however, was a viable television production house, and by Christmas 1976, their OZ property evolved into a holiday ABC-TV special. (Judy Garland died in June 1969 her daughter actually had recorded Dorothy’s numbers and dialogue seven years earlier, when she was sixteen.) By late 1974, JOURNEY BACK TO OZ once again dropped from whatever public consciousness had redeveloped over the preceding months of children’s matinee and “special” showings. ![]() Even Filmation’s obviously exploitative claim that Liza Minnelli consented to play Dorothy “as a fitting tribute to her mother” garnered little attention. THREE TITLES, ONE FILM: RETURN TO/THE LAND OF/JOURNEY BACK TO/OZ! - Part ThreeĪs noted last week, JOURNEY BACK TO OZ quickly fell out of United States theatrical release, and it’s a safe bet that the average moviegoer of summer 1974 never was aware of its existence. ![]()
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