How Did This Get Made? - Return to Oz

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Disney's 1985 semi-sequel to The Wizard of Oz is more horror movie than children's movie and has more in common with Pan's Labyrinth than the 1939 original film. So what did Paul, June, and Jason think of all the dark oddities in Return to Oz? Tune in to hear them discuss the Wheelers, Tik-Tok the robot, Jack Pumpkinhead calling Dorthy "Mom", Billina the chicken being a total downgrade from Toto, and so much more. Plus, Jason shares his feelings on the Nome King's death by egg. • Get up to 20% off tix to see Jason in ALL OUT on Broadway with code ALLOUTPOD at AllOutBroadway.com• Go to hdtgm.com for tour dates, merch, FAQs, and more• Have a Last Looks correction or omission? Call 619-PAULASK to leave us a voicemail!• Submit your Last Looks theme song to us here• Join the HDTGM conversation on Discord: discord.gg/hdtgm• Buy merch at howdidthisgetmade.dashery.com/• Order Paul’s book about his childhood: Joyful Recollections of Trauma• Shop our new hat collection at podswag.com• Paul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheer• Paul’s YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheer• Follow Paul on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer• Subscribe to Enter The Dark Web w/ Paul & Rob Huebel: youtube.com/@enterthedarkweb• Listen to Unspooled with Paul & Amy Nicholson: unspooledpodcast.com• Listen to The Deep Dive with June & Jessica St. Clair: thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcast• Instagram: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & @junediane• Twitter: @hdtgm, @paulscheer, & msjunediane  • Jason is not on social media• Episode transcripts available at how-did-this-get-made.simplecast.com/episodesGet access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using the link: siriusxm.com/hdtgm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Finally, a movie villain that Jason can get behind. We saw Return to Oz, so you know what that means. Now it's time. How did this get made? We're going to have a good time, celebrate it. Because you know you wonder how did this campaign? Let's follow in the mediocrity of subpar art. Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question. How did this get made?

Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to How Did This Get Made. I am your host Paul Shear. and today we are talking about a little known sequel to the Wizard of Oz. Yes, this was a big budget film made by Disney. Back in 1985, the IMDB logline says, Darthy, saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, is somehow called back to Oz when a vain witch and a gnome king destroy everything that makes the magical land beautiful.

And wow, here to discuss it all, are my two co-hosts. Please welcome Jason Manzukas and June, Diane, Raphael. How are you both? Traumatized. Yes, truly. Traumatized. I found this to be... Wait, have you guys seen this movie? No. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I didn't know if this was a popular movie for, like, a younger generation. No, I am very familiar with TikTok, not the app, but the robot, because that robot has been in a lot of... of like whenever they bring around like Star Wars stuff, like TikTok the robot is out in the out of the bout. TikTok the robot also looks exactly like,

and I'm sure there's a reason for this, the robot in Gendi Tardikovsky's Unicorn Warriors Eternal has a TikTok robot character in it that's the same. Yeah, I just thought he looked like Monopoly, man. Oh, there you. That too. Man, what a pervasive. image that is throughout so many like the upturned mustache, the monocle, all of that.

A potbelly robot is an odd choice. It doesn't seem functional in any way to give your robot girth. Well, have you seen, and I don't know if either of you guys do this, because sometimes I will, when we watch a movie, especially if it's old, I will check in on where they are now. Yeah, yeah. TikTok the robot is definitely on Ozempic. Oh, good. Oh, good. Good.

Good, good. He's so skinny right now. It's crazy. It looks like C3PO. Well, now the mustache looks too big on him. Yeah. It looks way too big. So, okay, so you guys have not seen this, but was this, and Paul, maybe this is in your research, so forgive me.

Was this a popular movie? Like, what did this? No, no. Okay, okay, okay, okay. This isn't a moment, right, just to set the stage. Disney's like, uh-oh, what do we do? Right? And they don't know which direction to go in because they kind of lost their younger.

audiences. And this is the moment where they go, oh, okay, we'll do Star Wars and they make the Black Hole. And then they go, that didn't work. Oh, we'll make James Bond. They make this movie called Condor Man. Then they make Escape from Witch Mountain, which is great and scary. That movie I loved. Awesome. And I think this is kind of in that same vein of like, we're not the Disney that you know. We're the, this Disney. Here's what's interesting, though. I'm, I just finished it. Same. I don't feel right.

No. I feel there's such, the Wizard of Oz is very important to me. And it's such a perfect movie that this return to Oz and what they did here is really distressing to me. Because I'm like, let's say you are Disney and you're going to go back into the property of Wizard of Oz and the books and all of it. why would you choose to do this? Oh, yeah, I agree. This is not a children's movie. It's not, well, you know what it is, though?

It's a children's movie when you think about maybe some of the other children's movies that are around at this time. This, to me, felt like Wizard of Oz meets the dark crystal. Yes. Like, it felt like it was in a darker, scarier world, you know, like, and I don't know if this is in the books and they're just adapting the book. This is two different books they've kind of adapted and put together as one. So it is, and I will say that the bomb estate says, this is my Oz. Oh, I understand that. And I've heard that before.

That's, I think, the one thing I had heard about return to Oz, which is that, like, it is close to the source material in a way that Wizard of Oz is not in terms of her age and also the darkness of it. Here's what I just want to say. And the reality of it. Like, this is my main issue is that, of course, in the Wizard of Oz, she wakes up at the end. Right. And Oz was a dream. And in this movie, Oz is not a dream. No, oddly, the house did fly away.

It is in Oz. But yet, she also is a child that is going through, at least through her parents' eyes, a psychotic break. she's having like tornado PTSD. She's also institutionalized and on the verge of getting 1930s electroshock treatment. That was that was the part of the movie that we, the movie opens, it's so, you know,

and it parallels Wizard of Oz really well, in the sense that like the Wizard of Oz starts off black and white. And then once you get to Oz, it's color. In this version of it, though, it's all in color, but the initial scenes are,

are fully desaturated, and it looks like they're in, like, days of heaven. I was going to say that it is in color, but it somehow seems like it has less color than black and white. Like, it is depressing. It looks like Dust Bowl era grapes of wrath. Yes. It's like, I was like, this is. Oh, we're so smart, grapes of rap. We love it.

Oh. When you see the home life of Dorothy, not to skip to the end. but why would she ever want to go back? The original, Darthy, I get why she wants to go. Like this, your parents are putting you in an institution, like a scary institution where they're strapping you down to a bed and put. But here's the thing. But, oh my gosh, this is why it's so the emotional,

there's no emotional connective tissue between the two films. I mean, this isn't a sequel to the Wizard of Oz as far as I'm concerned. This is sort of another telling of. of the book. This is more of a sequel to hereditary than it is Wizard of Oz. But I guess that's why I'm just so confused because to, in the beginning of this movie,

Oz is real. That wasn't a dream to her. She didn't really, but more than that, I mean, that's distressing. But all of the deeply important lessons that she learned that she taught herself through that dream about,

Oz about, you know, what's important in life, about about knowing what you already have and trusting it, that it's going to come from you, about imagination, about all these things are completely, like, thrown away. She seems duller. Oh, like, upon her return. And she is significantly younger. And here's, which I'm okay with because I like that she is a younger. I like that a younger person is being put in this kind of incredibly fantastical world.

But what is so difficult to reconcile as I'm watching this is that the events of the Wizard of Oz have already happened to this person, to this child. And that doesn't feel like what's happened. This feels like a prequel in many ways. And it is a undeniable sequel. And so what's, what I kept having a real trouble figuring out is she's already been. through all this. Now, obviously, Oz is so different and, you know, everything has changed. Sure, yeah. But, like, it is so, it is so hard to keep track of, it's so clear in the initial

movie, who wants what, who needs what, and what the journey is. It's a real, it's a real fellowship of the ring, Lord of the Rings, like, we're on an adventure. These, it's a found family. These are my people. Each of us has these components and we're going to move forward. In this movie, I didn't know who wanted what. I didn't know what role they were supposed to be playing. I didn't understand the what's or the wise. I'll go one step further. This is a sequel to a movie that we've not seen, right? Because at one point, she's flying over a place and she's, oh, well, this is the desert land. I remember I saw this when we were when we were, when we were, I'm like, wait, no, no, we don't know this. And also when they say your shoes, your ruby red slippers, when the king of gnomes or whatever he is, says,

your ruby red slippers fell off when you were flying back to you fly through the turn. Did they? Let's give me, give me a little like, give me a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a prequel, but give me like a last time on. Like, I felt like that this entire thing. I was like, we are all being institutionalized. We are all, our reality is being questioned just like hers. And I don't know what the answer. It's a very, it's, go ahead, Paul.

I was going to tell you the most disturbing moment in it, for me, it's right here in this, this. part and tell me if this hit you in the wrong way that could hit me. Her brushing the hair of a jackal lantern that has no hair, but like her in that, that hospital room, just pretend brushing. It's a word. I was like, this is, this is the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. Okay. So for me, in that same section, what I found absolutely bone chilling was that, Here is this doctor who is going to give her electroshock treatment and the way he describes it is to make the machine have a face. Oh.

This electrical marvel will make it possible for you to sleep again. And it will also get rid of all those bad, waking dreams that you've been telling me about. Now, this fella here has a... face. You see it? Here are his eyes, and this must be his nose, and this must be his mouth. What's this? Dorothy?

Why, it's his tongue. Here's this machine that's going to rob you of who you are, that's going to give you this barbaric treatment, and it, and here's its eyes, and here's its nose, and he's making it this cute, he's personifying it in a way that is so, that has such insidious malice to it. It's like trust this machine that's going to destroy you. Yeah. And she sees a face in it. And by the way, I mean, I guess that's supposed to be TikTok or another question for you both.

Is this a dream? It feels like it has elements of a dream and then elements that it's not. Because at the end, it could have been a dream. She better keep her fucking mouth shut, though, when you come back to this one. That's the lesson, though, Paul. That is the lesson of the movie. Yes. To keep it to you, keep your dreams and your imagination and your thoughts private.

Well, when it's like when it is whatever, 1930, whatever, you know, like kids weren't, nobody wanted to hear from these dang kids. No, that's the moral of the story. But this is a movie made in 1985 as a children's film. Like it's like, like it does feel like, I mean, just I want to put it out there that this is directed by Walter Merch, who wrote this as well. And Walter Merch, if you don't know, one of the legendary editors of our time. I mean, just like a true responsible for so many of the movie. Ghost, Apocalypse Now, the conversation, the English patient, like the godfather. He's like done it all.

You know, so like he has wrote a book on editing. Like definitely gets it. And I wouldn't say the movie is poorly edited. It just is like, it doesn't feel. I do think this is a faithful adaptation. I think this is a faithful adaptation of whatever they were adapting. Those two books put together the darkness of it, the childhood trauma, their age. I think this is all clearly it's faithful.

There's no songs that Lizzer viz or not written. as a musical. There's no joy. There's no, it is just a very, very dark tale about industrialization, I guess. But it's so grim. But I do think it's, it is exactly what those books are. Now, it will say, though, this is an example of why it is important sometimes to not at all be faithful to the original source material. To really like let go on it. You know, June, I just want to give you one little tip here that he wasn't just faithful to Frank L. Baum's work.

Walter Merch says that he used a lot of inspiration from a book called Wisconsin Death Trip, a 1973 historical nonfiction book about like diphtheria in Black River Falls between

1885 and 1910. What the? So, I mean, I will say there's this is a movie that has a lot of craft. You know what I mean? Sure.

There is a lot going into this. It is well made. It's not like... I have to say the hallway of heads or whatever that was called. The detachable heads? The detachable heads, I thought, was amazing. Yes. I thought it looked unbelievable.

And once you realize, like, what's going on with those heads and what she's doing and Princess, I thought it was really, really incredible. Were those heads that different? I mean, later in the movie, we find out that the gnome king gave her a bunch of heads so she would do his bidding. And I was like, it didn't seem like she was really exploring how many different faces she could possibly have. A lot of those heads seemed very like, you know, let's get a shaved head. Let's get a cool, you know, like, let me give me a guy's head in there. Let's mix it out.

We want a punk rock head. Yeah. With a Mohawk. I felt like what's so true is I believe, do I believe this? Maybe not. What I was going to say is this is clearly a sequel to a book. The book was not what the Wizard of Oz was. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, so what's curious to me is that they, a boy do I wish they had started with in 1985, what if we did a faithful to the book adaptation of the Wizard of Oz? No songs. None of that stuff. We're just going to do that in hopes of it working and them getting to then do this book to continue the world of the way that, and forgive me, this is not exactly a one-to-one. But the Arnold Schwarzenegger Running Man is barely an adaptation of the Stephen King story versus Edgar Wright's, which is a much more faithful adaptation. And the movies are quite different as a result in a way that is.

Totally. Give us the darker version of Wizard of Oz. That's what I'm saying. Give us like an overture. Just even give us a 10 minute thing. Like, okay, we got it. But what we're even seeing. Because we're supposed to feel connection when she meets the scarecrow. I'm like, that's not my scarecrow. That's scarecrow. That's a scarecrow. And by the way, I'm also feeling like, well, my scarecrow is now my pumpkin jack. Which, by the way, Tim Burton has admitted he has used inspiration for Jack Skellington. Oh, you got, I mean. By the way, one of the most chilling moments to me, my scariest moment, was when Pumpkin Jack started calling her mom. Dorothy, may I call you, mom? Even if it isn't so. Oh, thank you. Oh, no, no, that was.

Throughout. Really, really distressing. And then even worse, she started responding to it. I couldn't deal with it because she is, I'm going to say, oh, this is for Ruzabalk in this performance. And it is, I will say, I mean, she's got to be like nine years old. How old is she? Ten years old? Yes. She's very, very young. Child when she's doing it. I think this is a fantastic performance because in every single scene but a handful, she is acting alone against inanimate objects. There is, there's, it's a pile of rocks. It's a pile. It's like, she's doing a great job in.

service of scenes where she has no scene partners. It's very weird. I do agree that she's great. And the portrayal of Dorothy Gale, I mean, Judy Garland's performance is one of the, you know, one of the best performance ever on film. But it's so childlike and it's so innocent and beautiful and joyful. You mean Judy Garlands. Yes. Yes. So buoyant. And. And so I think vulnerable to, I think it's so beautiful and alive. But there's something about Dorothy Gale and the Return to Oz that feels even though she's significantly younger playing an eight-year-old or a nine-year-old, she feels much older. Oh, she feels wounded. Yeah.

And Judy Garland's playing like a 12, 13-year-old. I have nothing to say about the performance. It's, it's, she, she is, she looks like she got the treatment, the shock treatment. A thousand percent. She does not look happy. She doesn't, like, yeah, she doesn't seem joyful. She looks like an actual 10-year-old from that era. Like Judy Garland's skipping around with baskets and toto and having fun.

And that's not her life in like, she's Dust Bowl. In Dust Bowl era. Like, like this little girl is. He's been hungry before. She's gone to bed hungry many, many, many. nights. And the movie is done a disservice by purporting to be a Wizard of Oz sequel, only because Yeah, don't call it that. It's call it anything else and we would have enjoyed it. It looks, it has more in common with Pan's Labyrinth than it does, you know, then it does the Wizard of Oz.

Now here's what I will say, and I don't like to always do this in this show because it's not always about this, but I do want to call this out. Fruza Balc, who's in, you would say like, 98% of the film, right? She was not permitted to work more than three and a half hours each day. And she could only work between 9 and 4.30. And that had to include breaks and education in there. So to think about the production of this movie on top of that, like, and you're right, she's in season.

She's in all of it. She's in all of it. It's like, what are they getting? Like, what are we shooting at a certain point? it take. And, you know, like, and it's not like, oh, well, when she is, when we, when we lose her for the day early, at least we can shoot, you know, like this happens on Percy Jackson because there's all, so many of the kids are young, young kids. And you also become a pumpkin. Yes. I am a pumpkin-headed man on that as well. Yeah. Yeah. But all the kids, when they have to leave,

we basically then turn around and shoot all the adults' coverage once the kids are gone. But there are no adults in this. There are no other people in this. They're not like, oh, okay, now that Dorothy has to go home, we're going to just shoot the chicken. Fuck that chicken, by the way. The worst, the worst. The worst. And the, you go from Toto to a fucking chicken. Come on. Does she wipe her eye with that chicken when she's crying at one point? I felt like a one point she tears up and she lifts the chicken and I'm like, you can't wipe your eye with the chicken feather. Can I ask you guys a question about the Wizard of Oz? And I'm going to admit something here that is perhaps an insane statement.

I haven't watched The Wizard of Oz since I was a kid. This is not a movie that I rewatch or that I have any real affinity for other than when it was on TV as a kid. I watched it and I watched it a handful of times. I don't remember Toto didn't talk, did he? No, no. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Because the minute, because she has a chicken at home and then when she's in Oz with the chicken the chicken talks.

Some place for a chicken. When did you learn to talk anyway? I thought hens could only cluck and cackle. Ah, strange, ain't it? How's my grammar? If we were in the land of Oz, your talking wouldn't be strange at all. And she's like, oh, we must be in Oz because now you can talk.

But then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Did Toto talk when they went to Oz? And I, okay, good, thank God. Also, thank God. But as Paul said, the. the downgrade, the fucking downgrade. You did a chick. This is a low, I mean, can you imagine being there for the first one and getting the lion?

The, the, you've got Toto, you've got the tin man, you've got all these great characters. And the B team that shows up in this movie, I was like, aside from TikTok. This is like, except for TikTok who, I wonder if, if my character from John Wick three, the TikTok man, is in any way related to TikTok. have to be. I do want to talk about TikTok because I do think there is something going on about like machinery and, but I couldn't. I don't have, I don't, I didn't really like understand it. Like I know that they'll beware of the wheelers and wheels and. Oh, yeah.

The industrial world taking over. Yeah. Me too. But then there was TikTok. Yeah. And I was like, he's kind of steampunky. Yeah, but he's not the tin. man, you know, who's worried about not feeling, who's worried about only being sort of, you know, metal and scraps and not being human. But that's not, I couldn't understand, like, what is TikTok's story exactly? Well, to me, I think that TikTok is like, chill the fuck out. You can't be excited. Like, TikTok is that, that machine, right? So I think it's about controlling her emotions. But then at the end, he can't. He can't. He can't. He can't be excited. Like, TikTok is that machine. Right? So I think it's about controlling her emotions. But then at the end, he

kind of gets emotions, like yes, right? Like, or, I think it's yes, yes to what we're talking about, but the movie is not doing us any favors to foreground it and say, this is the search that this, that this character is on or this is the, you know, in a way that I found just confounding. No, and this is, like, we are, the TikTok, Pumpkin Man and the couch, to be honest, have all of the same emotional, like, interior. I just, I couldn't, like, and what's such a bummer about that is her friends on the yellow brick road and how beautiful, rich, important, those performances, my God, like, to be saddled with, not a single one of them has a human face. Oh, no.

Which felt very pointed. I didn't know if it was like, oh, those characters are so iconic. like they're so physical and beautiful from Wizard of Oz that we're not even going to try? No, they went to like a cart. Like, I feel like, again, it's the, if you look at the images on the Wizard of Oz books, they are, they look similar to that. Like the way the Tin Man, I was like, oh, this doesn't even feel right here. I do want to bring up one.

So again, what we're up against is the decision to make the Wizard of Oz so much different from the books means that by by participating in any future storytelling based on the books, it almost is unrecognizable to the movie Wizard of Oz. And I'll tell you one thing. I saw the original Wizard of Oz recently

and the scarecrow, not that handsy with Dorothy originally. When he first wakes up, he's like, ooh, I'm like, he's like, what's going on here? I'll tell you this much. But it's also the same exact beat. Like when she's stuffing the scarecrow

with his hay like when she's doing the exact same thing with Jack the Pumpkin and this. The character that bums me out is Gump, the animal who's having this crisis of conscience being like, was I alive before this? Yes. I remember a life before being a mounted animal. I'm like, oh, what is that? Like everybody in the movie, with the exception, actually, no, including Dorothy, are having

existential crisis. They're all in like deep psychic distress and it's very uncomfortable to watch. Yes. And there's something about the changes to the wizard. My guess is, well, no. Books are, tell me again, 1939 for the movie, film is 39. And what were the books? The books, 1890 is where.

1890. Okay. So there's something about to me, 1939, like the movie being like a post-depression era movie. So to make it as bleak as what these books must have been, this is a bleak movie. You know what I mean? This is not a hopeful, joyful movie. It's bleak in the middle and it ends in a pretty bleak manner. So I can see them in the 30s being like, okay, we have just come out of one of the most awful periods of time. Let's, yes, this source material, but let's plus it up with some songs. Yeah, let's make it fun. Absolutely. That's why people responded to.

it. Absolutely. Not like let's bum people. It's like I don't see a better version. It's like I don't want to be in Oz. I don't want to be in Kansas. I don't want to be here. I kind of want to go back to that machine. Erase it all.

I'll be happier. Let me just and the girl who's living in mirrors, I'm like, I don't need any of this. Oh, at the beginning. I was like, oh, thank God. She has a friend. And I was like, oh, no. Nope, nope. Well, I think the thing that's also just so disappointing about this one,

is her journey in the Wizard of Oz is so clear and so relatable, that idea that that there's someone's coming to save us, that if we could just get, if we could just get this one thing, if we could just figure this out, if we could just get this one job or whatever, that our lives will be unlocked and things will be so much easier and that someone outside of ourselves is going to make that happen. The moment in the Wizard of Oz when it reveals that there's just no, you know, tiny, you know, tiny. man behind the curtain is so incredibly powerful. Yeah. For her emotional journey. And in this movie, her journey, I think, is to prove, first starts off to prove Oz is real, but then to restore it. But for what, I guess? Yeah, that's it.

Like, for what reason? How does that, like, how is that paying off anything that the movie began with? Like any of the established wants or anything that the movie begins telling us is not even part of the resolution or where or her pursuit of a resolution. You know, she is so much more of a passive character inside of this movie. The movie is happening to her. whereas in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is inexplicably driving them forward

towards the Emerald City. And in this one, she is just reactive. It is just like, oh, no, oh, look at that. Oh, look at that. You know what it actually feels like in a way?

It's like she's remembering the Wizard of Oz post a traumatic event, like post her mind her, because it's like, she's not really on a journey here. She's not really, I guess she is trying to find the scarecrow,

but she's really just kind of like looking at what happened before, right? She's also not trying to because there's the, you could easily say like, oh, she's back. Nobody believes her. Yeah. She's older. She's like, oh, I need to be able to, for my own sake. Like.

Right. I need to see it for myself again. I need to prove to myself that this is real, if not to the people around me. So as so as to not be perceived of as needing electricity. treatment, you know? Well, but of course, that's confusing. It all falls apart when, what,

would we, like, confront the fact that it wasn't real? Yeah. Now, I do, I do want to say one thing. I want, like, when our son talked a lot about Pokemon, we did get him electroshock therapy.

Because he just was talking about this nonsense. We didn't understand it. And it was like, and we just like, get it out. We have to get it out. And that, you know, that's fine to do. But, I mean,

but besides that, I think back then it's barking. I mean, that's the thing, right? It's like she only is showing imagination. She's not even depressed about being away from us. She's excited to tell people. Well, but Paul, because she's staying up so late and can't sleep, she's not able to wake up early and tend to the farm.

Yeah. I mean, that's the, that is how the movie all starts off. She's not, that's why Ann M takes her there. She's got to work. She's got to work. She's got to work. Otherwise, she's going to get left at the asylum. A thousand percent.

you can actually in the world of Oz be mentally insane as long as you wake up early and can help Aunt Em out with the farm. Big time. Whoa. Big time. Yeah. No, I think that's it. And again, this exists in a time when children worked. When there are no child labor laws.

There is no you get to be a teenager and go to college. That kid is going to work that farm now, you know, at whatever, 10 years old. That's what you have kids. That is why you have kids And that's why you have a lot of them Because you got a lot of thorn to cover And some of them aren't gonna make it And she's doing a damn bad job

Because you know what? By the way, the mom is threatening Belina Right? She's like, if you don't shit another egg Like we're gonna eat you I mean that's the other thing too So she's like- I would love it if she said

If you don't shit another egg I mean that's I mean basically That is like what she's worried about As mom's like we're gonna eat your pet The only thing that you have here Your only connection to life we're going to eat that thing. And she's like desperately look.

Well, she has Toto. Yeah, Toto's still rocking around. Yeah, I guess, yeah. Toto's still rocking around. But boy, if I'm Toto, I'm like, come. Hey, guys, can I get some action? Like, how come she gets to go back and I don't? Like, the movie from Toto's point of view is like, hey, I'd like to go back to Oz as well.

The Toto that I know would have followed that horse and carriage and jumped in the back and got that. I felt that too. Do you guys think, and maybe this is for the later in the episode, but if this, I can't even, if this had no relationship to the movie, The Wizard of Oz, but was just a 1980s, like, like I'm saying, like, Pan's Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, regular labyrinth. I might feel different. Would you enjoy a movie in which a little girl descends into a fan, like an Alice in Wonderland type of a story? that's dark and scary. And I mean, I still agree. This is so aimless and I don't quite know who wants what and how.

And I'm not tracking if we're getting closer or further away. But I liked a lot of the movie, if I'm being honest, watching the movie, I liked quite a bit of it once I let go of the fact that any of it was going to somehow be related to the movie that I remember as the Wizard of Oz. Well, I didn't let go of that and I was simply disturbed. Like that was the thing Like I was disturbed by But that's what I didn't mind

I was like oh I don't mind like dark Kid kid like dark This is scary this is I didn't mind that as much I guess If I took it away from the fact Well then this but this isn't Oz This is you know this I kept kind of bumping out by being like

Oh this is not the Wizard of Oz This is like right The Dark Crystal you know Yeah I mean, I think that it was very hard for me to divorce from the Wizard of Oz. I just, I couldn't even though there were things that I really loved too. There, I love that hallway of heads. I loved, you know, her trying to get the key or whatever it was from the headless from Princess Mumbai.

And there were, there were moments that were so great. But I also, to not have any of the beauty of Oz or even to not have like the beauty of Oz. of Galinda or this Princess Oz and the mirror to not have any of like the magical beauty. It was really hard for me. And even the way Dorothy was dressed. I actually took, I actually need to speak about this for a while. Great. Let's go. Clear the decks. Here, hold on. Excuse me, I'm going to mute my. You know, I understand that you're not going to ever just replicate or reach the height of like what that iconic blue and white gangam dress was. And I get that. So don't even.

So don't try to do that or a version of that. But to do what they did to put her in that white, weird white dress, which I can't even. Did it change from the asylum to Oz? I don't think so. Exactly the same. And it's like, it was so, um, not that it needs to be flattering on a nine-year-old child, but it was so sort of shapeless and strange, billowy.

It was all sleeves. It wasn't, there was nothing about it. Like, if I'm a kid watching this movie, I don't feel connected in any way. That's exactly my point. There's nothing for me. And by the way, I think her bows were too big in her hair. her bows were too big.

Right. It felt to me like they were trying to be, I wouldn't be surprised if they were like, oh, no, no, we did the research. This is what a 10-year-old girl would have worn. And that's what kills this movie.

These years. And so that is, the movie we're making is a more grounded, more faithful representation. You know what I mean? In a way. But when I tell you, Jason, when those ruby red slippers came out,

I, I just, like, thank you for giving me something to look at. Yeah. To feast my weary eyes upon. And I did love, I thought it was like a wonderful little gender bending moment when the king, gnome or whoever he was, like pulled up his little, pulled up that fabric that he was wearing to reveal those slippers.

Yeah. Yeah. There were moments I liked in here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think if you're right, Jason, if you change your point of view on it, there's something very like weird. It's like it is so much of what I love.

So much of what's weird about it is that it's a Wizard of Oz movie. Right. You know I mean? Now here, you know, it's like there are these things about it that are very specific. It doesn't feel like what they were trying to do, right? It feels marketed to a kid's movie. Here's the thing that upset me, though, which is I'm okay. I'll take the the dress.

I'll take the less likable characters. I'll take all of that. But when you turn Oz back, like, let me see something. And it looks like the shittiest wedding venue, like on the outskirts of New Jersey that you could possibly get to. I was like, this is not Oz. This is all. This is not my Oz. This is not my Oz.

Not my Oz. Hashtag not my Oz. My Oz is Dr. Oz, who's I haven't checked in within a number of years. Oh, wait. No. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no, exactly. Yeah, he's not aligned yourself with him.

You want to get yourself on, you want to go, Dr. Phil, that's the one that you want to align. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Phil, he's the one. Man, Oprah picks terrible doctors. Oh, my gosh. Is the note there? I mean, or the power goes to their head. We already know that doctors have, you know, they already have a God complex.

You put them with Oprah, then they got to go to the next level. I'm going to be. I'm going to be thinking about this movie more than I should because there are images in it. And I need to talk about a character that's near and dear to you, Jason, which is the gnome, the rock monster gnome who does not want chickens in Oz. We don't know why he doesn't want chickens. And at the end of the movie, yeah, Belina, the chicken shits an egg down his throat and kills him. Yes. Oh, no, dear.

You know that it takes. Poison. Poison indeed. Poison. Poison. Toil. No. No.

Okay, wait a second. Does she know that that's poison to him? I think the chicken was just scared. And is that how you shoot an egg? Like, that's what happens physiologically. You get really scared. My assumption was that the chicken knew that the egg would kill him because it's only visible slightly in one scene.

He's wearing a mask. medic alert bracelet that says severely allergic to eggs. Stop that right now. Which is a bracelet, which is a bracelet that my mother made me wear for my entire childhood. Oh, man. Jason, but you had to wear it. Oh, no, no, without a doubt.

It was essential. Oh, no, no. Essential. But me wearing a little silver bracelet that just said severely allergic to eggs on the back of it, engraved. Oh my gosh It breaks my heart But I'm also like

Yeah Hey Thank God Good Good Good Like you know I do

You know I thought that there was something really Odd or interesting About the fact that Instead of just Well he just wanted chickens gone Like he had like a

A chicken genocide In Oz In a way You know It's like And only because The fear That that might happen

I mean And he got it good He got a good He got it. Oh, God, did he ever? I mean, did that feel healing to you in some ways, Jason? It really, yeah, it really brought something home for me. You know, it really, I felt as though all of my angst and anxieties with my allergy, really, this was a salve.

It really helped. Could you have been this person, you know, Jason? If your mom didn't make you that bracelet, could you have become a gnome, you know, King and freezing everybody. Oh, if my parents had simply, if my mother had simply said to me, chickens are the threat. You know what I mean? Instead of people are the threat. People are going to give you eggs.

So that my trust, I learned to not trust people. But if I had been told don't trust chickens, much different, much different. And frankly, maybe we wouldn't have the podcast. No. Like we can't go through those sliding doors. But, you know, everything kind of happened for a reason as well. Sure. How I think of it.

Oh, yeah. And let's me be very clear. There would be no chickens on earth because the last 45 years of my life would have been spent just murdering chickens. Oh, God. I mean, yeah, they don't really get into why the chickens are outlawed or how he got rid of the chickens. But I'm going to say it definitely was not, it was not pleasant. I mean, he tortures. I mean, the fact that he does that little game with them.

Oh, to turn them into ornaments? Yes, to ornaments. Yeah. To ornaments. And by the way, like, but then when we see them, they're not ornaments as we know them. No. They're just like. But to call them ornaments?

To call them ornaments rather than like chotchkes. Yes. I would have loved it. If everybody got turned into curios and chachiskees. But I love, but I actually, I will say that was one of the things that I actually liked. I did too. when she goes into that room and that room is, you know, there are these elements that they're playing with that I thought were fun at times

where it's like they're in the stone cave and it's all, it looks like a stone cave and he's made of stone. He's part of the cave. Blah, blah, blah. And then when she goes through the thing into like an opulent, beautiful sitting, like castle level sitting room, you know,

it has like, there are visual things that I felt like, we're like, oh, this is cool. And then all the ornaments around, that you realize, oh, these were people or these are people or things, I guess, that he's changed into these ornaments. And I dug that.

You know, there was stuff in here that I liked. I just wish I understood the why, you know? Right. Yeah. In service of what? Something in there about the Earth's resources and him feeling like they were stolen. But that sort of fell apart for me, too, because of her argument, which was like, well, the scary. It was already Emerald City.

Yeah. Right. When he started to rain there. Right. So there's a world in which he was also like the, the Wizard of Oz was all powerful, but then the gnome night was just waiting in the wings. Well, no. What's interesting is the Wizard of Oz was not powerful. He was just revealed to be a man.

But what then this movie suggests is, but don't worry, that lesson, don't learn it, because there is an all powerful bad guy. And that is this guy. But what I'm saying is, like, in the world of Oz, people were scared of the wizard because he had portrayed himself as the all-powerful. But yet, and with a big crazy face, but yet there was a man with a big crazy face. And that's the thing. If you're going to make a sequel to the Wizard of Oz, and maybe that's where I'm coming down on this whole movie, it's like, why are we doing the same? Why does she have three companions? Why does she swap the dog for the chicken?

Just do a whole different event. Not every journey to Oz needs to go on a trek to a park. place and then a, you know, a coronation at the end. It's so interesting because it's like we have, and it's different because it's a retelling, but let's just use as an example, The Wiz. I like the Whiz as another installment in this story's evolution because the whiz is a riff on the Wizard of Oz, the movie, obviously not the book. So, so like, and that is unquestionably, incredibly successful.

and an amazing movie, you know. So to me, to get from there, I'm like, we've now had multiple generations where we have institutionalized the version of these characters and these stories where they sing and it is colorful. Why make this so drab?

Why, and I get it, it's the books, and you can say that all you want, but you really, I think. I'll never say it. I'll never say it. No, no, I mean them. I'm sure that was their thing. You know, then being like, well, no, we're taking it back to the books, you know.

But then why? If the books are so much less visually enjoyable, I guess. I mean, look, it's a real bait and switch. That's what we're saying here. It's a real bait and switch. Now, put Tony Colette in there. You know, give me the, again, I get me the cast of hereditary. I do want hereditary.

I'm all for it. I would love an Ari. Ari Astor needs to start making the rest of the Elfran bank bomb books. Oh, yeah. Let's get it. Let's start from the beginning. I want to see it from his perspective the whole way through. But because I do think this is a horror movie. It's about a girl who is about to go through very traumatic electroshock therapy. She escapes through her imagination, but which is not actually her imagination. I mean, I think the ending of this movie, and I think that they pulled away from it is she wakes up and you see the doctor pulling the two things away from her head. And, And she's like, she's like, oh, where am I? And he's like, you're home. Yeah. And then they wheel her back out.

And that would be great. That would be great. And what if he was like, you know, he said something to the effect of like, like, do you, what do you think about Oz? And she was like, what's that? You know what I mean? Because isn't that what they say in the beginning is you won't remember it? Or they like, they go, here's your key back. She's like, what is this?

Yeah. And then she just starts, blood just comes out of her. No, non-strel, this one non-strel. Yeah, and she starts to float in the air. Okay, but in this movie, Return to Oz, is the woman who, like the head nurse at the institution, is she in jail at the end? She is. She is. She is.

She is. So, apparently there's a lot of deleted scenes that did not make it into this film. There's, like, a work print that people have seen. And so much so that I found them to be like, there's A through J. of deleted scenes here. That's a lot. But the idea being that she basically was, there are other prisoners,

not prisoners, patients that were like abused and mistreated and kept in the basement. You know what this is like? Sucker Punch. Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. Remember?

Because there is a world in which the first Oz is she's in a coma from, you know, the tornado, and there's a world in which this one is, the entirety of Oz, is during her electroshock treatment. Like, it is always a trip inside the mind

rather than a real trip into a different world. There's a Jacobs Ladder scenario potentially happening here. You know, like, there's just, boy, I just wish the movie, because that would be a fun, scary movie, little kid's scary movie, you know, to descend into a world that isn't joyous and full of song, but is nonetheless full of characters that you need to befriend

and help them on their journeys. And, you know, Jason, you know, and June, I apologize for saying this right now. I don't like to get into politics, but I did not like the fact that they elected the scarecrow as the king of Oz. I felt like where, how did we decide that? How did, like, he was a weak, he was a straw man,

literally a straw man. You know, and we see what happens. You can't put scarecrows in people. He's got a scarecrow in power, and the entire, he spent all of the emeralds, and the country fell, all of Oz fell into complete disarray. It's utter bullshit. Yes. Is out of control. The yellow brick road is all torn up.

There's no infrastructure going on. There's no wheelers out there to clean it up. You know, this is what I'm saying. Oh, God. The wheelers are unchecked. They don't have badges. Oh, the wheelers. I thought the design of and the execution of those wheelers was cool as hell.

Very cool. I liked that. Those wheelers were incredibly unsettling in a great way and in a very compelling way. They were, I think, scarier than the monkeys. Because I think that they were supposed to be. They're supposed to the monkeys, but they were scarier because they were human. And they were scarier because they were chaotic in a way that the monkeys seemed ruled by something like the wheelers had an energy to them that was just so um like just they they seemed

completely out of control and well their movements are so foreign you know those big long front arms ending in wheels like monkeys flying are just monkeys flying everything in the wizard of us kind of went normalish these guys looked like it it felt like body horror you know yes exactly This felt like David Cronenberg's return to Oz. Crash. I would like to see Crash with the wheelers. Now, here's the thing. When Oz turns back, the wheelers are still wheelers.

I thought the wheelers would be like normal people, but they are just still wheelers. They're just nicer wheelers. Because here's the thing. They weren't the wheel. I actually, I don't remember where even the wheelers came from, but I didn't get a sense that they had been. What do you mean? Oh, I think if we're trying to find like the connection of like the wheelers are the guys

pushing the gurney when she's strapped down to the gurney in the real world. Okay. But it didn't seem like they were, like the people who were transformed into stone, like other members of Emerald City, like they had been different things before. The ornaments had all been different things. Like the wheelers just seemed to exist there as we are. I agree. Yes.

They seemed like a gang, you know. And not for nothing. They did. And I know this is, I said they were cool and I really liked them. but they also had a bit of a Starlight Express element. Oh, big time. I mean, that felt like they just grabbed them off the set. This was shot in the UK.

I bet you'd say, guys can come over here for a day. Yeah, you guys can't come do this. And they're like, this terrain is too rough. Andrew Lloyd Webb will give you the day off. This is, I mean, so much here. Obviously, we have opinions about this movie, but you'd be surprised to find out that there was out there. Okay, I'm not surprised.

I am sure when I was watching this, I was like, I bet there's actually a lot of people. This is going back many years. Yes. Going back many years, I dated a woman who this was one of her favorite movies. I'm not surprised. From her childhood. Like from her era of... Well, I know why she dated you now because you reminded her of her favorite villain of all the movie. Yeah. She kept calling me her rock king. Now, but she did travel with skates on her hands and feet. And feet. Yeah, not skates, single wheels.

By the way, I will say this. You didn't know. of this. I'm sorry, this movie being your favorite movie is a red flag. Oh, yeah. That's a red flag. All right. But you know, it's also like that peanut butter solution movie.

Sometimes when you get traumatized by a movie very young, it can like seep in because it's like it's almost like a right of passage, you know, a badge of honor that you're able to. I think, and I would wonder, and if you're listening to this and you are that generation for whom this movie was right in your sweet spot, I bet this was a good,

good, in quotes. Yeah. movie for kids that wasn't so scary. You know what I mean? I really wanted to show it to our kids. I was going to suggest that to you tonight, June. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay.

So now I will say this. Obviously, there are people out there with a different opinion. It's now time for second opinions. It's a shit that this person recommends it. Tell me what is the message. Maybe that art is subjective. It up in. Now, hopefully one of these is written by your ex-girlfriend, Jason.

Oh, that would be great. But I will tell you this much. There are 5,634 reviews for Return to Oz. Wow. And 80% are five-star reviews. Holy shit. Okay? 80%.

Now, some of these are written by the Wheelers, I think, because it's just a lot of skid marks around here. it says this. Sean Plorty says make your kids watch this. It gave my daughter nightmares. 10 out of 10 approved.

Five stars. We got to check on Sean Plorty, please. I don't think that that's the way to parent. This one is this one is an interesting one because all of these are odd.

KLW's title is, I enjoy being able to share childhood memories with my children. Okay, great. I bought the digital copy instead of the actual DVD only because I didn't want to wait the two days for shipping, and I love that it is on our TV, computer, tablets, and phones. We can watch it no matter where we are. Now, I do remember being a little creeped out by some of these characters. That hasn't changed. Luckily, my children aren't creeped out. They can watch this movie multiple times a day. The Wheelers and the Headless Queen are disheartened. disturbing to me, but it's still a great movie. Just don't overthink it. It doesn't add up.

Just go along with it. Five stars. I don't disagree with some of those sentiments. Not five stars, but like, just go along with it is a good, because there is stuff in here that's interesting to watch. Just don't, if you're trying to find story in here, it's just not there. I want to say that, you know, have pointed out that there's not much here a viewer who titled their review most underrated major studio film from 1950. I don't know

if that is right. Right. It is about this movie. It says, a strong statement on modern commodification, social alienation, and the ethical courage to pierce through it, which may appear tantamount to insanity. A truly

underappreciated classic, five stars. So it's saying, in a world, and a world where insanity is being creative. Yeah. Which I don't get because at the end, she's not creative. I bet she's just going to work on that fucking farm again. Oh, yeah.

She can't do any. I mean, it would be so hard. The gravitational pull for somebody on a farm in Kansas to get away from that in 1930, whatever. I mean, impossible. No, I'll tell you this much. The final scene of the film that was cut out

is a minute and a half long scene of Dorothy and Toto playing in a field. Wow. And then here's my final review, because I know we have to wrap it up. My final review is simply this from the title, you know, review. You know if you like it or you don't. So I don't know why you're reading a review. Maybe you like it. Maybe I won't.

Five stars. Wow. That's great. So there we go. I mean, I guess that's true. It is. Would you, I mean, I don't know how to feel. Would you recommend it?

I kind of, I'll just jump in first say, yes, because it's so odd. It's so weird. It's worth a watch. I don't think it flies quickly by, but it is almost two hours as well. It's long. It's long. And A through J is cut out, by the way. You should see the amount of scenes that are cut out of this thing.

That's an editor. That's an editor's movie. He's willing to cut out all those scenes. Well, I guess at a certain point, he's going to be making like a four-hour opus over here. But I think that if you can like really go into it putting the, The Wizard of Oz aside. Right. I mean, an almost impossible ask.

But I think there was a lot of parts of this movie that I had fun just watching, just because it was gonzo-nobuso stuff. You know, and lots of what we haven't talked about, obviously, is this is an era where, I mean, 1985, all of these fantastical elements, the pumpkin guy, the TikTok, all the, these are practical. elements. These are puppets. These are, there is a lot of cool stuff here to look at and be inside of. Is it a good story? Does it make sense? No. But is it like boring or uninteresting? No, I don't think so. I just think it doesn't hold together as a movie and it really doesn't feel like it's any kind of

continuation of what I understand to be the Oz saga, even though I know it is. But so yeah, I would say watch it, but if you can, I think you'll enjoy it more if you just are like, oh, I wonder if I can watch a 10-year-old girl be surrounded by horrors for two hours and still keep going. Yeah, I bet there's like, there's not really an overlap between people who love the Wizard of Oz, and I consider myself one of those people, love the movie, and who love this movie. I think there's probably a lot of people who love the books deeply and are huge fans of the series and then love this movie returned to Oz and didn't had issues with Wizard of Oz because it's not really faithful. Well, I bet that's true.

And I bet the other thing that's true is I bet there's a lot of people for whom this was a movie that was constantly available to them to watch all the time anytime, like on cable. or on Disney Channel or whatever. Like, I bet this... I mean, I have never seen any of these images before. I have seen these characters. I definitely have seen, but maybe I... But that's because I trolled video stories as a kid.

Like, it was like one of those ones. I wonder if this was one of those things that, like, people saw more of this because it was more available. And the Wizard of Oz felt like, well, that's so old. That's from olden days. You know, this is... And yet, this looked so much older to me. Oh, yeah.

I don't know. be curious to hear from, actually, I'm not. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, you don't. I'm not curious to hear from fans and I don't want to hear from fans. So, you know, Scott, you can cut that straight out of the podcast. All right. Jason, June. Wow, I almost just made a huge thing.

Yeah, you really opened yourself up to a lot of conversations. Wow. I stopped myself midway through to be like, what are you doing? Don't be so curious. This is the invitation they've been waiting for. I've already said it. People who love this movie, that's a red plaque. Yes. You know, and, you know, the, this song is that I hope that this brings you back together with your ex, Jason.

That she finally understands that you have some appreciation for what she liked. Oh, I did. Don't worry. I did text her to say, we are doing Return to Oz on the podcast. Jason, June, do you want to promote anything? Let anybody know what is out there, what they should be looking for? Sure. Percy Jackson season two is going on right now, a man on the inside. And if you're hearing this and you're in the New York area, I will be on Broadway in the show All Out at the Niederlander Theater. You can get tickets now. Ooh, exciting. Exciting. June. Nothing from me. All right. There you go. And I'll tell people, I released this little mini documentary where I talked to Taylor Swift dads. And it's, you don't have to be a Taylor Swift fan. You don't have to be a dad. You just have to be a huge.

If you're a child, you have a child, you've ever been to a concert. I think you might like it. It's 15 minutes. It's so great. And just to be clear, you mean dads of Taylor Swift fans, not Taylor Swift's dads. Yes, that is, yeah, I did not get to talk to all of her dads. That is another documentary I'm working on. And a lot of people see, well, you're digging.

There's only one that we know of them. I know there's more. I know there's more. We'll get to the bottom of it. I'll get to the bottom of it. All right, that's it. If you listen to us on Apple Podcast or Spotify, please rate and review us. Also make sure you're following us and have automatic downloads turns on.

It helps the show and we appreciate it. And a big thank you to our producer, Scott Sonny, Molly Reynolds, and our engineer, Casey Holford, as well as our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum. And of course, we'll forever be grateful to the one and only April Hallie. Thank you, everybody for listening. We'll see you next time. Remember, give us your corrections and omissions, but not your opinions.