The Wizard of Oz

"Why are you watching this?" Frank has walked into the den. I am watching TV.

"Because it's on."

"My favorite part is when the witch flies by her window in the house." Frank says.

"Yeah, there's probably not a kid in America that wasn't scared of that."

Silence, while we watch and Hannah screams for a cup of water from her bedroom. It's 8pm and I have just tuned into The Wizard of Oz.

"Do you think they filmed the first part before color TV, then color came out while they were filming?" Frank asks.

Okay, stop here for just a second. Frank is almost 51 years old and works in TV sales. He is college educated. I find, given these prerequistes, that this question is odd.

"No, I think this was done on purpose."

"Do you think it was colorized?"

"No. I think it was filmed part black and white (actually, it's sepia...) and part color. On purpose."

"Why would they do that?" Frank cannot imagine why anyone, anyone would choose to do anything in black and white. Just like a rainy day or winter as an entire season. He wouldn't choose it. He's a sunny, happy, colorful person. I, however, can be quite dark, so I enjoy a small dose of all three.

"To make the Land of Oz look spectacular, you know, by contrast."

"Oh. Makes sense."

Silence...commercial....give Hannah some water. It comes back on.

"Do you think this was filmed in the same studio as Willie Wonka?" I ask.

"No." He has no doubt about that.

"Why not? I mean, it looks exactly the same." I am noticing the little streams that run through Munchkinland, they remind me of the Chocolate River.

"No." He's so sure that I no longer question it.

Silence while we watch, Glenda appears.

"She is so beautiful." I say.

"They both are." He's referring to Glenda and Dorothy, not Glenda and The Witch.

Silence while we watch, Glenda is talking, then she summons the Munchkins to come out of hiding and meet Dorothy. Glenda and two or three female Munchkins are in the shot.

"I wish I had a dress like that." I say, just like any female, we covet that dress.

"Why?"

"Because it's beautiful?" (Seriously?)

"It'd be too small for you." And, because I am used to his sneaky, weight-related insults, I still don't question his thinking. "Besides, where would you wear it?"

"How do you know it'd be too small?" Of course, it would be too small, of course....Glenda's probably about 5'10" and a healthy size two.

"Because she's a midget!"

I am absolutely, positively baffled here. There is Glenda, plus three girl Munchkins on the screen. Glenda has a gorgeous, sparkly, peach colored, poofy-sleeved, all-out amazing gown with a matching crown and sparkly, magic wand, and the three Munchkins are wearing these little Dutch-looking plaid jumpers, they may or may not have been wearing clogs, they did, indeed, have matching bonnets, not crowns and definitely no magic wands....and he thinks I want the jumper with the bonnet and possible clogs, no wand. HE THINKS I WANT THE JUMPER!

This doesn't say much for his interpretation of my wardrobe. Or my fashion sense, of which, of course, I have none, so no wonder he assumed I'd want the sensible jumper. Now, Christi, on the other hand....nobody would question which dress she'd want. I'm surprised she doesn't already have this item in her closet. In three colors.

"Frank, there are four women on the screen. Out of those four women, you think I want to dress like the Munchkins?"

"Well you didn't say that until the Munckins came out."

"Oh." (makes sense....me, 5'9", Munchkins, 3'1".....) "Well, I want the Glenda dress."

"Where would you wear it?" A practical question, so he's asked it twice.

"The grocery store."

Silence while we watch and I contemplate what it'd be like to wear that dress to the grocery store. I am watching Glenda on the screen, it has to be about four or five feet wide, but it's not that deep. I'm trying to imagine what that crinoline (the slip underneath that makes the dress so full) looks like. I'm pretty sure I could negotiate the Publix aisles if I turned to the side when someone passed. The parking lot could be tricky....Please take a minute to imagine me, with that getup, including wand, crown and my Louis Vuitton on my gloved arm, turning to the side to try to squeeze in my van, when a giant Escalade has parked too close. Imagine me cussing in all that glitter. All you could see over the top of the offending Escalade would be the tip of my crown and the tip of my wand.

This thought also takes me back to my first prom, back in April 1983, when I had a crinoline that looked like Gone with the Wind (the age of Gunne Sax...) and my friend Nancy had to shove both it and me (two separate entities, functioning as one) into a bathroom stall just so I could potty. When sitting, the crinoline snuck up around your head, covering your eyes, making this task slightly dangerous. You don't think about bathrooms when choosing a dress like that. (I mean, why would you?) Crinoline was leaking all under the door and into the next stall, but of course, everyone's, was. We looked like an ocean of Ready Whip, oozing out of every nook and cranny of the CCHS gym bathroom.

We watch the Munchkins sing, the Munchkin Coroner declare the witch "officially dead," the Munchkin Mayor give Dorothy some thanks, then The Lollipop Guild give her a lollipop bouquet. I sing along to The Lollipop Guild.

"Do you think those are midgets or kids?" Frank asks.

"I think they're all midgets."

"Well, today they'd just take one midget and multiply him fifty times using special effects."

"You think?" (That's original.)

"Yeah, probably so."

At this point, The Wicked Witch of the West has appeared.

"She was a perfect witch." Frank says.

"She sure was."

"She was in lots of movies."

"I don't remember her in any other movies." I'm not disputing him. Frank is a little older, so he definitely could've seen her in other movies that I didn't see.

Silence.

"She was burned really badly while filming this, I think I read that somewhere." I say.

"I didn't know that."

"Yeah. She spent a lot of time recovering during filming."

(And we spent the rest of the movie guessing which scene it could have been. There were lots of opportunities. At one point she threw a ball of fire at The Scarecrow. Could've been then.)

"She's about to look for the Ruby Slippers." I say

"I like it when the feet curl up and disappear." (I like it when I see a glimpse of Frank as a kid...this movie makes him about eight years old, instantaneously.)

"I've seen the Ruby Slippers in person. They're at The Smithsonian in Washington."

"Hmmm...."

"You can walk right up to them, but they're in a glass case." (Otherwise they'd have been on my feet.)

"Hmmm...."

"They are just that beautiful." (Cursed these adult thoughts...frickin' fires, museums, midget-casting, midget multiplying, colorization....can't we just enjoy the movie?)

Silence, then commercial.

"It was all a dream." Frank says.

"That's just a misconception. Everybody thinks the writer dreamed it, because he made it a dream."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

Lacye and I used to watch this every Easter and my grandparent's house, afterwards, we'd try to fall asleep so we could have a great dream, to make into a beautiful movie. We were convinced that that was all it was, a really great dream. A really lucky dream.

And as an adult, I know this one thing to be true, it was WAY MORE than a lucky dream. I know this from writing these blogs and how hard it is to come up with material, to try to make it creative. And in writing my blog posts, always, always, ALWAYS....the most difficult part is the ending. I have to somehow tie it in with the beginning, so here's how I'm gonna do it today:

(ummmm.........)

And since I typed that paragraph, I've given it three different endings....I've talked about the movie and how it's impacted our culture, the difference in watching it as an adult and as a child, but the only really genuine, Paige Flynn ending I can come up with is

"Does anybody know where I can get that dress?"