#279. 'Return to Oz'
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This supersized Thanksgiving episode is devoted to Return to Oz (1985), which Sonny corrects himself/JVL on: it was directed not by Frank Oz but by legendary editor Walter Murch (The Conversation, Godfather Part II), a first-time (and only-time) director whose $28 million troubled production required Disney to pay MGM roughly a million dollars just to license the ruby slippers. Sonny doesn't quite say he loves it but clearly admires its uncompromising 1980s-child-terror weirdness (he groups it with Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The NeverEnding Story), singles out the Wheelers — men with their hands and feet replaced by wheels — as one of the most horrifying images ever put in a kids' movie, and geeks out on the legal quirks of the Oz intellectual property (why the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion had to be redesigned to look nothing like MGM's versions, and how the original Wizard of Oz actually flopped in theaters and only became a cultural monolith through decades of Thanksgiving TV broadcasts). JVL, by contrast, had literally never heard of the film before this rewatch, calls it the "nadir of Disney" with an oddly invisible cultural footprint, and says he hated it, though he's fascinated by it purely as an IP-law case study; Mike is the outlier fan, having watched it 15-20 times as a kid on VHS, still loving its creepy-funny fever-dream tone (plus the talking chicken) and noticing on rewatch that the hospital orderlies are visual doubles for the Wheelers. Before getting to Oz, the guys open with a long stretch of banter: JVL nurses a hand injury from catching a mid-80s-mph fastball off his son Flash and reminisces about a minor-league pitcher's dad reduced to soft-tossing with his kid, Sonny's six-year-old wants to play football purely for the end-zone sprints, and Mike recounts an odyssey of shattering his ancient iPhone SE on a Sunday morning and having to fight through a franchise Verizon store and then a corporate store at Tysons Corner to finally walk out with an iPhone 16 Pro. There's also a box-office check-in on Wicked, Gladiator II, Red One, and the looming Moana 2/Mufasa glut, plus a detour into a pair of obviously Russian-bot Twitter replies trying to stir up racial resentment over Cynthia Erivo's casting as the Wicked Witch.
From the show notes
Wheelers, man. Not even once.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00This is the Oz you haven't seen before, and this is the Oz you'll want to visit again and again. From Walt Disney Pictures comes a whole new world of entertainment. Why don't we just fly back to Kansas? Return to Oz.
Mike00:00:28Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts, who should have quit when they were ahead, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at SubBeacon.com. Tell your friends and family that's the only way they can listen to this show is to head to SubBeacon.com, become a patron, and join the conversation. Every Friday morning, we've got new episodes. And you can comment, become a part of the Sub-Beacon community at SubBeacon.com. We're going to be talking about Return to Oz, 1985. Almost 40 years old, this movie. Later on in the show. But first, JVL, what you got for us? Did you almost die today?
JVL00:01:25I didn't almost die, but I got hurt pretty bad. I got hurt pretty bad. Flash wanted to go out and throw. We went out to throw and have a catch. He's put on like 15 pounds since September. Like he's just been hitting the weights a lot. And it's at the point where throwing with him is really quite alarming now. And like if we're just having a catch, that's fine. But but if he like starts throwing like, you know, he's really practicing pitching stuff, right? Like working on his lower body, lower half rotation or playing with grips, working on release point with curveballs and stuff like that. It's it's terrifying because the ball is coming in. You know, he's he's in the mid 80s and there's a ton of movement on it. And so, like, you know, every single ball that I have to catch from the kid feels like a like, oh, am I going to make it through this one? And. Today, he threw a four seamer to me. I don't know how to explain this, except to say that, like, the ball just comes up on you so fast. Right. I mean, I I'm tracking it as it leaves his hand. It's just like it's. It's in front of you before you can blink. Yeah. And we were outside. It was three thirty in the afternoon. It's winter and it's getting darker. I mean, it isn't dark, but it's. Yeah. You know, it's a cloudy overcast day. This sounds so stupid, but not having perfect light makes it much, much harder to track it. And on top of it, it was cold. I have contact lenses and I don't know if you, you know, sometimes when it's like cold, cold out, like your eyes. Water. Yeah. They just water a little right there. And so between those two things and this ball, I mean, this had. You think that if this thing was going eighty five, it was going ten. And it tailed at the. It had a very, very late break on it. And so I have my my glove hand out and it just sort of dives on me and I can tell like I'm just I'm not going to be able to get my glove hand over.
?00:03:57I'm not going to be able to get my glove hand over. And so I have my my glove hand out and it just sort of dives on me and I can tell like I'm just I'm not going to be able to get my glove hand over.
JVL00:03:57And so to protect myself, I reach out with my my right hand and it hits me here. You can see the beginning of the spot. It's like a goose. So but so this is like the the heel of the hand towards like, you know, the bottom of the thumb joint. And I can hear the crunch like that, that sickening like that, like, oh, card like that's hitting cartilage. And. It hurt as much as anything has hurt me that I can remember. Like one of those, like I threw my glove down and just started like jumping and running around in circles like a cartoon character question.
Mike00:04:44Yeah. What did what was Flash's reaction?
JVL00:04:48He felt terrible about it. He was like, it was like I was watching the whole thing in slow motion. It's like I saw you not pick up the I saw you not track it. I saw the ball run late. Like I saw you reach out with your right hand. And I don't know if I hold them up. You get to. But like, yeah, one is much, much bigger than the other. Like the swelling is huge. I can like move it around now. It's not broken. That's. But it's not black.
Sonny00:05:15It's not like it's not like discolored in a way.
JVL00:05:17No, but it's weird. I mean, it's one of these. So hit me again here, like the bottom part of the thumb. And I my elbow hurts from it.
Sonny00:05:25Oh, yeah.
JVL00:05:26Because it's. Like, you know, it hit that the shock travels right up the anyway, right up the ulnar nerve. Yeah, right at the ulnar nerve. So this reminded me of I was off, you know, I used to live down the street from minor league baseball game and I was at a game one night. This is single A. And I was sitting next to a guy who was a dad of the starting pitcher. So he had flown in from Texas, I think, to just. To watch his kid pitch that day, which is the coolest thing in the world. And this kid, I think he was throwing. He had it carried a no-no into like the seventh inning or something like he was just dealing. And I was just talking to him and I was, you know, like, you know, tell me what it's like. What is, you know, you're living the dream. And this was his kid had just come up because he had been drafted, but then missed a year with Tommy John and had come home for rehab. And so, you know, it was like, I don't know. I think it was from Houston. So like some big fancy medical center was there where they could do all that stuff. And I said, well, it must have been great having having your kid home, like live with you guys. He's like, yeah, yeah, it was great. You know, we could, you know, for the in the beginning when he was when he was in the rehab process, like we would go outside to throw every day. And it would be like, you know, when we were he was 12 years old again. I was like, oh, that's nice. He was. Yeah. And then that, you know, that stopped pretty fast. What do you mean? Is it? Well, I mean, I can't do anything with him other than soft toss. I said, really? Yeah. I mean, if he throws for real, he'd kill me. And I thought to myself at the time, huh? I mean, it's like this. This guy was like in really good shape. Might have been 55 or something. He was. Yeah. And now I it me. Yeah. It me. Like we're fast approaching the. The time when I will only be able to do like soft toss with him.
Sonny00:07:26Question. When you're when you're playing catch and you're and he's throwing for real. When Flash is throwing for real. Do you have do you wear like first? Do you wear a catcher's mitt?
JVL00:07:38No, I just wear my normal. OK, I've never I've never in my life used a catcher's mitt.
Sonny00:07:44So then you don't wear like full catcher's garb.
JVL00:07:47No, because I'm not even in full catcher's garb. I would never kneel down to catch him because I don't know anything about like working. Behind the plate. And I think I would be just wouldn't want to mess him up. No, I wouldn't want to get hurt. Yeah, even in full catcher's garb. Right. I mean, I and so I'll like set up to catch me. Not like he's not throwing real pitches.
Sonny00:08:11Yeah.
JVL00:08:12But he's you know, he's throwing hard.
Sonny00:08:16Yeah. I mean, we're all we're also at the age where like even even doing a short stint as a catcher, it would be disastrous on our knees and back. Yeah. Like I I mean, I like I wasn't I did not play catcher in when I played baseball, but I did do I did do BP sometimes like filling in for the catcher.
Guest00:08:39Right.
Sonny00:08:39And it was it was like it's a very different experience for sure. But it's also like it's the only time playing baseball where I was like, I actually am sore now afterward. And that's when I was like 13, 14, 15.
Mike00:08:52Like when I was on this softball team to summer. I believe that one of the reasons everyone was like super happy for me to play catcher. Not that I mean, it's softball, but like I like to get I like to get down and and like to catch the balls. And I think they all agreed to it because I was like on average like 15 to 20 years younger than everybody else.
JVL00:09:21Let the noob kneel down. So better his knees than ours, Tom. I mean, these are still good.
Sonny00:09:28These are still disastrous. I like I couldn't imagine, you know, doing a doing a round of BP or whatever. Well, that's where I am. Glad your hand is.
JVL00:09:39It hurts a lot. I don't. I was actually thinking I sat this afternoon. I spent like two hours packing it with, you know, frozen peas and all that stuff. And I think to myself, I got to write tomorrow. Is this going to be the first newsletter that I write by dictating it through Siri? Like, you know, pull up Google Docs and actually like dictate. You know, it couldn't. It took a couple hours before I could move it at all. Yeah. Anyway, it's fine. It's all fine. It's just funny thinking about. That the time will come when I won't be able to, like, have a real catch with him, when it'll be like him humoring me. And, you know, those days are sooner than we think, because death is coming for us all.
Mike00:10:16All right.
JVL00:10:17It's a heartwarming story.
Mike00:10:19Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:10:22Not not much. I don't have anything. It's funny. My son, my youngest son, who is six now, has finally gotten, like, really into sports. He, like, loves watching football, and he asked us to buy him a football, like a proper football, you know, not like a light up, you know, whatever, Nerf ball or whatever. And so he wants to go outside, but he wants to go outside and, like, play football. He's like, I want to I want to play football. And I'm like, I want to hit people. This is I mean, it's not even that he doesn't think he doesn't want to tackle. He wants to, like. Run to the end zone. He just wants to run into the end zone and score touchdowns. That's all he wants to do. But I'm like, I'm like, man, it doesn't make any sense. This isn't how football works. And if you want to play flag football or whatever, you need to you need to be able to throw and catch. Like, that's all you need to be able to do. Right. Like, you need to be able to throw the ball and catch the ball. And so he'll he'll do that for about six minutes. He'll he will he will play catch for literally six minutes. And then he'll be like. He'll catch it like I'll throw it to him and just start running past you. He just starts doing he starts running towards you. I'm just like, this is this is not this is not because I'm not like the other my other fear here. JBL, as you mentioned, like teaching the wrong thing. Like I I am. I was never a football. I have never played organized football on any level. I've never never played organized football like flag or. Or tackle or anything. Never, never done it. But, you know, I like played pickup games in the street or, you know, in backyards or whatever. And I can kind of throw a football, though. My shoulder is so fucked up from from the torn labrum that like I can't really do a proper like throwing a baseball arm. Throwing a baseball I can do, but it's it's a fucked up motion. Throwing a football is very hard for me to do. It's just like it doesn't it. My arm doesn't want to go that way. But I can like but I've like I've actually taught him to be able to throw and and he can do it. Long story short here is like I just like I am like I am quickly approaching that like I'm not helpful for you in any way in this sport moment. And he's six.
JVL00:12:49So you should get for him. So do you guys ever use a speed ladder? No, no. So speed ladder is imagine something that looks like a ladder, but the two sides of it are made of like rope. And then the rungs are just like flat pieces of plastic. And so you lie it on the ground and it creates. Yeah. And so you see the idea is you're doing various types of drills that are working on footwork. You could concoct some really fun drills with him where the idea is he's waiting for you to throw the ball to him. And his job is he's got a catch. And then like complete the speed ladder and spike the football. Like that's a, you know, you complete the speed or spike the football. Then I do it again because we just worked on like footwork that will translate to any sport he ever does.
Sonny00:13:40That's not a bad idea, right?
Mike00:13:42I mean, it's very fast first.
Sonny00:13:44Like he's shockingly fast for a six year old in ways that I find kind of surprising.
Mike00:13:49You don't say about speed.
Sonny00:13:52What's that JBL stays with you forever.
JVL00:13:54Fast never has a bad day. That's true, right? Every other part of of athletics like you could not just have a bad day. We're not hitting shots or not able to see the field where the fast is just fast.
Sonny00:14:09Yeah. Yeah.
Mike00:14:11Anyway, yeah, it reminds me of the the way like in the in the summer when we're like out like we have a fire pit out or whatever and like the kids are kind of being annoying and it's like, all right, you're going to go do we used to do this when special in the oldest was younger, much younger. It's like ninja challenges. Oh, it was just like it was just all it was was I would just sit there and think I would I would drink my beer while they were doing the first ninja challenge to and think of the next one, which was like, all right, now you're going to do like 10 burpees and run around that tree 10 times and run up at the end. And they're like, OK, yeah. And how do I do? How do I do?
JVL00:14:56You're Viggo Mortensen from G.I. Jane.
Mike00:14:59Exactly.
JVL00:15:01So, all right.
Mike00:15:02Well, I can share my little.
JVL00:15:05What are you up to, buddy?
Mike00:15:07I had a stressful, harrowing day where we're recording this early for for you, the people on Thanksgiving on a Sunday. So so we. We go to church on Sunday. Morning, we took two separate cars split up so that me and the oldest and the youngest could go back home and my wife in the middle could go to a birthday party after church. So they're at the birthday party. We get home. We're chilling out. I got my phone. I pick it up off of the dresser after I've changed into non-church clothes. I drop the phone. Which is in a case. Right. Which is in a. Protective case that I paid some money for to protect it from things like dropping it on the ground from like, like three feet. And it completely shattered. And it wasn't just you can kind of see and you kind of see the. Oh, yeah. Shatter. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't just I peeled off the screen protector and that thing was fine. It was fully intact. It was the glass. And not only is the glass of the phone like, like fucked up. Like. When I go to swipe on things. The side of it is warped. Oh, it's not. It's even worse than that. When I go to swipe things like it like spazzes out on me. It's like it's like going back and forth like this. I'm not sure what to do.
JVL00:16:42Well, the good news is you bought the Apple care coverage, right?
Mike00:16:51So. So the answer to that is no. Um, so what I did was really stupid next, which was, I went, I don't know why this phone is not like responding to me. I'm going to turn it off and turn it back on. And that way, maybe, you know, that's just the unplugging it and plugging it back in trick. So then I turn it back on and it's like plug in your, your six digit thing to, to, to, you know, your six digit code. To open the phone back up, to unlock the phone on after having turned it off. Uh, and I go to start pressing in my code and it's like, the six is the only thing that illuminates. It doesn't matter where I press on the screen. The six is just going and it's filling out my code as six, six, six, six, six, six, six. And I'm like, wait, no, no. And then it's like, Oh, I'm sorry. That's incorrect. I'm like, let me try it again. Six, six, six, six, six. So then it's like, uh, all right. You've only got five. Yeah. Like you've got five minutes. Five minutes of timed out and then, yeah. And then it just keeps getting worse. And then I don't even have to try and it just keeps timing out more and more and more. So like, this is not good. how old is your phone? Uh, so it's, it's an old phone. It's an old phone model.
JVL00:18:12An iPhone nine.
Mike00:18:13It's an Essie. It's an iPhone Essie.
JVL00:18:16Um, I'm sorry. Are you a member of AARP? Yeah. I thought you had to be 60 to purchase those.
Sonny00:18:24Mike, when did they, when did they let you off? The Amish farm.
Mike00:18:28I knew as soon as I brought this up, it was like, I'm going to get shit for something. And probably multiple things in this story, but you know what? I'm, I'm going through when you're going through hell, keep going.
JVL00:18:40At least I don't fault you for declining the Apple care because nobody in their right mind
Sonny00:18:45would pay for extra warranty for a fucking Essie iPhone Essie released in 2016. Is that the one you have? You have the 2016.
Mike00:18:55No, I think I have. The second or third generation.
Sonny00:18:57Like, okay. So you have got the 2020. So you've had it for four years.
Mike00:19:01Uh, a little less than that. Actually a little less than Michael.
Sonny00:19:04You deserve paid off.
Mike00:19:06Uh, it actually, it was not paid. What? I paid it off today. Um, so I, okay. Because I have a problem with the, the way these stupid phone contracts work. We're like, I'm happy to just pay it off at some point, but it's like, it's like impossible to figure out how to do that anyway, regardless. So then I'm trying to figure out what, so I need a new phone. I need to just, just not hard.
Sonny00:19:33It's not hard at all. Do you have AT&T?
Mike00:19:36Uh, Verizon.
Sonny00:19:37Oh, well, I, I can't speak for Verizon, but AT&T makes it very simple.
Mike00:19:40So then I'm trying to, I am trying to figure out how to get a new phone. Cause this thing is done. Like the glass itself is shot. Yeah.
JVL00:19:50So what you do is you go to apple.com.
Mike00:19:52No, no, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, no. I go to Verizon. I go to Verizon.com so that I can like figure out how to, how to make it work with my plan. When I try to log into Verizon, it's like, all right, I put in my, my number, I put in my password and it's like, we've sent a text message to your phone to verify. And I'm like, I can't get into my phone. So I go to my local Verizon store.
Sonny00:20:23Wait, do you not have, you don't have like, you don't have message, like iMessage on your, uh, on my phone, on your, on your computer, on your
Mike00:20:31laptop, on my computer. Yeah, no, Sonny, that's a great point. And you know what? My iMessage for whatever reason does, did not take the incoming messages from Verizon shooting it back at me.
Sonny00:20:45So is it not set up to take text messages?
Mike00:20:48It now is.
Sonny00:20:50It had not been before. Look, I'm, I'm, I'm troubleshooting this with you because I have gone through this exact same process before. Oh, it's fine. Why am I not getting these? Oh, that's because they're text. Exactly. Why am I not getting text messages? Who turned that off? I didn't turn it off.
Mike00:21:05So now I am, I'm locked out of my phone. I'm locked out of my Verizon account. So I go to the local Verizon store up the street from me and I patiently wait while she, there's the one person who's in there. She finishes with somebody. The cell phone store is the new DMV. Oh, it's the worst. Oh, oh yeah. Strap in. Um, so I'm. I get, uh, I, I finally, she finally comes to me and she, and she's like, Oh, like when I tell her my problem, she's like, Ooh, which is like also a bad sign when she's like, Ooh. And she says, well, maybe I can get into it. Do you know your, your Verizon pin? Like, I don't know my Verizon pin. And she's like, well, she goes, you actually have three chances before it locks you out for 24 hours. So why don't we go with your first two guesses? And so I went with my first guess. And it was not right. And I went with my second guess and it was also not right. So she was like, here's what you're going to need to do because we're actually tech we're, we're, we're just a licensed Verizon store. We, Oh yes. You need to go to a Verizon corporate store. Yup. And I was like a Verizon corporate store. Where the hell is there a Verizon corporate store? She's like at Tyson's corner mall.
JVL00:22:19Yup.
Mike00:22:20And I was like, Oh yeah.
JVL00:22:22The, the Reddit Verizon mobile threat has huge. Threads about the corporate stores versus the franchise stores. But she said, they'll be able to get you in and they'll be able to take
Mike00:22:34care of you because I believe that because they, they have the power. Um, look, this has a, this story does have a happy ending because I now
Sonny00:22:41have, so to speak, well, if you're going out to Tyson's corner, I bet it does a lot of happy endings out there.
Mike00:22:49I'm for, for, for listeners. I'm showing my brand new phone. iPhone 16.
Sonny00:22:54Yeah.
Mike00:22:54It's an iPhone 16. It's the iPhone 16 pro, right? Correct. Yeah. So that good camera, uh, he was telling me all about it. I was like, yeah, I don't fucking care.
JVL00:23:04Um, this is how you make memories about your children. That's why honestly, I got plenty of them.
Mike00:23:13I got enough memories.
Sonny00:23:14You have enough children or memories, both.
Mike00:23:18I don't need no more of eyes of them. So I finally get to the Tyson store. Uh, I can tell that. They can tell that I'm flustered because like I have, like, I have like a thing I need to write and file by tomorrow and like, I've got to get the, the, the, like the audio off the, all the stuff anyway, sweat it's yeah. And, and they can tell and, but the, the other thing they can tell is that I'm like, I'm a, I'm like professional and like, I know a few things, like I'm not like one of these, like, think about it, I do feel bad. Bad for these retail phone store people, because they have to deal with every single person, like the DMV single person has a phone.
JVL00:24:07So it's the DMV is literally the same thing, the way that everybody has a car. Yes. Everybody has a phone.
Sonny00:24:12It's the entire gamut of the socioeconomic spectrum, human experience.
Mike00:24:18And in fact, at one point we're sitting there, I'm talking with this guy who's talking with me and like out of nowhere, this. Like this kid, like in his twenties, just like walks up to the guy that I'm speaking with. Who's who's selling me this new phone and working with me and clearly talking with me with a customer. And this guy just without saying excuse me or anything, just goes up to the guy that's working there and goes, do you have a charger that I can use? Like literally came out, like out of the mall, into the store and asked him.
Sonny00:24:52Didn't know his place.
Mike00:24:53And the guy goes.
Sonny00:24:54Didn't know his place. Mike Warren. Mike Warren was being serviced. Young master.
Mike00:24:58It was like out of nowhere.
Sonny00:25:00Young master. I am. I am being attended to by my sales servant.
Mike00:25:07It wasn't about me. I didn't say anything. The other guy goes, I'm with a customer. And he goes, you can go over there and ask them. And I said to the guy, I was like.
Sonny00:25:16You can go over there and ask them.
Mike00:25:18And I was like, I was like, man, I was like, you must see, you must come across like so many different. Behavioral like issues in this job. And he just looks at me. He goes, people are rude, man. Yeah. No kidding. Anyway, long story short, he long story long, we work it out. It's a it's a complete like root canal of like getting into my Verizon account. He's able to see I haven't quite paid it off yet. So I had to pay off the stupid phone that broke. And then he's able to get me the new phone. And he's like, everything's going to be fine. And he like he was very had a great bedside manner. He was like, you're going to be fine. Everything's great. It's just going to take a little while. And I got the new phone and it's it's all fine. The only issue is I'm still trying to unlock this old phone so I can turn it in and maybe get a little discount. So bottom line is apparently just like not paying attention and picking up your phone and dropping it on the floor of your house on a Sunday morning can ruin your entire eat up. 18 hours of your life. The moral of the story. Don't drop your phone, kids.
Sonny00:26:32Oh, I believe that. I mean, when I when I like spilled coffee on my laptop, it was a that was like a whole.
Mike00:26:39That's like everything is in there. Oh, and the other thing was and then we could move on. Like. I have a lot of stuff that's backed up on my Google cloud as opposed to my iCloud, but like and I thought I had I had like logged in onto that cloud on the new phone. So I get my my phone and I'm looking for something like from a source like that happened like two days ago and it's not showing up. And like the person's phone number is not showing up. And I'm like, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. And it turned out I had not signed into the Google cloud. I did that like 30 minutes later and everything showed up and it was fine. But it's. Yeah. Anyway, what a disaster. Did you have thoughts on it? You look like you have thoughts.
Sonny00:27:23No, no. I was like the last time. I got. So it's funny. I, you know, I get a new phone every three years or so because what happens is like I pay off my phone. And for for like a month, I'm happy. I'm like, I'm happy with this phone that I've paid off. I don't I don't I don't need the extra twenty dollars in charge or whatever. I don't I don't need a new iPhone. They're not the same. This is fine. Sure. And then like it starts eating at me and eating at me and eating at me. And then I just go and I end up getting another one. I end up I end up because it. Because I always justify it to myself very simply. It's it's just like eighteen dollars a month or whatever. Yeah. For three years. What what did. And it's so much nicer and newer and it's so much more space to store all my photos and my videos.
JVL00:28:12It's a tool. It's a tool that you use. Every day. To make the money. Yeah. That pays for everything else. That's right. One hundred percent. You should have the best tools that make. Your life easiest for the tasks that like make you but you guys are a thousand percent right.
Mike00:28:33But you have to understand that both me and my wife come from a mentality that is like and I don't know if this is what we were born into or where we learn this but where it's like do what you can with like the minimal amount of cost and sure all that.
Sonny00:28:54And I agree with that.
JVL00:28:56I was one hundred percent built in like that is my life and I get that for all sorts of things like for instance as we were talking like you're buying a car. The car is a tool as well and what the color of the car is matters not at all right. But in terms of thing which is actually going to function fast I honestly like a new computer if it saves you five minutes a day in cumulative speed time like you know just because it processes audio.
Mike00:29:25Files faster while you're editing a podcast or something I'm sorry that's what we do for a living but it's it's I should buy that time back I totally agree it's hard to know in the it's like it's much easier to see on the other side of it when you've done you're like why didn't I do this earlier yeah this is constantly my problem yeah it's like why did I what I suffer so you know and like if you look if you're getting a watch for instance you should get it in the dial color that you really really care about and are going to be happy JBL JBL we got to move on we got to we got to move on. We got to we got to keep this show roll the show come on come on okay we got to keep it wheeling ooh there we go well let's quick quickly talk about box office because number one at the box office this past weekend wicked number two is gladiator to number three red one but wicked is like it's a monster isn't it sunny click it it's
Sonny00:30:25the glicken weekend it's like the barbenheimer it's like the knockoff barbenheimer yeah it's like the team oh it's like the team the team barbenheimer team barbenheimer yeah no that's that's about right I mean look wicked did very well I I don't think it quite hit what I thought it would and I think I guess between 120 and 140 I think it's a little south of that yeah although we're looking at Sunday numbers I don't know Sunday night numbers so it might be might come up a bit gladiator did 55 million or so in its opening weekend which is a solid number for an R rated you know sequel did Oppenheimer open to Oppenheimer open to I think it was just under 100 million I think it was like 90 million something like that hold on let me know it's even less 80 82 million yeah was that is that yeah so 82 million I mean like that's again that's for an R rated historical black and white where nothing happens in black and white it's it's just a lot of dudes talking to each other just dudes talking science talking science and bureaucracy I love it I love that movie I'm gonna watch it after we take some podcasts I know the wicked it's interesting I I am curious to see how wicked does in subsequent weeks the cinema score was an A which is solid I will say there's been a little more pushback than I thought from people who were surprised it was a part one lot a lot of people a lot of people being like a part one come on super excited because it means that they get to see even more wicked is that or were they upset because that means they have to see another well they were just upset I think I think audiences are really getting tired of this I think audiences are really getting tired of of movies that should be one movie instead being two or three movies and like you know you saw some of this with dune and you saw you saw some I think this was what part of the reason why the most recent mission impossible underperformed a little bit is because it was it was advertised as mission impossible dead reckoning part one it's the problem was they told people see they told people they told people and the truth is the people want to be suckered if you tell them to punish you the people do want to be suckered and here's the thing that that of all of these movies of all of like dune and wicked and mission impossible dead reckoning spider verse that the spider well spider verse they didn't they didn't even call that part one in the in the title card they they just had a to be continued at the end which I thought was fine I thought like I'm actually okay here's this is my weird psychology is I'm okay with the to be continued like we're ending we're leaving on a cliffhanger right we're leaving on a we're leaving on the cliffhanger the back to the future part two situation that's what I was I can I can live with that I can live with that what annoys me is the part one that can be a standalone movie right so like dune part one they said oh this can just be a standalone and it can't it just ended halfway it just the movie just stops the movie just stops wicked I think could theoretically be kind of you could you could you know have it as a just as a as a standalone thing but Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning just played like a Mission Impossible movie yeah like it just it was just like here's the movie and they didn't need to call that part one at all they should have just called it Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning audiences wouldn't have like felt cheated at all they just would have been like all right where where's the next Ethan Hunt adventure they should have they should have followed the the Avengers what the Endgame right way the way they did with Endgame yeah Avengers Avengers Endgame and then Avengers and Infinity War or Infinity War and then Endgame yeah no that's what they should have done that's well they should have called it Avengers Thanos because that's really a Thanos movie they should have called it Thanos Thanos and or an Avengers saga just Thanos okay any other box office thoughts on this I mean so is if we could maybe even slightly underperforming what's I mean maybe things pick up for Thanksgiving right I don't think it's underperforming I think it's I think it's it's slightly underperforming what I thought it would do after but like I don't think it's I don't think it's really underperforming I think it's performing within expectations I am again I'm curious to see how it holds I don't know this this weekend you're gonna have Moana 2 out that's gonna be huge I think a lot of I think a lot of people are going to Moana 2 a lot of families are going to Moana 2 and JBL this is gonna cut into you know you last week you said that audiences are just gonna go back and back to Wicked because you know that's what families do with these these musicals I do think that Moana 2 is gonna cut into that a little bit it may could especially if Moana 2 is good I am I don't think that's gonna be why it because I everything I've heard is that it's it's very mediocre it's also the songs the songs are not by Lin-Manuel Miranda so I have my issues I have my issues with Lin-Manuel Miranda but that man can put together a song that appeals to children and adults I when I look at the decision to dump Moana 2 here the only thing I can really think is that they knew it was a dog and so this way they figured we'll put it out and when it you know kind of gets blown away we can just blame Wicked oh no no no this is this is exactly wrong JBL this was originally gonna this was originally planned to be a Disney plus series what Moana 2 was originally initially planned to be a Disney plus series and the stuff that they were seeing from the from the the production but also just like what they were seeing how Moana itself was playing on the platform like red one you know for them it's just found
JVL00:36:55money then yes no this is right absolutely absolutely Disney is just like we're gonna put this in theaters and see what happens then I gotta say I mean if the chances that it can be quality having been conceived of as a streaming series a good luck you're getting your getting your hopes down have I successfully
Mike00:37:14to be tamped question I mean we've been talking a lot about Moana cutting into this but do we think maybe the a 24 film coming out queer
Sonny00:37:25could also cut into Luca Guadagnino's queer starring Daniel Craig what's that about it was an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel I mean you haven't read William S. Burroughs novel queer I literally just looked down on the release schedule what is next I could cut in I had no idea it was no the next thing that's gonna cut in is Mustafa the the Lion King prequel you mean Mufasa Mufasa sorry did I say Mustafa
Mike00:37:55Mufasa Mufasa the I think Mustafa isn't that isn't that a isn't that a planet in Star Wars all right well what do we why don't we move on so that we can talk not about this petty what's happening in the box office now can I can I ask make a request oh yes Sonny do you have any interest in giving us two minutes on the the replies that you got on separate social media platforms
Sonny00:38:25almost simultaneously trying to stir up racial resentment concerning wicked well no there was an interesting so this was on this this was a both of these replies came on Twitter but but so I I tweeted out my I tweeted out my review of wicked and something wicked I got two separate I got two separate replies about that basically are very very obviously Russian bot farm replies that are that we're trying to stir up racial animus all right so here I sorry I was I was I was I was delaying a bit because I was trying to find the actual reply all right so just to be just to just to set the stage here the movie wicked is based on the stage play the wicked which of the West is played by Cynthia Erivo in the film version in the play in the stage adaptation she was played by Adina Menzel so the so so in theory you know there's some there's a change because in the play she's white in in the when the place she was green but she's green in both she's green in both right like she's the way she's the green wicked witch so anyway I tweet you know I tweet I tweet my review out wicked reminds me of early MCU movie blah blah blah one of the this is the sixth reply is from a an account named Dina Gordon underscore Dina Gordon with a little underscore at the end it's got a picture of a smiling white lady and the reply is why the bad witch I just gonna I'm gonna read it to you why the bad witch black to get sympathy and hate to the white girl hold on can you read it in a Russian accent now why the bad witch black to get I can't I'm doing it like Transylvanian it's like what we do in the shadows why the bad witch black to get sympathy and hate to the white girl so so this is very like it is so that that jumped out at me is weird and I like went to the account and I looked at it and she had retweeted a bunch of stories about Vladimir Putin being great I was like okay that that's that's tracking that's tracking and then then about an hour later I got another reply along the same lines it was I I'm not gonna waste everybody's time here trying to find it but it was in it was like the same kind of broken English and very specifically why do they want us why do why do they want us to hate the white girl and love the black girl and it it's really seems to me that Russia has like staked the future of America probably correctly frankly on us tearing ourselves apart over a wicked race war that's like that is basically what the the was always predicted the there's there's some frustrated theater major some frustrated musical theater major in the bowels of the Moscow bot farm who's like I've got it I've got it folk Yuri I figured it out we're gonna we're gonna make them kill each other over the wicked the way and and then you've got Yuri over here who's like what the fuck are you talking about I don't understand and you know Mikhail is like I don't know I know I know what to do they're all gay in America
Mike00:42:25they're all obsessed with this shit all right so I would have just left the subtext subtext Mike you didn't have to come out and say it but you know you know how the we're doing you know the Putin the Putinistas hate the hate the gays that's the chemicals that turned us all getting that's all I was getting at all right we move on then to actually talk about this movie that we're supposed to be talking about in our in our final minutes I think we can do a type five
Sonny00:42:55on return to Oz no I have so many things to talk about this movie all right go ahead son we're doing a supersized Thanksgiving edition not that return to Oz directed not by Frank Oz as I said on the episode last week but directed by Walter merch the great editor and sound designer worked with Coppola on the conversation I think he edited father the godfather godfather part two Walter merch one of the great editors his his books on editing are and it's amazing if you've never intellectuals of film one of the true intellectuals of film he has a he has a fellow Hopkins alum oh really I didn't know that I didn't know good for him anyway I he he he wrote a book with Michael on Dache I think the conversations unbelievable one of the best books about film I've ever read absolutely about the making of the conversation no it refers to the conversation is just refers to its literal conversations between the on Dache and Merch just transcribed like the two of them sitting rolling tape while talking about film yeah it's it's really wonderful and I highly recommend it people should check that anyway Walter Merch is the director of this this movie not Frank Oz so I apologize to Walter Merch I'm sure a listener of this podcast for for messing that up return to Oz is not strictly speaking a sequel to Wizard of Oz the MGM musical from 1939 because this is a Disney production it's not a it was not an MGM movie there are lots of interesting intellectual property things that go with this but suffice to say it was not a sequel to the Wizard of Oz the but there was one element from the film the Wizard of Oz 1939 the Wizard of Oz that carried over to return to Oz and that's the ruby slippers and to get access to the ruby slippers MGM required a payment of something like a million dollars from from Disney Disney like this isn't a movie whose budget I believe was a twenty eight million something like that so this is a million dollars is like five percent of the total cost a million dollars is not is not a small sum of money anyway so the you know the the the the long and the short of it is again for the purposes of this review you have to understand that this is not a sequel to the Wizard of Oz it's it's based on L. Frank Baum's books it's from the Wizard of Oz you know kind of general universe that said it's totally a sequel it's a sequel it's one hundred percent a sequel to the Wizard of Oz the return to Oz return to Oz right if it's if it's not a sequel you might want want to say to the audiences that you're returning to this thing but but no but if you want people to go see the movie you might want them to think it is a sequel just throw it at what they didn't say it's a part one it's mainly it's mainly based on the book Ozma of Oz which I don't know if you if I'm in the marketing department and somebody presents the title Ozma of Oz to me I'm shooting them in the face like how am I supposed to market this goddamn thing you send us back to Oz so anyway return to Oz I the thing the thing you have to understand about return to Oz in addition to it being a a not sequel sequel is that it is very much in the vein of 1980s child terror movies right so like Wizard Wizard of Oz is its own thing this owes much more to labyrinth to the dark crystal to the never-ending story than it does the Wizard of Oz I like a yes there's Dorothy Gale and yes she's from Kansas and yes she goes to the Emerald City and blah blah blah but this is a movie this is a movie that is designed to terrify children it's designed to threaten her with electroshock therapy they she's all right so here's the plot the plot of the movie is Dorothy keeps talking about going to Oz and Auntie M and Auntie M's husband whose name Uncle Henry remember Uncle Uncle Uncle what Henry Uncle Henry Uncle Henry thank you they they say you're crazy you're a crazy person we're gonna take you to the nut house and they take her to the nut house and in the nut house they give her electroshock they don't give her electroshock they don't give her electroshock remember she escapes before they give her the electroshock she doesn't escape because this all takes place in her head in her electroshock electroshock it's that's what happens sucker punch she gets a this is actually it's literally sucker punch it's literally the movie sucker punch but with Wizard of Oz undertones so she gets the electroshock therapy and in when she's in the electroshock therapy she goes to Oz because that's part of her delusion because that's what they're zapping out of her head and when she's there she runs into a not tin man tick-tock and a not scarecrow jack the pumpkin whatever what's that pumpkin head jack jack pumpkin head terrifying jack but you're butchering terrifying terrifying there's literally a horror series called pumpkin head that's what this guy is jack pumpkin head they run into a not cowardly lion she has a talking chicken with her and she has a talking chicken with her and she hasn't done the talking chicken we'll come back to the talking chicken because the talking chicken is fascinating to me because everybody in this movie reacts with horror and terror to the chicken and for reasons everything else is everything else is totally normal though everything else makes perfect sense chicken is what's crazy everything else makes perfect sense you're everything else makes perfect sense go ahead go ahead go ahead uh thing but i uh but the thing i want to really emphasize here the thing that matters more than anything else in this movie more than the gnome king who is the the big bad more than uh the witch mamby who is the minor bad even more than the witch mamby's head of screaming or a hall of screaming heads which is like the single most terrifying image probably from this film oh yeah the the thing i want to focus on here the thing i want to drive home to all the parents out there who have never watched return to oz and maybe one of the thinking about watching this with their kids is the wheelers the wheelers the wheelers which are the most terrifying creations like take a skexus and make it like seven times scarier than that for a little kid and that's what a wheeler is it's a wheeler is a man it's like imagine matt fruer matt fruer is not in this movie but the guy looks a little bit like matt fruer imagine matt fruer and you take his hands and you're in his feet and you cut them off and you replace them with wheels and you have a wheel all around on all fours it's awful it's it's one of the it's one of the most horrifying images i've ever seen and like they're they're they're they're all the wrong proportions like their arms and legs are too high for their bodies i can't describe it properly but it did the whole thing is the whole thing is a nightmare and watching this reminded me just how much just how much this movie disturbing when i saw when i was like seven i actually i asked i asked my wife i was like hey should we i have to watch this for the show should we watch it with the kids and she got wide-eyed and she said no absolutely not we can't we can't subject them to this horrible terrifying movie um anyway i uh i wouldn't say that i love return to oz i wouldn't say that i love return to oz but i do admire the weirdness of it i admire the i i admire everything in the 1980s from again from the movies i mentioned before um to the uh to the don bluth animated films of the 1980s there was this moment where we were like we're gonna scare the shit out of kids for like eight years that's what we're gonna do that's like kids who were born between like 1980 and 1985 they are gonna be terrified within an inch of their lives when they go to the movies and that's how we're gonna that's how we're gonna get them ready for the real world and i salute the filmmakers of this era for doing this sonny the sign said beware the wheelers you you had the warning i i look you can't prepare somebody for the wheelers you can't just say like oh beware the beware it's it'd be like saying beware jack and then like jack the ripper pops out and starts fucking cutting people up in front of you all right jvl you had not seen this movie before correct yeah i i i would like to defer because what interests me about this movie is entirely legal
JVL00:52:25okay i just want to talk about about intellectual property law um but i want to ask you michael because what it isn't just that i had never seen it before i'd never heard of it before and i i i just don't quite understand how i was eleven years old when this came out kind of prime time for this i was very plugged into movies went to the movies all the time was it and this thing had such a invisible cultural footprint that i just missed it entirely it never played on tv i guess so i never saw it at the i never saw the vhs tape at the rental you know the mom and pop rental store like that's what this was this was the absolute nadir of disney i mean this was like disney disney at its absolute lowest point was like what if we made return to oz let's let's do that so anyway i find that interesting yeah but michael you sound like you're ready to defend this thing
Mike00:53:29oh oh i love this movie oh my god i saw this movie probably 15 or 20 times when i was what no joke my we would rent it from the move from from blockbuster or family or hollywood video like and like every other time we went we would get this movie and we would watch it and like i my wife had never seen it before so we i was wise enough to know not to subject my kids to it and the whole time we were both going our kids would never we our kids would have checked out like at that point or that point or that point um and she did not like it as much as i do or even really that much so what no no what which just goes to show an adult you can't expect them to like it no that's that's i'm that's totally fair and correct and and it just goes to show that like it was a movie that i fell in love with because i saw it so many times but i still saw what i loved about it on this review uh part of it is exactly what sonny described like the this the horror of it i mean from the very beginning right like the the the the the psychiatric hospital in town or whatever that she goes to is the is terrifying in and of itself and the thing that i did pick up on this time that i had never picked up on before obviously as with the first uh the the original musical movie you know people from our world show up as character right the the the doctor is the gnome king the the nurse or head orderly or whatever she is uh is uh is princess mamby or or the witch mamby uh the the little girl is is ozma of oz uh i never noticed that the orderlies who are like moving the squeaky wheel uh gurneys throughout the hospital are the wheelers like that i never noticed that before so i loved picking up on that um but everything like it's all it is just straight creepy horror all the way through and i loved it i loved it when i was a kid and i love it now i just thought it was so weird and so creepy and i loved it when i was a kid and i love it and kind of i think what i ultimately realized is it's really what i wanted the wizard of oz to be and what and it never was in the sense of like uh just like on the edges of the wizard of oz there's like a weird story but it's all kind of like packaged and candy colored and like it's got songs and but like it's very clear that like it's got flying like that you know our sisters and evil trees that throw apples like it's just a big don't
JVL00:56:31think too hard about it it's just a big lush production with color but but but on the edges
Mike00:56:38it was something weirder and creepier and that's what i loved about so we should get a david
JVL00:56:43cronenberg directed children's movie no that's what this is we should get a walk no one of those
Mike00:56:49body horror david cronenberg we should get a walter merch uh uh directed very oh you know what we had it's called return to oz and it's great um i love fired in the middle of the
Sonny00:56:59movie well he got yeah he got he got taken off the film for a bit because it was way over budget and way behind schedule he'd never directed but then disney changed ceos in the middle as well
JVL00:57:09this is yeah yeah this entire thing is a corporate clusterfuck yeah well merch had never and i don't
Sonny00:57:17think has ever directed another movie yeah uh aside from as well yeah that's right he co-wrote
Mike00:57:24a couple other things i love i love that they have a an actual like little girl playing dorothy which of course is what she is in the books she is she is like nine years old which is i believe what fruza balk yeah her first movie um i actually understand of course me that she was a child star
JVL00:57:42like i my first memory of fruza balk is in the water boy the water boy yeah she's like you know this like busting out of her t-shirt on top adam sandler and i'm like what she was a not craft oh that's right the craft well i guess i probably saw it was about the same time though that didn't register for me the way the water boy did i'm i'm vibing with the jvl that way yeah um
Mike00:58:06but no i love that like they they they they made her a little girl not like a teenager like judy garland was which of course you you had to because she's singing songs and she's judy garland all but like the character works so much better as a little girl like it would be it would have been so bizarre to have like a 17 year old who's like talking about going back to oz like it it actually works so much better um i love i just i love all of the weirdness the the the fever dream stuff um the bizarre like it's also very funny i'm sorry it's it's a funny movie like uh the the chicken is very funny has all these great lines like the whole the whole like freak out over the chicken that the that the rock people have or they're like she has a chicken like it cracks me up it's like it's like it's it's a little campy but it's also it's just very funny um i i don't know i love this movie i'll tell you what
Sonny00:59:12that reminds me of is somebody in a script room somewhere was like how do we get them out of this what if the chicken lays an egg in his mouth okay sure that'll that'll work as well as anything else
Mike00:59:24i loved it i don't know i loved it i the whole i i also know every single beat of this movie and so i was just loving re-watching every moment what can i say i'm a i'm a return to oz head
Sonny00:59:36i'm i'm fascinated by this it's not what i would have expected from mike warren frankly uh but i one thing one thing this movie really gets is the importance of casting in the adult roles so like the guy who plays the gnome king um i i'm not gonna look his name up right now but i remember i like when i was watching the movie i looked it up because i was i was uh i was like where do i know him from i know him from somewhere and at first well at first i had thought it was uh at first i thought it was james earl jones and it was just the voice yes because he has that kind of like deeply sonorous you know i was like oh yeah yeah this is a this is totally a james earl jones you know voice voice role and then i was like oh wait that's not him who is it who who is this and he's i mean look he's he's he is a one of the like great british shakespearean actors of his age you know he played mcbeth he's played i'm sure he's played whatever like he's he's he is like a great actor but he was also in excalibur as merlin he was merlin in excalibur and i was like maybe it was merlin in excalibur and i kept going down as imdb i was like oh no no no here it is this is why i know him he was cogliostro in spawn he was he was he was the guy in spawn who told spawn how he got his powers that's how i know nicole williamson ah that's it i got that i was i was uh way too classy with his final film role
Mike01:01:09uh piper laurie plays uh plays auntie m you know a little nice little little term for her all right
JVL01:01:15jvl but give give it to us so i i mean i i hated it and i just but i am interested in it as a piece of intellectual property because so the only reason this is this is essentially disney's version of the roger corman fantastic four except that they released it um the the disney purchases the rights to the wizard of oz property from mgm at some point in i believe it's the 60s and they don't make anything they have a couple of boarded attempts to make it and the structure of the deal is that they don't make something they don't actually roll film and finish a finish a product then the rights revert back to mgm and so they're like up against the gun in 1985 they're like well we got to do this thing and so they wind up getting backed into that and they bring in this you know walter murch great guy everybody loves him first time director and not a writer not a writer he's very much not a writer and he's not a director and he writes this and they let him direct it and it winds up costing you know again a ton of money and 28 million i think in 1985 back when that was real money yeah real real money i mean ishtar was like 35 million you know like the biggest disaster ever um and uh and what but once they're into it they can't stop because otherwise they're going to the thing and even though they so the ruby slippers this is this is amazing to me the ruby slippers do not belong to the intellectual property estate because the way the this was who's the author of the original stories right so bomb has the ruby slippers or something else in the bomb they're like they're silver slippers they're silver slippers something like that and what they have disney has bought the l frank bomb intellectual property from mgm but not mgm's intellectual property right and so somewhere some lawyers and a judge litigated what portions of the wizard of Oz the movie belongs to mgm and which belonged to the l frank bomb estate and it's just like the great and you know because mgm turned the slippers ruby they became intellectual property of mgm excluded from the deal and they then had disney over a barrel and disney again disney spends five percent of the entire cost of this production so that they can have ruby slippers in it
Sonny01:04:24well when the that's the craziest fucking thing i've ever heard and you don't need the ruby slippers at all no like it's a total it's a total you already have wheelies and talking chickens
JVL01:04:34this is not what you needed to do to reassure the audience that they were in a familiar world
Sonny01:04:39it's just thrown in at the end like it's not even it's but the uh but the way the way that you can see this as an audience member if you if you're watching this movie look at the character design of the the at the end of the movie you see the tin man and you see the cowardly lion right like and the scarecrow look at the character designs of those characters they are nothing like the characters from the mgm movie so like the the way that this the way that this deal with the courts and and everything else shook out was like you can have these characters because they are from the books like there was a there was a tin man and there was a scarecrow and there was a cowardly lion those are in the books you can have those they simply cannot look anything like the mgm right
Mike01:05:30movie version yeah it's fascinating you know you know what they look like they look exactly like
Sonny01:05:35the original illustrations they look like the covers right yes they look like the covers in
JVL01:05:40the illustrations but all this leads me to to what i ultimately find the funniest in all this so i i said to myself so the only reason that this movie exists is because the wizard of laws made dollars that's not the case so i did not realize this but the wizard of oz was a failure at the box office when it was first released it got a re-release in like 1950 i think and it added like you know another million and a half or something but it wasn't until its second re-release that it finally broke even and you know again i'm sure when you net net the entire river of intellectual property here it wound up making a fair amount of money but this thing was never gone with the wind this did not you know this was not a a rainmaker so gigantic that people felt like they had to keep trying to recapture the magic over and over again and it is funny to me that when all of a sudden done the single most successful financial version of any of this shit will wind up being wicked oh yeah by far not only that it'll wind up being wicked the stage production yes just that's in terms of making money the stage production of wicked will wind up having made more money than the wizard of oz more money than uh the great and powerful oz more money than return to pause and probably at the end of the day more money by a lot than even wicked one and wicked to the movies and i'm leaving out fine then what am i leaving out the whiz and the whiz and the whiz and the whiz i think
Mike01:07:45it's amazing actually that that this like series of children's books from like 125 years has spawned all of these various well i do too because there is again this is because people are just chasing that people are convinced that there is gold here nope nope i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna disagree with you on this okay yes maybe it did not break even until its second re-release but it became something that everybody watched on television every
Sonny01:08:21thanksgiving it was it was one of the first big television hits and so this it's very much like um uh oh the jimmy stewart movie it's a wonderful life it's a wonderful life was not a huge hit in theaters did not do very well but it then it became a thing everybody watched at christmas time every year and it went on to become a huge enormous cultural literally my my mom when she when
Mike01:08:50she bought us the wizard of oz vhs was like you have no idea how lucky you are i didn't really it's it's like you can see this in
JVL01:09:00four three ratio pan and scan yeah how did you know i had to go she said that no she
Mike01:09:06was just like we had to wait she would she said we had to wait every year for thanksgiving to watch this and it's like it was such an event and i just think like a lot of this is sort of like it comes out of boomer service right it's like it is a boomer well where
JVL01:09:24is like the green eye shade hey this is really a bit it's not show friends it's show business accounting because you know what like everybody has seen hamlet as well nobody is going around saying we got to make hamlet too you know like just just because everybody has seen
Sonny01:09:41it they did make him they did make him but it was stephen coo stephen coogan c coogan anyway yeah point is first of all people are trying to make the wizard of oz happen
JVL01:09:54and it's never going to happen except it finally did happen and it was wicked on the stage
Sonny01:09:59we need to rewind we need to rewind uh about 120 seconds here you said that mike was lucky enough to watch the original wizard of oz in pan and scan on his vhs for the record this was uh the movie was shot in originally academy ratio it was four to three it was 1.3 it was shot for three
Mike01:10:24one yeah 1.37 to one i think it was uh really yeah yeah put that in your pipe no the reason
Sonny01:10:31but the reason it was the reason it was such a hit though was because it was it was the the big color sequence yeah is like the thing that like people if you had a color tv you could watch like oh wizard of oz and it's going into color now it's like going from black and white to color right it's like it is it is a fascinating the the story of the wizard of oz cultural dominance is a story of the importance of television and home video viewing yeah i think
Mike01:11:02that's also the production the production of the wizard of oz is like there's so many great stories that come out of the actual production right uh it was buddy epson was supposed to be the tin man until he like almost died from the paint that they used uh for yeah well like the dead munch is the
JVL01:11:18dead munchkin thing uh i think that's an urban legend i think it's an urban legend but the fact that things like that grew up around the fact that like friends of dorothy became a gay co-worker like there's just it had a lot of cultural residence without having a lot of economic upside
Mike01:11:34i guess that's what i'm you're out of the woods you're out of the dark you're out of the night all right uh let's uh any other thoughts then on return to oz uh the movie that uh we were wheelers i love i love those oh the heads and the whole thing where she's like screaming heads the whole way what was so creepy is when she's like uh oh your head will be nice in a few years
JVL01:12:00i'll just lock you in the tower until it's ready oh it's so creepy i love it how could you not
Mike01:12:06love it it's so it's so creepy it's so punk it's so hardcore oh love it all right that's the final word we're giving on this movie and to this episode uh join us over at subbeacon.com and we will talk to you next time you have you guys seen the whiz i've never seen the whiz yeah you were like well jackson diana yeah i've never i've never actually watched the movie it's fine i mean i only watched it when michael
JVL01:12:43jackson broke big because i was hoping for like thriller and beat it and stuff and so i was like i tolerated it because like mj was in it and he danced and he could dance right i would a little you know like i was like where's the jacket yeah the zippers i just not i just love
Mike01:13:00that like real michael jackson for for years like on mets games like they would have the the whiz advertisement on along along the outfield wall for the whiz yeah exactly nobody beats the
Sonny01:13:13whiz nobody gets sure it's fine
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