from PRX.

Studio 360.

I can't even hear one bar of that music without feeling a jolt of childhood delight and anxiety. Every fall

when I was growing up in Nebraska, my siblings and I would sit down for the annual viewing of the

movie. It was like a holiday ritual, one I look forward to a lot more than some actual holiday

rituals. I'll get you, my pretty.

And so even today, 40 years later,

almost any random sample of that soundtrack

transports me back to that universe

of fantastic twisters and flying houses and munchkins

and flying monkeys and witches and Dorothy and Oz.

I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

I'm not alone in this reminiscence of things past.

Almost everybody, I think, has their own set of intense, indelible Wizard of Oz moments.

I was certainly drawn to the witch.

The director Neil Lebutte first saw the movie

when he was growing up in Spokane, Washington.

I realized the power of the close-up,

and when she became, you know, larger than life,

I can remember backing away toward the kitchen.

Can I still have my dog?

No!

...