Hey, do you remember Return to Oz?

Hello and welcome to Hey, do you remember, Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the roast-tinted glasses to see how it holds up.

I'm Chris.

I'm Donna.

And I'm Carlos.

And today we're revisiting Return to Oz.

Thank you. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Return to Oz. Victor Fleming's 1939 adaptation of the Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved films in history.

But for Walt Disney, it was also a bit of a sore spot. He adored El Frank Baum's original novel

and desperately wanted to produce an animated version. But the existence of Fleming's live-action

film made the whole

endeavor feel a bit redundant. Instead, Disney purchased the rights to the other 13 books in the

Land of Oz series and quickly began developing his own spin on the material. Surprisingly,

the chosen medium was not animation. It was another live-action movie, The Rainbow Road to Oz.

Members of the Mickey Mouse Club were cast in the lead roles, songs were written and recorded,

and in the fall of 1957, Walt himself introduced a preview of the film on the fourth episode

of Walt Disney's Disneyland. If none of this rings a bell, it's because the film was never

released. There are numerous theories regarding why the project was abandoned, most of them

involving a less than satisfactory script, as well as inevitable comparisons to the 1939 film.

So they cut their losses and turn their attention to a new version of Babes and Toyland instead.

But Disney retained the rights to those additional 13 Oz stories, and by the early 80s, they

still hadn't done anything with them.

Enter Walter Merch, a legendary editor who was looking to try his hand at directing.

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