On set of that movie, Dorothy was also drugged to keep her regular for the movie

What the fuck does that mean? They gave her fiber?

You should check out Return To Oz for the Sci-fi/Fantasy challenge next month. It's really good. I remember not loving it as much as I wanted to as a kid cuz all I saw was that it was far less colorful and magical than Wizard, but I appreciate the dark tone more now. Best to not compare to Wizard.

Pills mostly. Barbituates and sleeping pills and whatever else. I read that she was given some to keep her "skinny" during the movie, too. Apparently, this lead to her being an addict. Something she'd struggle with for the rest of her life, and eventually die from.

Here I've been prepping for the October challenge, not even thinking about the sci-fi/fantasy challenge! I'll definitely put Return to Oz on my watchlist.

Far as the supposed "midget hanging" goes, it was always a crane. From the very beginning. It's as clear as day it's a crane. It just depends on which version you're seeing. I've done some research on this in the past because I found it very fascinating, and near as I can tell, the hung midget was inserted into the film somehow when it hit VHS. By who, I dunno. Which exact release? I dunno that either. But there are comparison videos out there and one is absolutely, unequivocally a crane, while the other is absolutely, unequivocally someone hanging by a noose. There's no doubt about that and there's no doubt in my mind that the midget wasn't the original shot either. No way. I mean, the friggin' rumor didn't come about until the 1980s.

Return to Oz rocks. See it. Shame you didn't catch it when you were little, as I'm sure it won't have quite the same effect on you as an adult....but those damn Wheelers are terrifying at any age.

The "ghost" in 3 Men and a Baby still sorta creeps me out everytime I see it, I unashamedly admit.

That is interesting, what you say about the munchkin actors. I bet some of them had complicated senses of their own identity, after having been treated as childlike for... however many years old they were. I bet a few of the ones in their 20s and 30s might have felt a certain amount of a feeling of taking revenge against society that made them decide it was OK to hit on young Judy G, too. Like, they might have thought something like "OK, all you bastards out there have been treating me like a child for (for whatever, saaaayyyy 25 to 34 years) so now I'm gonna pursue a little hanky panky with a cute young girl who you guys are all afraid to touch, because hey, I'm just a child myself, RIGHT?!?!?!? What do you have to say about that, huh?!? Bastards." If any of the munchkin actors were much older than their early 30s though, then that's just disgusting, I have no sympathy for them no matter how traumatized they may have been by a lifetime of being treated like a kid.

I have seen the 1985 Return to Oz, and it's MUCH too scary for young kids. I can still remember thinking the Wicked Witch of the West was terrifying, when I was... probably around 4 to 7 years old. And, some of the things in RtO are WAAAYYY WAY WAY WAY scarier than her. There was a scene with a shitload of severed heads, for some reason. I think there was some kind of evil magical person who would wear different heads for different occasions, or something like that. There were also these freaky things called Wheelers, which were too scary for little kids... RtO is a little like a Terry Gilliam movie in that way, it takes fantasy elements and un-Disneyfies them, and makes them actually frightening.

One cool thing about RtO is that Fairuza Balk got to play a part when she was just a nice, adorable child, before some of the freaky, kind of ugly roles she got when she was older, like in American History X and The Craft. I bet it's nice for her to be able to watch RtO and think "See, I didn't always get such freakazoid roles."

I used to enjoy the Oz books by the way, when I was a child. There are a lot of them. Dozens, probably. I bet we are beyond the time in history when kids can still enjoy those books, they must just seem too dated. Some of them are over 100 years old by now. I remember liking the Shaggy Man character... and there was Ruggedo the Nome King! He was mostly evil, but often in a funny way, kind of like Cartman on South Park. There were a lot of idiosyncratic characters in those books, it would be interesting to go back and read them as an adult, and think about what L. Frank Baum, and later writers who tried to continue the franchise, were trying to create.

I haven't heard that stuff about Judy Garland before. No wonder she was fucked up as an adult.

I liked Return to Oz when I saw it several years ago. It does indeed have frightening elements. Apparently the books do too, so I guess that's where it came from.

Return to Oz scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. The rollers were scary as fuck, and by the time all of Mombi's disembodied heads started screaming, my parents ejected it and wouldn't let me watch the rest because I was getting too scared. I didn't watch the whole thing untill a couple years ago. Of course it's not so scary now, but it was too much for a little kid.

Return to Oz, is better

Ok it's nice or better said not so nice to hear what really went on behind the scenes of a family movie in those times. Indeed some serious fucked up stuff. Now that you mention Hans from Freaks, the girl he hooks up with eventually in Freaks (Frieda) is his own sister. Both were in The Wizard of Oz.

Return to Oz is a must see for the reasons already given by others here, darker tone some real creepy scenes such as the witch with all the heads (wanting Dorothy's too) and the wheelers with their creepy grin.

But Margaret Hamilton as the wicked witch is still now incredibly creepy, that voice and laugh!