You may have seen the movie and heard the musical, but do you know the secrets? As we take a break from our regular programming for the holidays, we’re revisiting one of the most influential films of all time. Walk with us as Carter follows the yellow brick road to the dark side. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What holiday special are we revisiting?
Hello, everyone. We're taking some time off to enjoy the holiday, and we hope you are, too. In the meantime, please enjoy one of my favorite episodes from the Conspiracy Theories feed.
There's no place like home.
When I think of The Wizard of Oz, I think about those flying monkeys, which absolutely terrified me as a kid, and hot air balloons, because I don't think I'd ever really seen one before. The movie had a huge impact on me as a kid. Another one of the best things about The Wizard of Oz is how rewatchable it is. Even when you know the story, the visuals, and the music are pure fun.
Chapter 2: What makes The Wizard of Oz so memorable?
Though, let's be honest, plenty of people don't watch it with the original music. They watch it while listening to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. When you hit play on the vinyl record, right as the MGM Lion lets out its third roar, the two sync up in a way that's uncanny. almost as if the album was written to use the movie as a music video. It's called The Dark Side of the Rainbow.
Now, members of Pink Floyd have gone on record saying there's no intentional connection between their album and the film. But just because The Dark Side of the Rainbow is a coincidence, doesn't mean there isn't something darker hiding behind the Hollywood classic. Today, we're following the yellow brick road all the way to ruined childhoods.
We'll look at a few conspiracy theories around the movie, that they captured a death on film, that all film productions of the story are cursed, and that the movie has a hidden secret agenda. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Stay with us.
Chapter 3: Is there a connection between The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd?
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After the sets of The Wizard of Oz were struck in March 1939, most of the cast were pleased to take off their cumbersome costumes and makeup for the last time. Jack Haley, who played the Tin Man, called it the worst job in the world. The film's dangerous set had landed many actors and crew members in the hospital. Some were lucky to escape alive.
But our first conspiracy theory is that not everyone survived production. Allegedly, one of the actors died on set. And you can actually see it on film. Theorists claim that if you pause the movie around the 48-minute mark, the image is clear. It's right after Dorothy and the Scarecrow meet the Tin Man and continue down the yellow brick road.
They point the way forward, straight at a blurry shadow in the trees hovering back and forth. For years, people have said it's an actor's dead body. Specifically, one of the actors who played a munchkin. And not just because of the shadow's size. The on-screen death is actually one of many upsetting rumors about the actors who played munchkins.
It all started in 1967 when Judy Garland made an appearance on a talk show called Tonight Starring Jack Parr. When asked about the Little People actors, she said, quote, They were drunks. They got smashed every night and they'd pick them up in butterfly nets. Well, this is obviously offensive, but at the time, it was presented as a funny anecdote. And it got worse.
In 2005, Judy's third husband, Sid Luft, published a memoir. In it, Luft claimed that Judy had confided in him about more inappropriate behavior on set. Allegedly, she told him she'd been molested by actors playing the munchkins, that they'd slipped their hands up her dress in between scenes. The rumors didn't start or end with Judy, though.
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Chapter 4: What conspiracy theories surround the filming of The Wizard of Oz?
A biography of Bert Lahr, who played the cowardly lion, made some pretty awful accusations about his co-stars, including that actors playing munchkins engaged in gambling and sex work in their off hours. And the first recorded comments came from the film's producer, Mervyn LeRoy. LeRoy told one news outlet that the actors treated their hotel like a brothel.
He reported them swinging on chandeliers, hosting raucous orgies, and trashing the place. Allegedly, their parties got so out of hand that production had to hire police officers to monitor their floors. But the thing is, Leroy got all of his information secondhand from other crew members. Every morning he'd arrive on set and hound his employees about what they'd overheard from the night before.
Leroy was an intimidating producer. He had no qualms about firing people or their replacements. During the course of filming, he burned through four different directors. Crew members felt like they needed to impress Leroy to keep their jobs, which could have led to film industry creatives doing what they do best, making up stories. Because there's no evidence to back any of this up.
Author Stephen Cox interviewed over 30 of the film's 124 Little People actors for his book, The Munchkins of Oz. They all told him there wasn't any time for partying while they were shooting the film. They had a demanding production schedule. Unfortunately, the collective voices of those actors weren't as amplified as Judy Garland's, Burt Lahr's, or Mervyn LeRoy's.
So the rumors continued to snowball in the public consciousness, culminating in the conspiracy theory that an actor died by suicide and the production covered it up, save a few blurry frames of film. Now, back to that film. The image does look slightly like a body suspended near the trees, but you really have to use your imagination to get there.
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Chapter 5: Did someone die during the production of The Wizard of Oz?
In fact, this theory didn't circulate until after The Wizard of Oz was released on VHS in 1980, and people could fast-forward, rewind, and pause to analyze each frame. But here's the kicker. In 1989, the studio released a remastered 50th anniversary edition of the film. And in this new remastered version, the shadow is gone.
It's just enough to suggest a cover-up, because if it came out that someone had died on set, it could have sunk The Wizard of Oz and ruined the entire studio. Remember, this was the late 1930s, when the Hays Code dictated the morality of films. and the reputations of people who made them.
It was so serious that MGM and other movie studios employed fixers whose job was to maintain squeaky clean images for the companies and their stars. And an on-set death is just about the worst PR a movie, studio, or actor can get. Just look at the news surrounding the tragedy on the set of the movie Rust in 2021. And in the case of The Wizard of Oz, there was a lot riding on this movie.
MGM spent more money and more time on The Wizard of Oz than any other movie in 1938. They had to release it. So there was ample motive to cover up any on-set deaths. Theoretically, a combination of bribery and fear tactics from Hollywood fixers could have squashed the story and kept witnesses and family members quiet.
A studio cover-up would also explain that there are no police or coroner's reports lining up with an on-set death. And by the time this conspiracy theory came out in the early 1980s, a lot of the people involved in the film had passed away, taking the secret to their graves. But there is a much simpler explanation. According to Snopes, it's a bird.
The film was primarily shot indoors on a soundstage, but it mostly takes place outdoors. To make it feel more real, production reportedly borrowed exotic birds from the Los Angeles Zoo. And there are plenty of obvious birds in the film, like a peacock outside the Tin Man Shack and a toucan when Dorothy and the Scarecrow first travel down the Yellow Brick Road together.
Apparently, that blurry shadow is a giant crane. The way Dorothy and her friends point to it is a coincidence, and the fact that it's not visible in early versions is due to low-quality film prints. In the remastered version, you can clearly see a crane throughout that scene.
It's also hard to buy that in all the years of press coverage, everyone kept quiet, and again, there aren't police or coroner's reports matching the circumstances. In 2001, independent newspaper reporter Jeffrey McNabb interviewed some of the Little People actors, including 86-year-old Meinhardt Robbie. He played the coroner of Munchkinland.
When the journalist asked Robbie about the legends of suicide, he answered frustratedly, ''If that had actually happened, do you think they would have left it in the film?'' Robbie had an excellent point. The team had to make major cuts to the original version of the film. Why remove an entire song and dance number, but keep the moment the stars point directly at a dead body?
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Chapter 6: Why are there rumors about the actors who played the Munchkins?
Today, the dead Munchkin is widely considered an urban legend, but all of this begs a larger question. Why were there so many false rumors about the actors playing the Munchkins? In the article, McNabb said Robbie seemed incredibly professional. He was a public speaker, had his pilot's license, and qualifications as a master gardener. Robbie didn't seem like someone who would have caused trouble.
In fact, he admitted he was hurt by the remarks from Judy Garland. McNabb also interviewed Joanne Engle, Robbie's publicist. At the time, she also managed the careers of several other little people who'd been in the movie. She'd heard there was one bad apple in the group, but that certainly didn't represent all 124 of them.
And after doing research for her book, The Making of The Wizard of Oz, author Algene Harmetz claimed there was almost no trouble involving the little people on set. The only evidence of those actors ever stepping out of line came from one December 1938 memo.
According to a 2018 article in The New Yorker, production manager Keith Weeks asked to dismiss an actor who'd allegedly been caught in a domestic abuse scandal and another who'd threatened an assistant. There's no actual record of wild parties. And as for the story that one of them assaulted Judy Garland, that didn't come from her directly. It came from her ex-husband, Sid Luft. Emphasis on ex.
During their divorce trial, Garland actually alleged domestic abuse by him. And journalist Anne Helen Peterson pointed out that Luft was a somewhat questionable man about town. Which all goes to say, his claim should be taken with a grain of salt.
stephen cox author of the munchkins of oz said from what he found the actors were extremely kind and cooperative and they showed up to set with a smile despite the conditions they were working under so why all the rumors one answer is ableism The Little People actors were the butt of cruel jokes that spun out of control.
Before and after The Wizard of Oz, there weren't many roles for Little People. And in the years since, acting roles for Little People haven't extended that far beyond the goblins of Gringotts and Harry Potter or the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi. Serious and leading roles traditionally aren't offered to little people actors, especially when the part doesn't call for it.
Peter Dinklage, famous for playing Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, is a rare exception. But many, including Dinklage, are trying to end the prejudice in Hollywood and, in turn, alter the unconscious bias surrounding little people. But there's another, even darker explanation for the rumors.
Not only were they ableist disparagement, but they were spread to cover up the real crimes behind the scenes of The Wizard of Oz. The men in charge of the movie may have been deflecting bad press onto the little people in order to keep heat off of themselves. Because the set of The Wizard of Oz was so dangerous, people say it was cursed.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the alleged 'curse' on The Wizard of Oz?
In 1928, several public libraries banned the wonderful Wizard of Oz for being, quote, not literature, but somehow rather evil for children. They disliked it for, quote, depicting women in strong leadership roles. After all, the male characters are comically lacking, missing a heart, a brain, and courage. Even the wizard himself turns out to be a powerless imposter.
Meanwhile, the powerful characters are female, Dorothy and the witches. Surprisingly, this actually might be true. L. Frank Baum had a lot of feminist influence in his life. Primarily, his mother-in-law was a radical suffragist named Matilda Jocelyn Gage, who worked with Susan B. Anthony. In fact, one of Gage's theories was that vilifying witches was a way to devalue women.
So maybe that's why Baum flipped the script on attacking witches. Instead of burning them, he killed them with water. Though if you talk to high school history teachers, there's another popular idea Baum may have been pushing. Populism. The populist movement came about in the 1890s, shortly before Baum penned his first Oz book. With industrialization growing, many farming communities in the U.S.
felt the effects of lower incomes and higher prices. They also pushed the gold standard for currency, placing a higher debt on farmers. From that came the Populist Party, who challenged everything from banking to the railroad industries.
They proposed that these corporations be regulated solely by the government rather than independent businessmen, and that the nation return to a combination of gold and silver-backed currency to keep inflation low. One theory posits that L. Frank Baum might have written The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a parable. Theoretically, Dorothy represents the common Midwesterner.
She's taken away by a tornado, which symbolizes a revolutionary upheaval. She and her friends follow the yellow brick road, the gold standard. It takes them to the wizard, who represents President Grover Cleveland, but he's a fraud who can't actually help anyone. The gold standard gets them nowhere. In the end, Dorothy's shoes, which are silver in the book, get her home.
The silver standard saves the day. If it is a populist parable, it seems optimistic. But this theory didn't really take shape until a historian named Henry Littlefield proposed it in 1964, which means Baum wasn't around to confirm anything when it reached the public. But his great-grandson was. And he said the populism theory was, quote, insane.
Then, on the movie side, there's the fact that Louis B. Mayer, a wealthy studio head, was much more likely to take the capitalist side over the populists. He might have argued that Dorothy got home by pulling herself up by her own bootstraps. Or, in this case, ruby red slipper straps. But perhaps some of the people he hired might have attempted to push political ideas. Like songwriter Yip Harburg.
Harburg was blacklisted from Hollywood after his political expressionism, or rather his refusal to name alleged sympathizers towards the Communist Party, made him a threat during the McCarthy era. Perhaps someone thought he was slipping socialist ideology into his work.
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Chapter 8: Are modern adaptations of The Wizard of Oz doomed to fail?
On some level, we're collectively yearning for the experience that there's more than meets the eye. That there is, in fact, a man behind the curtain. Which is what The Wizard of Oz is all about. Maybe that's why there are so many conspiracy theories about the film. It appeals to those who question what's presented by authority.
So do we ignore the man behind the curtain or do we keep seeking him out at our own expense? Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. If you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts or email us at conspiracystories at spotify.com.
For more information on The Wizard of Oz, we found Aljean Harmitz's book, The Making of The Wizard of Oz, and the 2013 documentary, The Making of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, incredibly helpful for our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth.
This episode was written by Lori Marinelli and Maggie Admire, edited by Mallory Cara and Andrew Kelleher, researched by Sapphire Williams, fact-checked by Cheyenne Lopez and Lori Siegel, and sound designed by Spencer Howard. Our head of programming is Julian Boisreau. Our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Carter Roy.