The annual airing was definitely a big event when I was a kid. I still remember the horror one year of having to make a choice one year when it was on up against a Munsters TV movie. I was really into Munsters reruns at the time. Having to wait a whole 'nother year to see the Wizard, or maybe never see the Munsters in color, what a terrible dilemma for a kid.
So this isn’t about Johnny Hart?
Well, it fluctuates depending on what I’ve been watching recently, but I’ve gotta say, if it comes down to a desert island and only two DVDs allowed, I’m bringing Wizard of Oz and Animal House. One I can sing along with, one I can laugh my ass off at. Both I know well enough to quote virtually word for word, and yet I’ve never been bored watching either.
I guess that puts my mental age somewhere between 8 and 20, when in reality I’m older than dirt.
And if I’m on that desert island, I want a dress like Glinda’s, shoes like Dorothy, and a big rubber dildo like Otter has in his briefcase. 
I thought my native Kansan wife was kidding when she told me the ENTIRE movie was in color, but Kansas really does look bleak, black-and-white, as I discovered cutting through it on 2-lanes trying to avoid mountain passes in winter enroute to
Phoenix from Omaha.
I-80 in Nebraska looks more inviting!
My now nearly 36-year-old “baby” first saw Wizard of OZ when he was a year and a half old. There was a popular fish tale being flogged all over the tube at the time.
When it was over, the kid started singing about “The Wonderful Lizard of Jaws”. I’ve referred to it that way ever since.
My Dad, being a “rich guy” bought one of the early VCRs in the late 70’s. One of the movies we (and I mean “I” recorded while tediously editing out the commercials) was Wizard.
My nephew (maybe 4 or 5) was staying with us and was scared of the witch parts, so I had to watch it with him…
…about 50 freakin’ times! I was maybe 14 or something. I remember sitting in the “Big Brown Potato Chip Chair” and him hiding his face when She came on…
And now, he’s grown, married twice, lives across the country, haven’t spoken in years 'cept when his dad died (my brother) and unlikely to anytime soon.
Its Shit getting Old, ain’t it?
I remember watching The Wizard of Oz at my grandparent’s house at Thanksgiving. They had a big console-type color TV.
Just a few years ago, they had a theater presentation of the film at a performing arts center here in Connecticut. My son was about nine at the time. After all of the times that I’d seen the film, this was the first time that I’d seen it on the big screen. It was pretty cool. Many attendees dressed up in costume.
Winged monkeys? No problem.
Wicked Witch of the West? No problem.
Winkie Guard? “O-Ee-Yah! Eoh-Ah!” Huge problem.
I still get scared thinking about them although the fear is somewhat neutralized by the vision of The Cowardly Lion trying to subdue his tail when he is marching in disguised as one of the Guard.
I try to catch the movie at least once a year.
One thing that has astonished me is how good the makeup is. The Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow look fantastic!
The only other event to rival The Wizard of Oz Annual Broadcast in my house, growing up, was the similar airing of The Sound of Music.
I’ll echo all the love listed upthread, and add a couple of marginally-related factoids:
A mature woman I used to work with had a full-blown phobia of the munchkins. You couldn’t talk about them in her presence or she’d get pale and break out in a sweat. Before I knew that her phobia was real, I jokingly sang a line or two of “We represent the Lollipop League . . .”, only to see her quickly exit the room and stay away for an hour. Weird!
Something I read once and am maybe imperfectly remembering: After the novel Ringworld became a huge hit, people pointed out to Larry Niven that it was for the most part a rewriting of The Wizard of Oz. There’s a crashlanding on a mystical far-away world, and four very different characters spend the entire story trying to get off the place. One of the characters is even cowardly. The device that gets them back home was with them almost all along, they just had to realize it. Larry Niven was mortified to realize this and worried that he was just unconsciously channeling his boyhood movie memories.
Wicked has nothing whatsoever to do with OZ. :mad: The characters have similar names, that’s all.
Fucking travesty, “what came before” my ass…
The networks used to do this for Big Event movies. I remember Sebastian Cabot and the kids from Family Affair (I’m kinda glad that I had to look up the series name!), hosting Oklahoma! in character, talking about the movie at each commercial break. Why them? Beats me.
I remember seeing it often as a kid, and it still brings a smile to my face. What really stuck with me was Scarecrow being taken apart and being almost flat as he lay on the ground. :eek: Nothing else in the movie made as big an impression on me back then.
Sorry, but I read Wicked and really liked it - thought it was a good and interesting extrapolation of the Witch’s backstory.
I had a prosecutor friend who would refer to the police officers who conducted investigations for him as “my winged monkeys.” Not all of them appreciated his sense of humor. 
I’m now reading a sf story set in the distant future. Small robots with limited mental capacities are routinely referred to in it as “munchkins.”
The Wizard is NOT some sort of Hitler, however. The book may be well written but it is NOT part of the canon nor should it even be even considered backstory.
Baum didn’t write it, so of course it’s not canon. But I still found it interesting and a worthwhile read. YMMV.
If we go with “Baum had to write it for it to be canon”, then a good 2/3 of the official Oz books aren’t canon.
The parallels go beyond that!
Speaker=Scarecrow (has to learn to think instead of scream-and-leap)
Nessus=The Cowardly Lion (thinks he’s a coward until we find the evolutionary reason that Puppeteers turn in a fight)
Teela=Tin Woodsman: has to learn to care
Louis=Dorothy: can go home and possesses the method all along.
The fake Ringworld Engineer (Hapoprilliorar or however it’s spelled) is a humbug.
There are some more parallels that I don’t remember. Great (if unconcious) pastiche.
I loved The Wizard of Oz, but I hate the “It was all a dream” ending , and I don’t like that Baum’s strong, competent Dororthy (he was an ardent Suffragette*) got turned into such a snivelling wimp by MGM. One example: In the book, Dorothy douses the Wicked Witch of the West because she’s pissed “You horrible woman” (that sort of thing.) In the movie, Dorothy does it 'cause she’s got terrible aim and is incompetent.
That said, it really is one of the all time great movies.
*Or does that word refer to women only?
For sure, the books come across as more socially progressive.
I’d love to see a straight adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, complete with the war of the sexes and the gender-bending resolution. Maybe next century…
It is because of my at-least-yearly viewing of this movie that every single time I see someone riding a bike, the witch’s theme plays in my head. You know, the tune you hear when she’s up in the tornado and Elmira Gulch comes riding along on her bicycle before turning into the Wicked Witch.
I watch it more these days in conjunction with Dark Side of the Moon.
I don’t think I’ve ever made it through the whole movie, I always miss part of it, or the end.
A SDSAB report on TWOO and Dark Side of the Moon: Does the music in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon coincide with the action of The Wizard of Oz? - The Straight Dope
The Master speaks: was TWOO a parable of Populism? Is The Wizard of Oz a satire of the French Revolution? - The Straight Dope