# Tales Of The Wizard Of Oz. WTF?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 9, 2014, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385 "2014-06-09T05:21:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385/1 "2014-06-09T05:21:23Z")

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If you surf the web long enough, things you’ve forgotten about will come up eventually. I remember back in the 60’s [This](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDpEp5JFrZA) stuff playing during “Cartoon Carnival”. It was just strange as hell, and even when I was a kid I knew it was bizarre.

Enjoy.

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385/2 "2014-06-09T05:55:26Z")

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Ah, yes. I remember watching these on TV as a kid. They ran them on kid’s shows.

It’s early work by the folks at Rankin-Bass. Three years later they took the same voice actors but completely redrew the cartoons images and made the TV film **Return to Oz**  
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057453/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057453/)

(Larry D. Mann, who did the voice of “Rusty the Tin Man” was a character actor in a lot of TV shows. He later played the Conductor in **The Sting** )

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385/3 "2014-06-09T06:03:05Z")

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Alfie Scopp ("Socrates, the Scarecrow) played other characters in Rankin-Bass specials, including the Charlie In The Box in Rudolph the Red-Nosed REindeer.

Carl Banas (“Dandy Lion, the Cowardly Lion”) was the Head Elf AND the Spotted Elephant in Rudolph.

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**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-wizard-of-oz-wtf/690385/4 "2014-06-09T11:34:56Z")

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Lots of the voice actors on that show are familiar from other shows in Canada.

Bernard “Bunny” Cowan was famous as the announcer on Front Page Challenge and Wayne & Shuster.

Paul Kligman (the cowardly lion) is instantly recognizable as J. Jonah Jameson from the 60’s Spider-Man cartoon, but he was also part of Wayne & Shuster’s company of actors.

Larry D. Mann (who died recently; there was a thread here at the time) was famous for a series of commercials for the phone company. [“We make grapple-grommets?” “23,000 a day!” “Awesome!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6jCM3UeZo)

All that aside, I found it irritating how often they’d repeat the theme song. It was definitely way, way down on my list of cartoons to watch.