Among the special features included with the recent 3-disc DVD release of MGM's 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz is this obscure 9-minute cartoon, produced in Canada and directed by Ted Eshbaugh, whose best- known work is that old time TV perennial The Sunshine Makers. Needless to say, with such a brief running time we can't expect much more than a highlights version of the famous story, but even viewers who approach this short with modest expectations are likely to be disappointed: like so many color cartoons of the '30s this one is a pseudo-Silly Symphony that falls far short of the Disney standard.
At first the cartoon looks fairly promising. A petite Dorothy who resembles a Kewpie doll lounges on the porch of her Kansas farm, sighing with boredom, for only a moment or two before the twister arrives and carries her away -- and her little dog, too. Interestingly, after the "storybook" opening credits the animators chose to utilize black & white for the Kansas sequence and then switch to color as Dorothy plummets to the ground in Oz, thus prefiguring the 1939 feature film. Dorothy lands on the Scarecrow (forget about the Munchkins, there isn't time), and they quickly discover the Tin Woodsman frozen in position and free him from his paralysis. The trio then proceed to the Emerald City.
Here's where we start to notice the cartoon's flaws. For starters, there's no dialog. Aside from Dorothy's yelp of fright during the twister she never makes a sound, and neither do her companions. They team up and head for the Wizard's palace on some sort of unspoken signal, apparently because that's what they've been programmed to do, but their eerie silence doesn't encourage much viewer sympathy. The filmmakers obviously assumed we were already familiar with the story, but if that's the case then where's the Cowardly Lion? He makes no appearance in this cartoon and his absence is distracting: we keep waiting for him to arrive. And although the filmmakers mysteriously chose to delete a major character, they nevertheless found the time to include two brief, gratuitous musical sequences: a courtship interlude involving woodland animals and then a parade of welcome when Dorothy and her sadly reduced entourage arrive at the palace. The only sign of a witch, incidentally, is a quick shot of a witch-like character seen in silhouette, welcoming Dorothy and her friends to Oz with a big grin! Perhaps the strangest aspect of this version is the characterization of the Wizard of Oz himself: he is presented as a scrawny little man with evil eyes and a sinister chuckle. When Dorothy and her friends come before him he proceeds to intimidate them with what appears to be Black Magic: he summons up some Raggedy Ann-like dancing dolls (for yet another pointless musical interlude), and then causes a few monstrous animals to hatch from eggs. At this juncture we meet a hen who resembles Billina, a character from L. Frank Baum's later series of Oz books. The last portion of the cartoon involves this hen and an egg she has laid which grows to enormous size; meanwhile, Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man are reduced to forgotten onlookers. The film ends on a resoundingly anti-climactic note.
The animation technique on display here is not at all bad for the period; I was reminded of the cartoons produced in the mid-'30s by Ub Iwerks, the former Disney animator who broke away from Uncle Walt and went into independent production. Like Iwerks' products this one has decent color and good technical effects, but also like Iwerks' products this one is deficient in story, pacing, dialog (as there isn't any) and, most of all, characterization. Only readers of the Oz books and fans of the later film will care at all about the creatures who populate this curious cartoon, and yet they're the viewers most likely to conclude that it's a misfire.
