Author: Jane Albright

What a topic for our 2022 calendar. I thought honoring Judy Garland’s centenary with a look at times her life intersected with Oz would be fun. We could celebrate the most well-known Dorothy while highlighting how Oz was more than a six-month shooting schedule for the teenaged actress. Each month could focus on a particular Ozzy incident in her life. I’d work in interactions with other Oz folks….  And sure, include some general information about MGM’s classic film while I was at it.  Little did I know what I was getting myself into. Once I clicked into “On This Day in Judy Garland’s Life and Career” online and turned to the pages of Judy Garland, the Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend I quickly realized this calendar was going to be full, full, full!  I could easily spend 6-8 hours just scanning any two-week period to spot fun bits connected to Oz. She might be performing with the Meglin Kiddies or Nipsey Russell, or singing with Ethel Merman. Sales of her Dorothy costumes and Ruby Slippers made headlines, and Over the Rainbow… well, it was everywhere. And a bit overwhelming. I turned to Scott Hedley for help identifying broad topics for each month. Ranse Ransone answered a question I posted on Facebook and was soon passing me marvelous details. And I greatly appreciated friends who joined me in late-night chats, because getting this calendar finished took some seriously late nights. This summer, when I’m usually working on the calendar to provide a much earlier fall delivery, I was instead working my way through two donated collections that deposited more than 70 boxes of Oz material in my dining room—and filled four separate days with round-trip road trips. Then there was a board of directors meeting and a virtual convention to organize when our in-person options remained suspended again this year. Plus a week-long detour to help staff an Oz Club booth in North Carolina, the holiday mailing, and the 2022 membership card and welcome letter. The time I could make available for Oz projects was stretching thinner and thinner. The sudden death of my good friend Lynn Beltz just before Thanksgiving was a heartbreaking setback. But today I sealed the envelopes, stuck in the stamps, and off they’ve gone to our Sustaining, Patron, and Wizard’s Circle members with our sincere thanks for your generous support of the Oz Club. PS. Here’s an illustration I turned up in a TV Guide yesterday when I was looking for something else in a drawer of magazines and tear sheets. (Harper’s Weekly with the Wizard of Ooze cover, if you must know.) Since I didn’t find it in time to include it in the calendar itself, here it is to dress up this blog. Enjoy!  

Oz in popular culture is now presented in Case #14 at the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, courtesy of The Oz Club. Visitors will see Oz and Oz characters in food marketing, toys and collectibles, music, attractions, and more. For the past few years, the museum has worked with me to help publicize the Oz Club by letting me fill this particular case with themed Oz exhibits. We’ve featured 1939 Oz merchandise, Oz stained glass, Russian Oz, and more. This is our eighth exhibit. I provide a new theme twice a year, but the timing is flexible. Today I took down Oz Maps and put up a fun assortment of pieces that show Oz as it’s appeared in advertising, music, entertainment, and toys. It’s always a challenge to find things that aren’t already on display in the museum. Luckily, curator Chris Glasgow is a delight to work with and always helps me both in advance and onsite. I propose a theme (or six since I’m swimming in ideas), and we agree on one. Then I generally send a list of what I might include, and she ticks off those pieces that would be redundant. For example, the museum has a Muppets Wizard of Oz display in place, so to include them, I selected Muppet material not tied to that film. The Rolling Stone cover with the Jerry Seinfeld cast?  It’s already on display. So is Tom and Jerry’s Wizard of Oz. Oz peanut butter?  They have a massive selection. With the list whittled down, I still pack and take about twice as much as will fit to give myself options. The oldest material, in this case, are Wogglebug items including What Did the Wogglebug Say? buttons and the Wogglebug Game of Conundrums. Music represented includes LPs of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” a small poster of Todrick Hall’s “Straight Outta Oz,” and the Grateful Dead’s Follow the Golden Road T-shirt.  I added DVDs in that area of Oz productions where the part of Dorothy is played by Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, and Minnie Mouse. Below that section are some fun food products such as Dunkin Munchkins and ice cream packaging, and one of the Jello Oz booklets open to the Jello recipes. I included a fun ad for Swift’s Oz Peanut Spread that I knew they didn’t have. There are Funko collectibles and Monchhichi dolls, Betty Boop and the Ice Capades, the Land of Oz in Cincinnati, and a Build-a-Bear Dorothy. The Mr. Potato Head figures are always one of my favorites. From comic book characters to an Annie Leibovitz photo spread in Vogue, there’s something for nearly every age group. If you’re able to visit the Oz Museum over the next six months or so, have a look!