“Wooo hooo! I finally reached the top ten, just only a little bit waaaaaay behind my anticipated schedule. But my distractions should be down to a minimum for the next couple weeks. Here’s hoping Im done before arbitrary goal number 10 or so. This “”deadline”” is June 8th cause that’s when Green Day Rock Band comes out. I’ve already promised myself a Wii and Rock Band as a yay-im-done present.
Speaking of promises, I swore I’d go back to my more comprehensive write ups once I hit the top ten. Guess I gotta try and stick with that, huh? Right.
Wizard of Oz. I very much did grow up with this movie. Although I do remember being terrified of it at some point. Not sure why, but I think it was just the witch in general. But second grade sorta made this movie have a permanent special place in my heart. Why, you ask (or not)? Let’s take a trip back thru memory-ville with Dawn Dawn.
Throughout elementary, there was a group of parents of my classmates who dubbed themselves the “”Moms and Dads Club””. They were responsible for events and get togethers and all sortsa fun things for us kids that would also give them socialization opportunities. Now you know how most towns have some sorta big festival celebration thing every year? Well, Laredo’s thing is Washingtons Birthday Celebration. Dont know why, but yeah that’s our thing. Basically most of February is this big city wide party. When I was little I cared for two reasons: 1-the good carnival was in town then, B-parades! There were always 2 parades during this whole thing: the youth parade on a Wednesday night, then the main event the following Saturday morning. When I was in first and second grade, the Moms and Dads Club was in charge of organizing my school’s float for said parades. The overall parade theme back in first grade was “”We are the world”” or something like that. We picked Holland cause that’s where our principal came from. And yes, we were forced to listen to “”We are the world”” on loop throughout the whole \m/ thing. The next year, the theme was movies. And as upset as I was that stupid United Day got Aladdin, ours turned out not to be too bad. As you prolly guessed, cause otherwise it wouldnt be relevant in the slightest to my post, we had The Wizard of Oz.
There was a lottery thing to decide whose kid was gonna have what part. In the original lottery, me and all the rest of the second grade girls were supposta be emerald city girls. Then the chick who’d drawn Dorothy had to back out–and the role passed to me. I dont remember all that much from it. Again, I was like what, 8? I remember I couldnt pet my stuffed Toto because then I’d get black dye all over my hands. I mostly stayed in the munchkin land side of the float, surrounded by all the kindergarteners until when we stopped in front of hte judges table, I’d skip along the yellow brick road collecting “”friends”” until we ended up on the Emerald City side. And I also developed an immense hatred for wigs. Apparently my hair wasn’t Dorothy-esque enough on its own, so they put this itchy curly animal on my head. *shudder*
So since then, my mom’s always collected Wizard stuff (in particular Dorothy stuff) for me.
Thus endeth the Dawn Dawn backstory. Thoughts watching it this time around:
I can’t remember the last time I saw this. There’s so much I’d forgotten, or never got to begin with. But it still magically produces warm fuzzies in me. Also this time around I have a great appreciation for some of the effects. Its not exactly something I woulda noticed when I was 8, but when you think about what limited resources (compared to nowadays) they had back then, it really is incredible what they were able to accomplish.
I guess I sorta, I dont wanna say forgot about this film, but how about mentally misplaced it for a bit (if that makes any sense). I really shouldnt let so long go by before my next viewing
As a side note, I still need to see Wicked. Hoping to catch it this fall when it comes back yet again to Boston.”