I remember going to a theatrical screening of The Wizard of Oz in college, and I was most struck by how short the movie seemed without all the commercials. (The whole sequence of meeting the scarecrow, tin man and lion used to take the better part of an hour with all the added ads.)

OMG, memory is so weird the way it's stored and retrieved.

That post released a flood of weird memory about how advertisers used to taylor their commercials to such high profile events like the annual Wizard of Oz screening. Specifically coming to the forefront of my mind after an absence of 40 years or so is the Downey laundry soap commercials where you could send away for hand-puppets of the Oz characters.


Granted, I remember these particular commercials because of the toys I ended up getting. But still ... so odd to have this bubble to the surface because someone mentioned ads run during Wizard of Oz annual tv.


:confused:

It is strange. I can remember the address of the house I lived in when I was 10 (that's 40 years ago), but I have a hard time remebering my current phone number......:eek:

More Wizard of Oz blu-ray news:

OK. Up to a few minutes ago, it looked like the two versions of the movie would be the $50+ box set with all the swag, the $30+ Target "Exclusive" version that contains... less than the more expensive box. Now, it appears that there's going to be a $19.99 BD "exclusive" at Wal-Mart. I guess that'll have less than the Target version.

I think I'll wait until there's more info before I decide where I'm going to grab the flick.

I've actually never gone through the extras on my Ultimate Oz laserdisc set. (And it's unlikely now, as my ld player has acted up the last few times I tried to use it. Guess I need to make a call on whether to keep the lasers or not.)

I had the old Criterion LD set - and then bought the regular DVD (with a bunch of extras). I'll certainly be triple-dipping on this release.

It may also show up at the WB Company Store. ;) Which still makes me sit up and go "um, Warner Bros?" And "Gone With The Wind" should be out on Blu-Ray by the end of the year.

w00t, my Blu-ray Star Trek movie trilogy arrived today, brand new from a third party vendor thru Amazon.

Meanwhile, that same day, Sept. 22, I placed two other, separate Blu-ray orders direct from Amazon .... and one's not shipping till 9/28, the other not till 10.01. WTF?

Oh, and Beatles box set I ordered from Amazon on 9/11 won't ship till 10/09. Amazon is really pissing me off lately.

Soooo....

How good will an old analog movie like Oz and GWTW look on Blueray Disc (BD), anyway? If it is digitized rather than recorded in HD, can BD look much better in BD than regular DVD?

I know many things may be a part of the answer to that question, like how well they did the cleanup work, the state of the original, the type of movie, etc......

So here's how the Wizard of Oz blu-ray options break down for those who care (Steve):

- The super-duper box with 2 Blu-ray discs plus a DVD of the 6-hour documentary about MGM plus another DVD with a copy of WoOz that you can put on your computer, iPod (or whatever) plus a bunch of ephemera, like postcards and a watch. Available pretty much everywhere for around $50.

- The "Target Exclusive" edition, that contains both Blu-rays and the MGM DVD. Around $35.

- THe "Walmart Exclusive" edition, that contains only the first Blu-Ray. It certainly isn't movie-only, as you still get a ton of extra bonus material - just not as much as the other versions. This one goes for under $20.

I'm going for the Target version...