Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
Encyclopedia
"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" is the centrepiece of several individual songs in an extended set-piece performed by the Munchkins, Glinda
Glinda
Glinda is a fictional character in the Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the most powerful sorceress of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country south of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.- Literature :Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

 (Billie Burke
Billie Burke
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live...

) and Dorothy Gale
Dorothy Gale
Dorothy Gale is the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum, and the best friend of Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels...

 (Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

) in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

. It was composed by Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...

, with the lyrics written by E.Y. Harburg.

The group of songs celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch of the East
Wicked Witch of the East
The Wicked Witch of the East is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum in his Oz series of books....

 after Dorothy "dropped a house on her", though actually this was caused by the tornado.

Scenario

The sequence starts with Glinda encouraging the fearful Munchkins to "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are" and meet Dorothy, who "fell from a star" named Kansas, so that "a miracle occurred."

Dorothy begins singing, modestly explaining through descriptive phrasing that it "It Really Was No Miracle"; it was the wind that brought the apparent miracle. The Munchkins soon join in and sing joyfully, perhaps not really understanding how she got there, but happy at the result.

Like several of the songs in the film's track, this one makes extensive use of rhyming wordplay, containing as many Hays Office-approved words rhyming with "witch" as the composers could think of: "itch", "which", "sitch"-uation, etc.

After a short interval in which two Munchkins present a bouquet to Dorothy, Glinda tells the Munchkins to spread the news that "the wicked old witch at last is dead!"

The Munchkins then sing the march-style number "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead." After its one verse, there is another interruption, as the city officials need to determine if the witch is "undeniably and reliably dead." The coroner (Meinhardt Raabe
Meinhardt Raabe
Meinhardt Frank Raabe was an American actor. He was one of the last surviving Munchkin-actors in The Wizard of Oz, and was also the last surviving cast member with any dialogue in the film...

) avers that she is, and the mayor reiterates Glinda's advice to the Munchkins to spread the news. The Munchkins oblige, and sing "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" again.

As the Munchkin soldiers march, looking vaguely like toys, some trumpeters issue a fanfare very similar to the fanfare at the beginning of the "March of the Toys" from Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (operetta)
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough , which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. The creators wanted to cash in on the extraordinary success of The Wizard of Oz,...

.
This has a notable though perhaps unintended subtlety. In 1903, the operetta had been written to compete with an early and successful Broadway rendition of The Wizard of Oz. In addition, in 1934, there had been a film version of Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (1934 film)
Babes in Toyland is a Laurel and Hardy musical film released in November 1934. The film is also known by its alternate titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet , March of the Wooden Soldiers and Wooden Soldiers .Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film...

,
which was presumably still recent in the memories of the audience.

In the next interval, three Munchkin girls in ballet outfits and dancing en pointe sing "We Represent the Lullaby League," and welcome Dorothy to Munchkinland. Immediately after, three tough-looking Munchkin boys sing "We Represent the Lollipop Guild," actually the same tune as "Lullaby League," and they similarly welcome Dorothy to Munchkinland, the center Munchkin (Jerry Maren
Jerry Maren
Jerry Maren is an American actor and one of only three confirmed surviving dwarf munchkins from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The other two surviving munchkin cast members are Margaret Williams Pellegrini and Ruth Robinson Duccini, making Maren the last surviving male Munchkin from the...

) giving her a large round all-day sucker. The boys fade back into the crowd as they all come forward and begin singing and dancing "We Welcome You to Munchkinland."

The Munchkins sing and dance merrily, with "Tra-la-la-la-la-la-las," until the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Hamilton was an American film actress known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz...

), the other witch's sister, bursts onto the scene in fire and brimstone, putting a sudden stop to the Munchkins' revelry, as her own well-known, sinister-sounding instrumental theme plays on the track.

Cutting room floor

There was to have been a reprise of the song, beginning "Hail Hail the Witch Is Dead", sung by the leader of the Winkies (the witch's guards) after the Wicked Witch of the West had been killed and the spell over them was broken, and the lead Winkie had given Dorothy the witch's broomstick. It was to be continued by the townspeople of the Emerald City, who would sing it in a medley along with a reprise of "The Merry Old Land Of Oz
The Merry Old Land Of Oz
"The Merry Old Land of Oz" is a song from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and the musical. It is sung by the townspeople of the Emerald City, who are joined at appropriate times by the group of four travelers: Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion....

".

This song and its scenes were cut from the film, which instead jumps directly from the witch's castle (minus the singing Winkie) to the Wizard's throne room. Parts of the song's recording survived and were included in the Deluxe CD soundtrack. The film footage of the celebration is lost, with the exception of a short clip that was actually in the film's original theatrical trailer, though it had been cut from the film.

Voices

Nearly all of the Munchkin voices were dubbed in by uncredited voice actors, who sang in their normal voices at a specific tempo, and the recordings were sped up to create the unique Munchkin "voices". The Deluxe CD includes the actual voices of the three "Lollipop Guild" on-screen performers for contrast. According to the CD liner notes, the uncredited voice actors for certain segments were:
  • "The Lullaby League": Lorraine Bridges, Betty Rome and Carol Tevis.
  • "The Lollipop Guild": Billy Bletcher
    Billy Bletcher
    William "Billy" Bletcher was an American actor, comedian, and voice artist, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.-Career:...

    , Pinto Colvig
    Pinto Colvig
    Vance DeBar "Pinto" Colvig was an American vaudeville actor, radio actor, newspaper cartoonist, prolific movie voice actor, and circus performer whose schtick was playing clarinet off-key while mugging....

    , and Harry Stanton.
  • "Hail Hail the Witch Is Dead": Ken Darby (the arranger)


Bletcher and Colvig had previously performed voice work notably in Three Little Pigs
Three Little Pigs (film)
Three Little Pigs is an animated short film released on May 27, 1933 by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Burt Gillett. Based on a fairy tale of the same name, Three Little Pigs won the 1934 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. In 1994, it was voted #11 of the 50...

, and would go on to do a significant amount of voice work for the Warner and Disney cartoon studios. Bletcher himself was a short man, at 5 feet 2 inches, though notably taller than the Munchkins he voiced.

Cover versions

In The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...

 it was often used as the closing theme tune, and was played live onstage by the Wally Stott Orchestra.

Its composer Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...

 recorded a duet of it with Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

 for his 1966 Columbia Records album, Harold Sings Arlen (with a Friend) Columbia included the duet on Streisand's 2002 CD, Duets
Duets
An original motion picture soundtrack CD was released on September 12, 2000 by Hollywood Records. The CD contained twelve tracks including the original music composed for the film by David Newman....

.

Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 sang it on her 1961 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook is a 1961 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Billy May...

, and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....

 sang it live with Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich
Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

 on The Sounds of '66
The Sounds of '66
The Sounds of '66 is a 1966 live album by Sammy Davis, Jr., accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band.The album was recorded at the Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.-original LP:Side A:# "Come Back to Me" – 2:56...

.

In 1967, The Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate (band)
The Fifth Estate was a rock and roll band, originally formed in Stamford, Connecticut as The D-Men in early 1964.-Early years :...

 charted their biggest hit with a cover of the song interpolating the bourée from Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to make better the relationship between...

's Terpsichore
Terpsichore
In Greek mythology, Terpsichore "delight of dancing" was one of the nine Muses, ruling over dance and the dramatic chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance". She is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the dancers' choirs...

. For over forty years, it has been the highest charting version of all time of any Harold Arlen or Wizard of Oz song by any artist since the modern chart era began in 1940.

Klaus Nomi
Klaus Nomi
Klaus Sperber , better known as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona....

 performed a cover which was released as a single in 1982.

The British band Hefner
Hefner (band)
Hefner were a British indie rock and "urban folk" band formed in east London in 1995. They were active from about 1996 until 2002; since then they have played together only once, for a tribute to the DJ John Peel, who was a strong supporter of theirs....

 ends their song "The Day That Thatcher Died"
We Love the City
We Love the City is the third album by British indie rock band Hefner. It was released by Too Pure in two formats in 2000, the standard version and a second version with a disc featuring videos for "I Took Her Love for Granted" and "Good Fruit," as well as a John Peel session. The entire John...

 with children singing "Ding Dong, the witch is dead" in reference to former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

.

It was also briefly parodied in the Lizzie McGuire episode 'The Rise and Fall of Kate' by Miranda Sanchez (LaLaine) & Gordo (Adam Lamberg) as a method of celebrating Kate Sanders (Ashlee Brillaut) fall from power...(in case people forgot about it)

In the season 3 premiere of the hit Fox TV series Glee
Glee (TV series)
Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues...

, cast members Lea Michele
Lea Michele
Lea Michele Sarfati , known professionally as Lea Michele, is an American actress and singer. Michele began working professionally as a child actress on Broadway in productions such as Ragtime and Les Misérables. She originated the role of Wendla in the musical Spring Awakening and currently plays...

 and Chris Colfer
Chris Colfer
Christopher Paul "Chris" Colfer is an American actor and singer known for his portrayal of Kurt Hummel on the television series Glee, for which he won a 2011 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and was also nominated twice for an Emmy...

sing a duet version, identical to the one performed by Barbra Streisand and Harold Arlen in 1966.
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