The Wizard of Oz on television
Encyclopedia
The 1939
American musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz
, shot mostly in Technicolor
, has become, since its first telecast
in 1956, one of the two or three most popular American films ever made, although it has been a famous film ever since it played in movie theatres years before its TV debut. Like Gone with the Wind
, The Ten Commandments
, and The Sound of Music
, the film has never been sold to isolated local stations across the country for TV showings, although it was first telecast more than half a century ago. Instead, it has been shown respectively on CBS
, NBC
, the now-defunct WB Network, and several of Ted Turner
's national cable channels. This is in complete contrast to the average film, which in the pre-cable era, would generally be sold to hundreds of local television stations after being telecast once or twice by a major commercial TV network. In April 2011, The Wizard of Oz achieved the rare distinction of being one of the few live-action films shown on the Cartoon Network
. ABC
is the only one of the big three television networks
on which the film has never been shown, and PBS
and its predecessor NET
have never telecast it either.
In the UK, the film is shown each Christmas on ITV 2
Made for theaters and first released in 1939 by MGM, reissued theatrically in the U.S. in 1949 and 1955, again as part of the MGM Children's Matinees
series in 1970 and 1971,, re-released theatrically in Portugal
in 1981 and in Finland
in 1988, and reissued in 1998 to U.S. theaters in a re-mastered edition, the movie, before its television audience was established, was, like many films, simply a well-remembered motion picture that many people loved, but not one of the icons of cinema. From 1959 to 1991, it was an annual tradition
on United States commercial network television, always presented as a special program. It is quite possibly the first theatrical film to have become a long-running tradition on American network TV, and it is also quite possibly the first family film nearly two decades old (at the time) to be telecast nationally. Most family television specials of the 1950s were either live, or productions that had only recently been filmed for TV, such as the 1954 Shower of Stars
musical production of A Christmas Carol
, or 1957's The Pied Piper of Hamelin
.
At least one source has claimed that The Wizard of Oz is the most watched film of all time. After 1959, telecasts of the film quickly became a much anticipated family event in the United States, drawing extremely large audiences annually for many years. From the 1960's to about the 1980's, the film became as much of a family ritual in the U.S. as the program which, in the U.S. between 1959 and 1968, always followed the Oz telecast - The Ed Sullivan Show
. This was due not only to what many feel is the excellence of the film, but also to the fact that between 1959 and 1980, television was virtually the only means by which families were able to see it, unless they attended the MGM Children's Matinee in 1970. At that time, people were able to watch it on TV only once a year; there were no videocassette, DVD
, or television on-demand
options.
The film was a top ratings winner on television even for a few years after it was first issued on videocassette in 1980. However, from about 1986, the sense of anticipation that viewers throughout the U.S. felt on days when the film was telecast annually began to gradually diminish to almost nothing, due to the film's now-easy availability on home video. Its television audience has also been substantially reduced, especially so because video and DVD enables viewers to always see the film uncut and without commercials or pop-up ads running at the bottom of the screen. The film is now a bestseller on DVD, as it once was on VHS. However, in 2006, it did place # 11 in the Nielsen ratings
among cable television programs for the week of November 11, partly perhaps because this was the first time the film was shown on TV in high-definition
.
Between 1959 and 1989, the film was nearly always telecast on a weekend, making it easier for children to see it.
Until 1999, the film, when telecast, had been shown only on commercial broadcast television, not on cable. Cable showings began in 1999. The tradition of annual showings of the film in the U.S. has, as of now, vanished, and TV showings of the film have become rather frequent in comparison to telecasts in earlier years, now that Turner Entertainment owns the rights to show it.
The Wizard of Oz has become perhaps the most famous film to be regularly shown on U.S. television, and one of the most cherished. Of all the many family-aimed musical fantasies telecast immediately after the huge television success of the Mary Martin
Peter Pan
, the 1939 Oz is the only one which is still shown regularly to this day, and the only one to have been shown on U.S. network television for such a long period of time. Because The Wizard of Oz has been televised nearly every year since 1959, gaining more than half of the U.S. TV audience in the days before videocassettes, the vast majority of people who have seen the film have seen it this way rather than watching it on the big screen. The film It's a Wonderful Life
has a similar history of relative neglect and then becoming popular because of frequent showings on television, although It's a Wonderful Life was much less successful on its original 1946 theatrical run than The Wizard of Oz was in 1939.
The film's first telecast, on November 3, 1956, took place shortly after Halloween
. The 1959 to 1962 telecasts of The Wizard of Oz occurred later in the year, between Thanksgiving
and Christmas
. However, beginning in the 1963–64 season the showings would occur in the early months of the year. As a result the movie did not air at all in 1963. But its 1964 showing was only 13 months after the 1962 showing. So even minus 1963 the movie still aired then once a year per TV season.
s by nearly all of the major Hollywood studios were not broadcast on network television before 1955, due to the studios' reluctance to anger theatre owners with a competing venue. The one exception was Walt Disney
, who, understanding the potential of the medium as a promotional tool, did not hesitate to begin showing some of his films on ABC-TV once his long-running television anthology series
premiered in late 1954. Disney films first shown on the program in the 1950s (in one-hour edited versions) included Alice in Wonderland
(1951), So Dear to My Heart
(1948), and Dumbo (1941), although occasionally a full-length Disney film such as Treasure Island
(1950) would be split into two one-hour episodes shown a week apart. Several of these films were re-run on the Disney program in color when the program moved to NBC in the 1960s, and nearly all of these mentioned were re-released to movie theatres even after being shown on television. Some of the most famous old Disney films, however, such as Bambi
(1942) and Pinocchio
(1940), were not shown complete on television (or even in one-hour edits) until the 1980s, and Fantasia
(1940) and Song of the South
(1946) are the two remaining Disney classics which, even today, have never been televised complete or in one-hour versions. (Most segments of Fantasia, however, have been televised separately on Disney's long-running anthology series.) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(1937) was telecast complete for the first time ever (but with commercials) in February 2010. However, it also made its television debut on the commercial-free Disney Channel
.
The Wizard of Oz was chosen to be the first Hollywood film to be shown uncut in one evening on an entire television network rather than just a local station. British films such as the Laurence Olivier
Hamlet
, released in 1948, were being shown on American network television in the 1950s as part of the Famous Film Festival
program on ABC
, but, like the Disney films, these were also either severely cut or shown in several installments. NBC had telecast the 1955 British film The Constant Husband
as a prime time special a year and a half prior to its theatrical release in the U.S., but with twenty minutes cut so that the 88 minute film could be shown in a ninety minute time slot with commercials. On March 11, 1956, Richard III
, Olivier's 1955 British
film production of Shakespeare's play, made its simultaneous U.S. theatrical and NBC
television network debut as a three-hour color special, but that was a matinée, not a prime time
showing, and parts of the film had been edited due to censorship.
anthology series Ford Star Jubilee
on November 3, 1956. The network paid MGM $225,000, a huge amount in 1956, for the rights to televise the film and to re-broadcast it if the telecast was a success.
This 1956 telecast was intended by network executives as a response to the then-recent hugely successful telecast of the Broadway musical Peter Pan with Mary Martin, which had been restaged especially for TV at NBC Studios as part of the anthology series Producers' Showcase
. Peter Pan had first been shown live on TV by NBC in 1955, and been repeated (again live) by public demand in 1956. These first two telecasts of the 1954 musical based on the J. M. Barrie
classic were so successful that other live-action adaptations of fantasies, several of them now forgotten, were telecast over the next few years, including:
All of these shows except Peter Pan, The Sleeping Beauty, The Wizard of Oz and The Nutcracker were especially created for television, and led to a sort of temporary trend for this type of entertainment. The Alice in Wonderland, although originally produced onstage, featured an almost entirely new cast in its television adaptation. Only Eva LeGallienne reprised her original stage role.
For the first telecast of The Wizard of Oz, the normally 90-minute Ford Star Jubilee was expanded to a full two hours to accommodate the entire film, which, in addition to having commercial breaks, was celebrity hosted. The main reason that CBS arranged for a host for the film was that a 101-minute motion picture was at that time not considered long enough to run in the allotted 120-minute time slot without some "padding". This was because, until about 1968, commercial
breaks were much shorter on television than they are now, usually lasting no more than two minutes, and there were fewer breaks during a program — perhaps eight in a two-hour span as opposed to about ten or twelve today. This telecast marked the only time that anyone actually connected with the film was selected to host it. Bert Lahr
, who had played both the Cowardly Lion and farmhand Zeke in the film, the then ten-year-old Liza Minnelli
, daughter of Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland
, and young Oz expert Justin G. Schiller, appeared as hosts to introduce the movie. Contrary to some internet information claims, Lorna Luft
, Minnelli's half-sister, did not appear on the telecast, as she was only four years old at the time, although she did have her picture taken with Minnelli in a promotional photo. Unlike several of the other Oz telecasts, no stills were taken during the hosting sequences of the 1956 telecast. The practice of a show business celebrity regularly "hosting" The Wizard of Oz lasted from the film's first television showing until 1968, when the film went to NBC after being telecast on CBS nine times.
Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, the film was always telecast uncut in a two-hour time slot between 1956 and 1968, despite having commercials and hosted segments.
The day after the film's first telecast, newspapers reviewed the presentation ecstatically. Variety
prophetically suggested that in the future the film could be telecast annually and at an earlier time, which, of course, is exactly what happened.
columnists, who had never before written about the movie, began making references to it in their columns.
instead of as part of an anthology or movie series. Between 1959 and 1968, CBS would choose its hosts from its then-current prime time
lineup. In 1959, the host was Red Skelton
(The Red Skelton Show
); in 1960 it was Richard Boone
(Have Gun, Will Travel), in 1961 and 1962 it was Dick Van Dyke
(The Dick Van Dyke Show
), and from 1964 through 1967, it was Danny Kaye
(The Danny Kaye Show
). Skelton, Boone and Van Dyke brought their then-young children along to appear in these hostings; this was CBS's way of emphasizing that the film's showing was a family event.
Although the hosting segments for the 1956 telecast of the film had to be done live, all of the others were recorded on video tape in advance of the telecasts. It is not known if any of these hosting sequences still survive. CBS and the other networks were often in the habit of erasing videotapes they felt that they did not need in order to be able to use the tape again, and a mere hosting segment for a classic film was/is considered fairly unimportant when the main attraction was the film itself.
The hosting sequences for the 1959-64 telecasts were all done in creative ways, not as the usual perfunctory introductions (Danny Kaye actually taped only one hosting segment; his hosting sequence was the only one rerun three times - for the 1965 to 1967 telecasts of the film, while Dick Van Dyke, who also hosted the film more than once, had actually videotaped two different hosting sequences for the 1961 and 1962 telecasts respectively.)
Often some humor would be incorporated into these segments, notably when a television and/or film comedian was the host. Red Skelton was seen as two characters: before the film began, he was seen in a studio set of an early twentieth-century library, in costume as a Victorian
-era storyteller who introduced L. Frank Baum
's original 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(on which the film is based) to a young girl played by Skelton's real daughter, and at film's end, he appeared in a studio recreation of a modern living room as himself. Richard Boone, one of the three dramatic actors (as opposed to comedians) who has hosted the film, was taped on the set of his television series Have Gun, Will Travel, where he was shown in a "living room" with his real son. Dick Van Dyke was shown in what was reportedly a studio recreation of his living room, where he was seen with his children, and Danny Kaye appeared sitting on a prop toadstool against a painted backdrop of the Yellow Brick Road
and the Emerald City
. However, no matter how humorous they were, no directors or writers were ever credited for the hosting sequences, just as none are ever credited for the ones done prior to the showing of a film on Turner Classic Movies.
The Wizard of Oz did not become an annual television tradition immediately — only after the 1959 showing, when, because of the earlier hour at which it was shown (6:00 P.M., E.T.), more children tuned in to the broadcast, and it gained an even larger television audience than before. The 1959 telecast was especially welcomed by media critic John Crosby
, who commented in the New York Herald Tribune
, "Television - any television - looks awfully ordinary after The Wizard of Oz".
(which ran from 1955 until 1974). From 1959 through 1962, they also pre-empted the sitcom Dennis the Menace, and from 1964 through 1966, in addition to Lassie and The Twentieth Century, the sitcom My Favorite Martian
, which premiered when Dennis the Menace 's run ended. Only once did they pre-empt the short-lived 1966 caveman sitcom It's About Time, which replaced My Favorite Martian. There were no pre-emptions in 1963 because the film was not televised that year. In 1967, for the first and only time, the film pre-empted the CBS family series Gentle Ben
, in addition to Lassie.
Conversely, then-CBS affiliate WISN-TV
in Milwaukee opted not to carry the network's yearly Oz telecast in 1961, the year that WISN began its affiliation with CBS, running Green Bay Packers
football instead. However, due to viewer outcry, WISN was able to get permission to run the film locally at a later date.
Years later, in 1978, after the film had returned to CBS, a computer malfunction at CBS owned-and-operated WBBM-TV
in Chicago
accidentally cut off most of the ending to that year's Oz telecast, interrupting the final minute with a commercial block that wasn't supposed to air until after the movie had ended (because the break was only 42 seconds long, no attempt was made to override the computer, for fear of making the problem worse). For several hours thereafter, the WBBM switchboards were flooded with angry calls from viewers, while those unable to get through chose to voice their displeasure through the Chicago Tribune
and Chicago Sun-Times
newspapers.
and closing credits
segments devised by CBS, accompanied by the network's own specially recorded opening and closing music based on the film's score. For the opening "wraparound" credits, the title The Wizard of Oz and the names of its five leading actors, Judy Garland
, Frank Morgan
, Ray Bolger
, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley
, would first be shown in CBS's own format, while an anonymous announcer read them off and then followed this with an announcement of the film's sponsor(s): "This portion of 'The Wizard of Oz' is brought to you by...[name of sponsor mentioned]". These specially-devised opening credits would never mention that the film was made by MGM or any other studio. From 1959 to 1964, CBS created different "wraparound" credits for each showing, but because the same hosting segment - the Danny Kaye one - was shown between 1964 and 1967, audiences saw the same "wraparound" credits from 1964 until the film went to NBC.
This special CBS introduction would be followed by the host speaking about the movie for about three minutes or so. His remarks would lead directly into the actual film, beginning with all of its original 1939 opening credits
(which are shown against a background of moving clouds), including the MGM Leo the Lion
logo, the name of the film, the cast list, and the film's principal technical staff, exactly as MGM had created them, with the film's main title
music heard. The host would reappear just before the film's second half began, to say a few more words about it, before the telecast proceeded with the rest of the film, commercials included (The second half of the film always began with the poppy field sequence).
However, at the end of the movie, the film's closing credits, as created by MGM, would not be shown. Instead, immediately after Dorothy spoke her last line ("Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home!"), and the camera faded out on her, television viewers once again saw CBS's specially made title card The Wizard of Oz, this time accompanied by some of the film's end title music, exactly as heard on the soundtrack
. After a final commercial, the host would then be seen once again, bid farewell to the TV audience, and CBS would show their own version of the cast list which appears during the film's end credits. At the end, referring to both the film and the hosting segments, the same announcer that read off the special "wraparound" opening credits would declare that This has been a film and videotape presentation.
sets at that time. The fact that the film was telecast in color most likely seemed much more striking to home viewers in the late 1950s and early '60s, when there were still relatively few color programs on television, than it does now, when color TV is taken for granted.
in 1968, where no "wraparound" sequence was shown. The presentation simply consisted of the film itself, with its original opening and closing credits, and no special NBC "wraparound" credits or hosting segments. The famous NBC peacock would be shown immediately prior to the beginning of the film, with announcer Mel Brandt
saying that "the first 22 minutes of this program [i.e. the Kansas and tornado sequences] will be shown in black-and-white", a not quite accurate statement, since the final three minutes of the film also took place in Kansas, and were at that time also shown in black-and-white, rather than in the sepia tone in which they originally had been made (the sepia was not restored to the Kansas and tornado scenes until 1989 - the film's 50th anniversary). However, one NBC telecast did feature an on-screen host: the 1970 showing, which opened with veteran actor Gregory Peck
paying tribute to the recently deceased Judy Garland (a segment directed by Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy
, marking his first TV work), although this segment consisted of only a few brief remarks, while the older opening hosting segments went on for about three minutes or so.
The switch in networks resulted because CBS was unwilling to meet MGM's increased price — fostered by the film's ever increasing popularity — for renewal of the rights to telecast it. The film stayed on NBC until 1976. When CBS, realizing its error in allowing it to go to another network, bought back the rights, their viewer ratings shot up, and one executive was heard to remark, "That picture is better [for the network] than a gushing oil well".
After its 1976 return to CBS, the film was hosted on that network by a celebrity only once more, in a filmed segment featuring Angela Lansbury
(star of CBS's Murder, She Wrote
) in 1990, but the CBS "wraparound" opening and closing credits were not - and have never been - revived, although, during those years, a blue card featuring a painting of a rainbow and the title The Wizard of Oz was shown on the screen while the night's pre-empted programs and the sponsors were being announced, and immediately before and after commercial breaks. Angela Lansbury also narrated a documentary about the making of the film, originally entitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 50 Years of Magic and years later retitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic. It was first shown immediately after the movie's 1990 telecast, and is included as a supplement on all the DVD releases beginning with the 1999 DVD release. Jack Haley, Jr.
, the documentary's director, was nominated for an Emmy Award
for his work.
In recent years, when shown on Turner Classic Movies, The Wizard of Oz is usually hosted by Robert Osborne, though, in this case, since TCM is commercial-free, it is obviously not done in order to pad out its running time. When telecast now, the film never has any "wraparound" credits created by a network or a national television station.
On June 3, 2007, Tom Kenny
, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants
, hosted a telecast of the film on Turner Classic Movies, as part of a special summer series of family movies.
On July 27, 2008, the film was shown twice in a row on Turner Network Television
without a host, but with commercials, and with "pop-up" animated ads for other TNT programs at the bottom of the screen just before and after commercial breaks.
, the image sizes for the opening and closing credits are often "marginalized", so that the credits for the preceding show, or the credits or opening scene of the show following the film, may be shown alongside them.
Between November 15 and 16, 2008, the film was shown on TBS a total of three times. There was no host, and, rather than having a pop-up ad before a break, the network chose to make extremely abrupt transitions to commercials - something that had rarely, if ever, had been done before with as popular a film as The Wizard of Oz. The pop-up ads for other programs did, however, make appearances after the breaks.
to the film: For nearly forty years, this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart, and time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion, etc. However, it is possible that the cuts may have alienated at least some of the viewing audience, especially since they were able, starting in 1980, to see the uncut film on videocassette.
On a few occasions beginning in 1985, again because of the increased time spent on commercial breaks, the film was time-compressed to fit it into a two-hour running time without cutting it. (In "time compression", the film is run at a slightly faster speed which is supposedly undetectable, but observant viewers can apparently notice a distinct "chipmunk"-like alteration of the voices when this is done. It has been observed that film aficionados strongly oppose this method of televising a movie.) However, The Wizard of Oz is now always shown complete and at its regular speed on television, both with and without commercials. When shown with ads, the film now runs about two hours and fifteen minutes, simply because of the increase in commercial time.
months. In 1991, it was shown twice during the year for the first time. The reason for this was that CBS wanted to switch the date of the film's TV showing so that it would be run around Thanksgiving rather than late winter/early spring. 1991 also marked the first time since 1956 that the film was shown in November. This also happened in 1993, when the film was telecast in both February and November of that year. The film was not shown on television at all in 1992, 1995 and 1997, marking the first time since 1963 that a year was skipped in showings of the film. Turner, which owned most of the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television library at the time (now owned by Warner Bros.), began moving to make its properties exclusive to Turner-owned outlets in the late 1990s; as such, in 1998, The Wizard of Oz made its last appearance on CBS, moving exclusively to Turner-owned properties the next year.
2000 marked the first time that the film was shown on U.S. television during the summer. 2002 marked an unusual frequency of showings when, for the first time, it was shown on television five times in one year. And in 2003, if one counts up all the showings on the several Turner-owned networks, it was shown a total of seven times within one year - a far cry from the once annual-only telecasts.
On November 6, 2011, TBS became the American television network on which The Wizard of Oz has been shown most often, when the film had its 32nd showing on that network, finally breaking CBS's long-held record of thirty-one showings. CBS's thirty-one showings of Oz was once an all-time television record for prime time telecasts of a feature film on a commercial television network. It was broken only as recently as 2004, by ABC
's annual TV airings of Cecil B. DeMille
's The Ten Commandments
(1956), which that network has been telecasting since 1973. However, despite being shown annually, The Ten Commandments has not had nearly as much impact when telecast as has The Wizard of Oz. As opposed to the forty-two years it took for CBS to reach a total of thirty-one telecasts of Oz, TBS, by frequently showing it several times in one week instead of once annually, has surpassed CBS's record in a mere twelve years.
, and no longer just annually. And it is often shown twice in a row on the same day, so those who missed the first showing might catch the second. This was something that television executives would have considered unthinkable during the years that the film was annually telecast.
Some might argue that the method of presenting Oz as an annual television special gave the telecasts a certain aura which today's showings of the film do not retain, especially since it has been easily available on video in one form or another since 1980. Promos for the CBS and NBC showings during the 1960s would begin airing on television as far as two weeks in advance of that year's telecast; today's television showings of the film receive little, if any, advance publicity at all. The 1960's CBS promos, especially, de-emphasized the fact that The Wizard of Oz was actually a theatrical motion picture being shown on television; the film was treated as if it were a beloved special program rather than a mere film. On the major commercial networks, the film was never termed a "CBS Movie Special" or an "NBC Movie Special", as movie specials shown on those networks are frequently termed, but as simply The Wizard of Oz - the only identification that viewers needed to know what was being referred to.
In November 2007, the film was accorded the unusual honor of being shown literally simultaneously on two Turner
-owned channels, TBS and TNT.
Today, when shown on an HD channel, the film is pillarboxed so that its aspect ratio is preserved. On DVD, the film has always been issued only in its original 1939 aspect ratio, despite the "fake widescreen" 1998 theatrical re-release.
TNT showed the film in High-Definition in November 2006.
, Canada
and is shown every year in Australia
, but it has not become the television phenomenon there that it has in the U.S.
July 3, 2000, TCM
November 19 and 25, 2000, TNT
July 4, 2001, TCM
December 1 and 2, 2001, TNT
July 4, 2002, TCM
November 28, 2002, TBS
December 8, 13, and 25, 2002, TNT
July 5 and 6, 2003, TCM
November 16 and 21, 2003, TBS
December 13 and 14, 2003, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2004, TCM
December 8 and 12, 2004, TNT
November 19, 20, and 24, 2004, TBS
July 3 and 4, 2005, TCM
November 11, 12, and 13, 2005, TBS
July 3 and 4, 2006, TCM
November 10, 11, and 12, 2006, TBS
December 11 and 17, 2006, TNT
June 3, 2007, TCM
November 9, 10, and 11, 2007, TBS
July 27, 2008, TNT
December 20 and 21, 2008, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2009, TCM
September 27, 2009, TBS
November 13, 14, 15, and 22, 2009, TBS
December 19, 20, and 27, 2009, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2010, TCM
November 26, 27, and 28, 2010, TBS
December 17 and 18, 2010, TBS
December 25, 2010, TBS
February 12, 2011, TCM
April 17, 2011, TBS
April 24, 2011, Cartoon Network
November 4, 5, and 6, 2011, TBS
1939 in film
The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...
American musical fantasy 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...
, shot mostly in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
, has become, since its first telecast
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in 1956, one of the two or three most popular American films ever made, although it has been a famous film ever since it played in movie theatres years before its TV debut. Like Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
, The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic film that dramatized the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the Hebrew-born Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince, becomes the deliverer of the Hebrew slaves. The film, released by Paramount Pictures in VistaVision on October 5, 1956, was directed by...
, and The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music (film)
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film is based on the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical...
, the film has never been sold to isolated local stations across the country for TV showings, although it was first telecast more than half a century ago. Instead, it has been shown respectively on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, the now-defunct WB Network, and several of Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
's national cable channels. This is in complete contrast to the average film, which in the pre-cable era, would generally be sold to hundreds of local television stations after being telecast once or twice by a major commercial TV network. In April 2011, The Wizard of Oz achieved the rare distinction of being one of the few live-action films shown on the Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
. ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
is the only one of the big three television networks
Big Three Television Networks
The Big Three Television Networks are the three traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: ABC, CBS and NBC...
on which the film has never been shown, and PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
and its predecessor NET
National Educational Television
National Educational Television was an American non-commercial educational public television network in the United States from May 16, 1954 to October 4, 1970...
have never telecast it either.
In the UK, the film is shown each Christmas on ITV 2
Made for theaters and first released in 1939 by MGM, reissued theatrically in the U.S. in 1949 and 1955, again as part of the MGM Children's Matinees
MGM Children's Matinees
MGM Children's Matinees were a series of vintage MGM family films that were re-released to theatres between 1970 and 1971. As the name implies, they were shown only as Saturday matinees, usually just before the showing of the main feature which happened to be playing at the theatre at that time...
series in 1970 and 1971,, re-released theatrically in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
in 1981 and in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
in 1988, and reissued in 1998 to U.S. theaters in a re-mastered edition, the movie, before its television audience was established, was, like many films, simply a well-remembered motion picture that many people loved, but not one of the icons of cinema. From 1959 to 1991, it was an annual tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
on United States commercial network television, always presented as a special program. It is quite possibly the first theatrical film to have become a long-running tradition on American network TV, and it is also quite possibly the first family film nearly two decades old (at the time) to be telecast nationally. Most family television specials of the 1950s were either live, or productions that had only recently been filmed for TV, such as the 1954 Shower of Stars
Shower of Stars
Shower of Stars is an American variety television series broadcast in the United States from 1954 to 1958 by CBS. The series was also known as Chrysler Shower of Stars. Unusually at the time for CBS, the series was telecast in color.-Overview:...
musical production of A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
, or 1957's The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957 film)
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an American ninety-minute musical color television special originally shown by NBC on November 26, 1957, as their Thanksgiving Day offering for that year...
.
At least one source has claimed that The Wizard of Oz is the most watched film of all time. After 1959, telecasts of the film quickly became a much anticipated family event in the United States, drawing extremely large audiences annually for many years. From the 1960's to about the 1980's, the film became as much of a family ritual in the U.S. as the program which, in the U.S. between 1959 and 1968, always followed the Oz telecast - The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
. This was due not only to what many feel is the excellence of the film, but also to the fact that between 1959 and 1980, television was virtually the only means by which families were able to see it, unless they attended the MGM Children's Matinee in 1970. At that time, people were able to watch it on TV only once a year; there were no videocassette, DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, or television on-demand
Television on Demand
Television On Demand is an emerging new digital cable service offering. This service concept is based on perceived consumer desire to receive live and pre-recorded programming. TOD provides the end-user with programming, without having to wait for its syndicated air schedule times by major...
options.
The film was a top ratings winner on television even for a few years after it was first issued on videocassette in 1980. However, from about 1986, the sense of anticipation that viewers throughout the U.S. felt on days when the film was telecast annually began to gradually diminish to almost nothing, due to the film's now-easy availability on home video. Its television audience has also been substantially reduced, especially so because video and DVD enables viewers to always see the film uncut and without commercials or pop-up ads running at the bottom of the screen. The film is now a bestseller on DVD, as it once was on VHS. However, in 2006, it did place # 11 in the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
among cable television programs for the week of November 11, partly perhaps because this was the first time the film was shown on TV in high-definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
.
Between 1959 and 1989, the film was nearly always telecast on a weekend, making it easier for children to see it.
Until 1999, the film, when telecast, had been shown only on commercial broadcast television, not on cable. Cable showings began in 1999. The tradition of annual showings of the film in the U.S. has, as of now, vanished, and TV showings of the film have become rather frequent in comparison to telecasts in earlier years, now that Turner Entertainment owns the rights to show it.
The Wizard of Oz has become perhaps the most famous film to be regularly shown on U.S. television, and one of the most cherished. Of all the many family-aimed musical fantasies telecast immediately after the huge television success of the Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
Peter Pan
Peter Pan (1954 musical)
Peter Pan is a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and Barrie's own novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty...
, the 1939 Oz is the only one which is still shown regularly to this day, and the only one to have been shown on U.S. network television for such a long period of time. Because The Wizard of Oz has been televised nearly every year since 1959, gaining more than half of the U.S. TV audience in the days before videocassettes, the vast majority of people who have seen the film have seen it this way rather than watching it on the big screen. The film It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
has a similar history of relative neglect and then becoming popular because of frequent showings on television, although It's a Wonderful Life was much less successful on its original 1946 theatrical run than The Wizard of Oz was in 1939.
The film's first telecast, on November 3, 1956, took place shortly after Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
. The 1959 to 1962 telecasts of The Wizard of Oz occurred later in the year, between Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
and Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. However, beginning in the 1963–64 season the showings would occur in the early months of the year. As a result the movie did not air at all in 1963. But its 1964 showing was only 13 months after the 1962 showing. So even minus 1963 the movie still aired then once a year per TV season.
Walt Disney, television pioneer
Feature filmFeature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s by nearly all of the major Hollywood studios were not broadcast on network television before 1955, due to the studios' reluctance to anger theatre owners with a competing venue. The one exception was Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
, who, understanding the potential of the medium as a promotional tool, did not hesitate to begin showing some of his films on ABC-TV once his long-running television anthology series
Disney anthology television series
The Walt Disney anthology television series refers to a television series which has been produced by the Walt Disney Company under several different titles from 1955 to 2008...
premiered in late 1954. Disney films first shown on the program in the 1950s (in one-hour edited versions) included Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based primarily on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a few additional elements from Through the Looking-Glass. Thirteenth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film was released in New...
(1951), So Dear to My Heart
So Dear to My Heart
So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 feature film produced by Walt Disney, released in Chicago on November 29, 1948 and nationwide on January 19, 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. Like 1946's Song of the South, the film combines animation and live action...
(1948), and Dumbo (1941), although occasionally a full-length Disney film such as Treasure Island
Treasure Island (1950 film)
Treasure Island is a 1950 Disney adventure film, adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. It starred Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins, and Robert Newton as Long John Silver...
(1950) would be split into two one-hour episodes shown a week apart. Several of these films were re-run on the Disney program in color when the program moved to NBC in the 1960s, and nearly all of these mentioned were re-released to movie theatres even after being shown on television. Some of the most famous old Disney films, however, such as Bambi
Bambi
Bambi is a 1942 American animated film directed by David Hand , produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
(1942) and Pinocchio
Pinocchio (1940 film)
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was released to theaters by...
(1940), were not shown complete on television (or even in one-hour edits) until the 1980s, and Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
(1940) and Song of the South
Song of the South
Song of the South is a 1946 American musical film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film is based on the Uncle Remus cycle of stories by Joel Chandler Harris. The live actors provide a sentimental frame story, in which Uncle Remus relates the folk tales of the...
(1946) are the two remaining Disney classics which, even today, have never been televised complete or in one-hour versions. (Most segments of Fantasia, however, have been televised separately on Disney's long-running anthology series.) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
(1937) was telecast complete for the first time ever (but with commercials) in February 2010. However, it also made its television debut on the commercial-free Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
.
Films on television in the 1950's
In the early to mid-1950s, American television relied on features from the minor Hollywood studios, independent U.S. producers, and British films. By 1956, the other major Hollywood studios aside from Disney were in the process of selling their films to local television stations, but not to the networks.The Wizard of Oz was chosen to be the first Hollywood film to be shown uncut in one evening on an entire television network rather than just a local station. British films such as the Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
Hamlet
Hamlet (1948 film)
Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, adapted and directed by and starring Sir Laurence Olivier. Hamlet was Olivier's second film as director, and also the second of the three Shakespeare films that he directed...
, released in 1948, were being shown on American network television in the 1950s as part of the Famous Film Festival
Famous Film Festival
Famous Film Festival was an American television prime-time movie series that aired Sunday nights from 7:30-9:00 pm on ABC during the 1955-56 television season.In 1955, ABC obtained the rights to broadcast 35 British movie titles...
program on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, but, like the Disney films, these were also either severely cut or shown in several installments. NBC had telecast the 1955 British film The Constant Husband
The Constant Husband
The Constant Husband is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Rex Harrison, Margaret Leighton, Kay Kendall, Cecil Parker, George Cole and Raymond Huntley.-Plot:...
as a prime time special a year and a half prior to its theatrical release in the U.S., but with twenty minutes cut so that the 88 minute film could be shown in a ninety minute time slot with commercials. On March 11, 1956, Richard III
Richard III (1955 film)
Richard III is a 1955 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's historical play of the same name, also incorporating elements from his Henry VI, Part 3. It was directed and produced by Sir Laurence Olivier, who also played the lead role. The cast includes many noted Shakespearean actors,...
, Olivier's 1955 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
film production of Shakespeare's play, made its simultaneous U.S. theatrical and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
television network debut as a three-hour color special, but that was a matinée, not a prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
showing, and parts of the film had been edited due to censorship.
First telecast of 'Oz'
The first telecast of The Wizard of Oz was as the last installment of the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
anthology series Ford Star Jubilee
Ford Star Jubilee
Ford Star Jubilee was a usually live, ninety minute, color anthology series that aired once a month on Saturday nights on CBS at 9:00 P.M., E.S.T. from the fall of 1955 to the fall of 1956...
on November 3, 1956. The network paid MGM $225,000, a huge amount in 1956, for the rights to televise the film and to re-broadcast it if the telecast was a success.
This 1956 telecast was intended by network executives as a response to the then-recent hugely successful telecast of the Broadway musical Peter Pan with Mary Martin, which had been restaged especially for TV at NBC Studios as part of the anthology series Producers' Showcase
Producers' Showcase
Producers' Showcase is an American anthology television series that was telecast live during the 1950s in compatible color by NBC. With top talent, the 90-minute episodes, covering a wide variety of genres, aired under the title every fourth Monday at 8 p.m. ET for three seasons, beginning October...
. Peter Pan had first been shown live on TV by NBC in 1955, and been repeated (again live) by public demand in 1956. These first two telecasts of the 1954 musical based on the J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
classic were so successful that other live-action adaptations of fantasies, several of them now forgotten, were telecast over the next few years, including:
- A live, non-musical 1955 Hallmark Hall of FameHallmark Hall of FameHallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
telecast on NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
of Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's Alice in Wonderland, in the famous 1932 adaptation originally produced for the Broadway stage by actress Eva LeGallienne. It starred child actress Gillian Barber as Alice, with a cast that included Ms. LeGallienne herself as the White Queen, Elsa LanchesterElsa LanchesterElsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television....
as the Red Queen, Reginald GardinerReginald GardinerReginald Gardiner was an English-born actor in film and television and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in Britain. His parents wanted him to be an architect and he studied at it but he wanted to be an actor and eventually got his way.He started as a super on stage and eventually...
as the White Knight, Karl SwensonKarl SwensonKarl Swenson was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.-Biography:Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, Swenson made several appearances with Pierre-Luc Michaud on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who...
as Humpty Dumpty, and Martyn GreenMartyn GreenWilliam Martyn-Green , better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed and recorded with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.After army service in World War I,...
as the White Rabbit.
- A live, very abridged version in 1955 of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty, starring Margot FonteynMargot FonteynDame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, DBE , was an English ballerina of the 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time...
and Michael SomesMichael SomesMichael George Somes CBE , was a leading English ballet dancer. He was a principal danseur of the Royal Ballet, London, and was the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn....
. This was the first telecast ever of the ballet, in a production that had originally been given a full-length staging in London in 1946 by choreographer Frederick AshtonFrederick AshtonSir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
, who also danced the role of Carabosse. It was telecast on NBC's Producers' Showcase, the same anthology series that telecast the 1955 and 1956 versions of Peter Pan.
- A live 1956 musical version of Jack and the BeanstalkJack and the BeanstalkJack and the Beanstalk is a folktale said by English historian Francis Palgrave to be an oral legend that arrived in England with the Vikings. The tale is closely associated with the tale of Jack the Giant-killer. It is known under a number of versions...
, also telecast as an installment of Producers' Showcase. This version of Jack and the Beanstalk starred Joel GreyJoel GreyJoel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
in a very early role as Jack, Billy GilbertBilly GilbertBilly Gilbert was an American comedian and actor known for his comic sneeze routines. He appeared in over 200 feature films, short subjects and television shows starting in 1929. He is not to be confused with silent film actor Billy Gilbert Billy Gilbert (September 12, 1894 – September 23,...
as the Giant, and Celeste HolmCeleste HolmCeleste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
and Cyril RitchardCyril RitchardCyril Ritchard was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan....
in other roles, and it featured songs by Jerry LivingstonJerry LivingstonJerry Livingston was an American songwriter, and dance orchestra pianist.-Biography:...
and Helen DeutschHelen DeutschHelen Deutsch was an American screenwriter, journalist and songwriter.Deutsch was born in New York City and graduated from Barnard College. She began her career by managing the Provincetown Players...
.
- The live 1957 original version of Rodgers and HammersteinRodgers and HammersteinRichard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
's musical Cinderella, starring Julie AndrewsJulie AndrewsDame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
, telecast by CBS.
- The live WilderAlec WilderAlec Wilder was an American composer.-Biography:...
and EngvickWilliam EngvickWilliam Engvick is an American lyricist, many of whose compositions appear in films.Engvick graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. He is best known for his collaborations with composer Alec Wilder; they produced songs for the Broadway musical Once Over Lightly , and for...
musicals PinocchioPinocchio (1957 TV-musical)The 1957 television production of Pinocchio was a live musical version starring Mickey Rooney in the title role of the puppet who wishes to become a real boy. Based on the novel by Carlo Collodi which also inspired the classic Walt Disney animated film, this version featured a now-forgotten new...
(1957), with Mickey RooneyMickey RooneyMickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
, and Hansel and GretelHansel and Gretel (1958 TV special)Hansel and Gretel was a live musical adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story telecast as a special in 1958 by NBC. It was one of a long series of fantasies presented on television as musical specials after the enormously successful first two telecasts of the Mary Martin Peter Pan. But Hansel and...
(1958), with Red Buttons and Barbara CookBarbara CookBarbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
. Both programs were telecast on NBC.
- The 1957 musical Pied Piper of HamelinThe Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957 film)The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an American ninety-minute musical color television special originally shown by NBC on November 26, 1957, as their Thanksgiving Day offering for that year...
, with Van JohnsonVan JohnsonVan Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
in two roles, and co-starring Claude RainsClaude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, Jim BackusJim BackusJames Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
, Lori NelsonLori NelsonLori Nelson is an American actress born in Santa Fe, New Mexico on August 15, 1933. She began as a performer, dancing at the young age of 4, as well as winning a Little Miss America title. Many of her early auditions were unsuccessful. However, in 1952, she made it into her first role as Marjie...
, and Kay StarrKay StarrKay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....
. It boasted a score based on some of Edvard GriegEdvard GriegEdvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
's classic works such as the Peer GyntPeer GyntPeer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
music, with lyrics by Irving Taylor. Unlike the other specials, which were done either live or on videotape, this was an actual Technicolor made-for-TV film, and it was the only film in which Claude Rains sang and danced. First telecast on NBC.
- Cole PorterCole PorterCole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's AladdinAladdin (TV special)Aladdin was a 1958 musical fantasy written especially for television with a book by S.J. Perelman and music and lyrics by Cole Porter, telecast in color on the DuPont Show of the Month by CBS. It was Porter's very last musical score. The musical was later presented on stage in London, premiering...
, telecast live in 1958 as an installment of the famous anthology series DuPont Show of the MonthDuPont Show of the MonthDuPont Show of the Month, an acclaimed 90-minute television anthology series, aired monthly on CBS from 1957 to 1961. The DuPont Company also sponsored a weekly half-hour anthology drama series hosted by June Allyson, The DuPont Show with June Allyson .During the Golden Age of Television, DuPont...
, with Sal MineoSal MineoSalvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause...
in the title role, also featuring Geoffrey HolderGeoffrey HolderGeoffrey Richard Holder is a Trinidadian actor, choreographer, director, dancer, painter, costume designer, singer and voice-over artist.-Early life:...
as the Genie, Anna Maria AlberghettiAnna Maria AlberghettiAnna Maria Alberghetti is an Italian-born operatic singer and actress.Born in Pesaro, Marche, she starred on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress for Carnival! .Alberghetti was a child prodigy. Her father was an opera singer and concert master of the Rome Opera Company...
as the Princess, and Basil RathboneBasil RathboneSir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
as the Emperor. This was Porter's last musical, and the only one he wrote for television. Telecast on CBS.
- The videotaped television series Shirley Temple's StorybookShirley Temple's StorybookShirley Temple's Storybook is an American children's anthology series hosted and narrated by Shirley Temple. The series features adaptations of fairy tales and other family-oriented stories performed by well-known actors, although one episode, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, was...
, which ran in one form or another from 1958 to 1961, and included several dramatizations of fairy tales among its episodes.
- The live, first complete telecast of the George Balanchine NutcrackerThe Nutcracker (Balanchine)Choreographer George Balanchine's production of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker has become the most famous stage production of the ballet performed in the U.S. The Balanchine Nutcracker uses the plot of the Alexandre Dumas, père version of E.T.A...
, as a special 1958 color installment of CBS's Playhouse 90Playhouse 90Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
. Balanchine also danced the role of Drosselmeyer. There had been an earlier, heavily abridged telecast of the Tchaikovsky ballet on the program Seven Lively Arts, but the Playhouse 90 one was the first American telecast of it in a ninety-minute version.
- The 1959 shot-on-videotape live-action / marionette musical Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf , starring Art CarneyArt CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
and the Bil BairdBil BairdWilliam Britton Baird , professional name Bil Baird, but often referred to as Bill Baird, was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century.One of his better known creations was Charlemane the lion...
Marionettes, with a score based on the works of Serge Prokofiev, telecast on ABC.
All of these shows except Peter Pan, The Sleeping Beauty, The Wizard of Oz and The Nutcracker were especially created for television, and led to a sort of temporary trend for this type of entertainment. The Alice in Wonderland, although originally produced onstage, featured an almost entirely new cast in its television adaptation. Only Eva LeGallienne reprised her original stage role.
For the first telecast of The Wizard of Oz, the normally 90-minute Ford Star Jubilee was expanded to a full two hours to accommodate the entire film, which, in addition to having commercial breaks, was celebrity hosted. The main reason that CBS arranged for a host for the film was that a 101-minute motion picture was at that time not considered long enough to run in the allotted 120-minute time slot without some "padding". This was because, until about 1968, commercial
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
breaks were much shorter on television than they are now, usually lasting no more than two minutes, and there were fewer breaks during a program — perhaps eight in a two-hour span as opposed to about ten or twelve today. This telecast marked the only time that anyone actually connected with the film was selected to host it. Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
, who had played both the Cowardly Lion and farmhand Zeke in the film, the then ten-year-old Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, daughter of Wizard of Oz star 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...
, and young Oz expert Justin G. Schiller, appeared as hosts to introduce the movie. Contrary to some internet information claims, Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and the half-sister of singer and actress Liza Minnelli.-Biography:...
, Minnelli's half-sister, did not appear on the telecast, as she was only four years old at the time, although she did have her picture taken with Minnelli in a promotional photo. Unlike several of the other Oz telecasts, no stills were taken during the hosting sequences of the 1956 telecast. The practice of a show business celebrity regularly "hosting" The Wizard of Oz lasted from the film's first television showing until 1968, when the film went to NBC after being telecast on CBS nine times.
Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, the film was always telecast uncut in a two-hour time slot between 1956 and 1968, despite having commercials and hosted segments.
The day after the film's first telecast, newspapers reviewed the presentation ecstatically. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
prophetically suggested that in the future the film could be telecast annually and at an earlier time, which, of course, is exactly what happened.
From fondly remembered film to cultural icon
It was in the years following its second telecast that the fame (and even the cultural influence) of the film gradually began to grow greater than anyone connected with it had ever dreamed of. By the time of the fifth and sixth showings, cartoonist caricatures of its four leading characters - Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion - were appearing in scores of newspapers all across the U.S. in anticipation of that year's telecast of the movie. According to the 50th Anniversary book commemorating the film, these were also the years that newspaper Op-EdOp-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
columnists, who had never before written about the movie, began making references to it in their columns.
1959-1998
For telecasts from 1959 - the year of its second telecast - up until 1998, the film was always shown as a stand-alone TV specialTelevision special
A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...
instead of as part of an anthology or movie series. Between 1959 and 1968, CBS would choose its hosts from its then-current prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
lineup. In 1959, the host was Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
(The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as...
); in 1960 it was Richard Boone
Richard Boone
Richard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...
(Have Gun, Will Travel), in 1961 and 1962 it was Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
(The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....
), and from 1964 through 1967, it was Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
(The Danny Kaye Show
The Danny Kaye Show
The Danny Kaye Show is an American variety show hosted by Danny Kaye that aired on CBS from 1963 to 1967 on Wednesday nights. Directed by Robert Scheerer, the show premiered in black-and-white, but later switched to color broadcasts...
). Skelton, Boone and Van Dyke brought their then-young children along to appear in these hostings; this was CBS's way of emphasizing that the film's showing was a family event.
Although the hosting segments for the 1956 telecast of the film had to be done live, all of the others were recorded on video tape in advance of the telecasts. It is not known if any of these hosting sequences still survive. CBS and the other networks were often in the habit of erasing videotapes they felt that they did not need in order to be able to use the tape again, and a mere hosting segment for a classic film was/is considered fairly unimportant when the main attraction was the film itself.
The hosting sequences for the 1959-64 telecasts were all done in creative ways, not as the usual perfunctory introductions (Danny Kaye actually taped only one hosting segment; his hosting sequence was the only one rerun three times - for the 1965 to 1967 telecasts of the film, while Dick Van Dyke, who also hosted the film more than once, had actually videotaped two different hosting sequences for the 1961 and 1962 telecasts respectively.)
Often some humor would be incorporated into these segments, notably when a television and/or film comedian was the host. Red Skelton was seen as two characters: before the film began, he was seen in a studio set of an early twentieth-century library, in costume as a Victorian
Victorian fashion
Victorian fashion comprises the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and grew in province throughout the Victorian era and the reign of Queen Victoria, a period which would last from June 1837 to January 1901. Covering nearly two thirds of the 19th century, the 63 year reign...
-era storyteller who introduced L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
's original 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
(on which the film is based) to a young girl played by Skelton's real daughter, and at film's end, he appeared in a studio recreation of a modern living room as himself. Richard Boone, one of the three dramatic actors (as opposed to comedians) who has hosted the film, was taped on the set of his television series Have Gun, Will Travel, where he was shown in a "living room" with his real son. Dick Van Dyke was shown in what was reportedly a studio recreation of his living room, where he was seen with his children, and Danny Kaye appeared sitting on a prop toadstool against a painted backdrop of the Yellow Brick Road
Yellow Brick Road
Yellow Brick Road may refer to:*Yellow brick road, the road of yellow brick in The Wizard of OzIn music*Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an album by Elton John**"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" , a song from the album...
and the Emerald City
Emerald City
The Emerald City is the fictional capital city of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
. However, no matter how humorous they were, no directors or writers were ever credited for the hosting sequences, just as none are ever credited for the ones done prior to the showing of a film on Turner Classic Movies.
The Wizard of Oz did not become an annual television tradition immediately — only after the 1959 showing, when, because of the earlier hour at which it was shown (6:00 P.M., E.T.), more children tuned in to the broadcast, and it gained an even larger television audience than before. The 1959 telecast was especially welcomed by media critic John Crosby
John Crosby (media critic)
John Crosby was a newspaper columnist, radio-television critic, novelist and TV host. During the 1950s, he was generally regarded as the leading critic of television....
, who commented in the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
, "Television - any television - looks awfully ordinary after The Wizard of Oz".
Pre-emptions during early CBS years
Between 1959 and 1968, telecasts of the film, which at that time always took place on Sunday evenings, invariably pre-empted that week's showings of The Twentieth Century (which ran from 1957 until 1966), and LassieLassie (1954 TV series)
Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973...
(which ran from 1955 until 1974). From 1959 through 1962, they also pre-empted the sitcom Dennis the Menace, and from 1964 through 1966, in addition to Lassie and The Twentieth Century, the sitcom My Favorite Martian
My Favorite Martian
My Favorite Martian is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 29, 1963 to May 1, 1966 for 107 episodes...
, which premiered when Dennis the Menace 's run ended. Only once did they pre-empt the short-lived 1966 caveman sitcom It's About Time, which replaced My Favorite Martian. There were no pre-emptions in 1963 because the film was not televised that year. In 1967, for the first and only time, the film pre-empted the CBS family series Gentle Ben
Gentle Ben
Gentle Ben is a children's novel by author Walt Morey, first published in 1965. The book concerns the friendship between the title character, a bear, and a young boy named Mark...
, in addition to Lassie.
Conversely, then-CBS affiliate WISN-TV
WISN-TV
WISN-TV, virtual channel 12.1 , is a television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin serving as an affiliate of the ABC television network. Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin and parts of northeastern Illinois, including Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Waukesha...
in Milwaukee opted not to carry the network's yearly Oz telecast in 1961, the year that WISN began its affiliation with CBS, running Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
football instead. However, due to viewer outcry, WISN was able to get permission to run the film locally at a later date.
Years later, in 1978, after the film had returned to CBS, a computer malfunction at CBS owned-and-operated WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV, virtual channel 2 , is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV's main studios and offices are located in The Loop section of Chicago, as part of the development at Block 37, and its transmitter is atop the Willis Tower.-History:WBBM-TV traces its history...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
accidentally cut off most of the ending to that year's Oz telecast, interrupting the final minute with a commercial block that wasn't supposed to air until after the movie had ended (because the break was only 42 seconds long, no attempt was made to override the computer, for fear of making the problem worse). For several hours thereafter, the WBBM switchboards were flooded with angry calls from viewers, while those unable to get through chose to voice their displeasure through the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
and Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
newspapers.
"Wraparound" opening and closing credits
The film, as telecast on U.S. television between 1959 and 1968, was arguably given a much more elaborate TV presentation than it has received since then. It would always have special "wraparound" openingOpening credits
In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...
and closing credits
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...
segments devised by CBS, accompanied by the network's own specially recorded opening and closing music based on the film's score. For the opening "wraparound" credits, the title The Wizard of Oz and the names of its five leading actors, 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...
, Frank Morgan
Frank Morgan
Frank Morgan was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley
Jack Haley
John Joseph "Jack" Haley was an American stage, radio, and film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man and Kansas farmworker Hickory in The Wizard of Oz.-Career:...
, would first be shown in CBS's own format, while an anonymous announcer read them off and then followed this with an announcement of the film's sponsor(s): "This portion of 'The Wizard of Oz' is brought to you by...[name of sponsor mentioned]". These specially-devised opening credits would never mention that the film was made by MGM or any other studio. From 1959 to 1964, CBS created different "wraparound" credits for each showing, but because the same hosting segment - the Danny Kaye one - was shown between 1964 and 1967, audiences saw the same "wraparound" credits from 1964 until the film went to NBC.
This special CBS introduction would be followed by the host speaking about the movie for about three minutes or so. His remarks would lead directly into the actual film, beginning with all of its original 1939 opening credits
Opening credits
In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...
(which are shown against a background of moving clouds), including the MGM Leo the Lion
Leo the Lion (MGM)
Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss....
logo, the name of the film, the cast list, and the film's principal technical staff, exactly as MGM had created them, with the film's main title
Main Title
The main title is the name given on soundtrack albums to the music that is heard in a film while the opening credits are rolling. It does not refer to music playing from on-screen sources such as radios, as in the original opening credits sequence in Touch of Evil.A main title can consist of a tune...
music heard. The host would reappear just before the film's second half began, to say a few more words about it, before the telecast proceeded with the rest of the film, commercials included (The second half of the film always began with the poppy field sequence).
However, at the end of the movie, the film's closing credits, as created by MGM, would not be shown. Instead, immediately after Dorothy spoke her last line ("Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home!"), and the camera faded out on her, television viewers once again saw CBS's specially made title card The Wizard of Oz, this time accompanied by some of the film's end title music, exactly as heard on the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
. After a final commercial, the host would then be seen once again, bid farewell to the TV audience, and CBS would show their own version of the cast list which appears during the film's end credits. At the end, referring to both the film and the hosting segments, the same announcer that read off the special "wraparound" opening credits would declare that This has been a film and videotape presentation.
Impact on color television
From the beginning the film was telecast in color, although very few people owned color televisionColor television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
sets at that time. The fact that the film was telecast in color most likely seemed much more striking to home viewers in the late 1950s and early '60s, when there were still relatively few color programs on television, than it does now, when color TV is taken for granted.
Recent hosts
Because of the increase in commercial time during programs, the idea of regularly having hosts to introduce the film was permanently dropped when the film went to NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1968, where no "wraparound" sequence was shown. The presentation simply consisted of the film itself, with its original opening and closing credits, and no special NBC "wraparound" credits or hosting segments. The famous NBC peacock would be shown immediately prior to the beginning of the film, with announcer Mel Brandt
Mel Brandt
Melville Brandt was an actor and NBC staff announcer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York.Brandt joined the network around 1948. His radio announcing credits included The Adventures of Frank Merriwell, Author Meets the Critics, and The Eternal Light...
saying that "the first 22 minutes of this program [i.e. the Kansas and tornado sequences] will be shown in black-and-white", a not quite accurate statement, since the final three minutes of the film also took place in Kansas, and were at that time also shown in black-and-white, rather than in the sepia tone in which they originally had been made (the sepia was not restored to the Kansas and tornado scenes until 1989 - the film's 50th anniversary). However, one NBC telecast did feature an on-screen host: the 1970 showing, which opened with veteran actor Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
paying tribute to the recently deceased Judy Garland (a segment directed by Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...
, marking his first TV work), although this segment consisted of only a few brief remarks, while the older opening hosting segments went on for about three minutes or so.
The switch in networks resulted because CBS was unwilling to meet MGM's increased price — fostered by the film's ever increasing popularity — for renewal of the rights to telecast it. The film stayed on NBC until 1976. When CBS, realizing its error in allowing it to go to another network, bought back the rights, their viewer ratings shot up, and one executive was heard to remark, "That picture is better [for the network] than a gushing oil well".
After its 1976 return to CBS, the film was hosted on that network by a celebrity only once more, in a filmed segment featuring Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
(star of CBS's Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
) in 1990, but the CBS "wraparound" opening and closing credits were not - and have never been - revived, although, during those years, a blue card featuring a painting of a rainbow and the title The Wizard of Oz was shown on the screen while the night's pre-empted programs and the sponsors were being announced, and immediately before and after commercial breaks. Angela Lansbury also narrated a documentary about the making of the film, originally entitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 50 Years of Magic and years later retitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic. It was first shown immediately after the movie's 1990 telecast, and is included as a supplement on all the DVD releases beginning with the 1999 DVD release. Jack Haley, Jr.
Jack Haley, Jr.
Jack Haley, Jr was an American film director, producer and writer, twice winner of the Emmy Award.Haley was born in Los Angeles, the son of actor Jack Haley and his wife Florence...
, the documentary's director, was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work.
In recent years, when shown on Turner Classic Movies, The Wizard of Oz is usually hosted by Robert Osborne, though, in this case, since TCM is commercial-free, it is obviously not done in order to pad out its running time. When telecast now, the film never has any "wraparound" credits created by a network or a national television station.
On June 3, 2007, Tom Kenny
Tom Kenny
Thomas James "Tom" Kenny is an American actor, voice actor and comedian. He is especially known for his long-running-role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name, as well as the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, Gary the Snail and the French narrator based on...
, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. Much of the series centers on the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of "Bikini Bottom"...
, hosted a telecast of the film on Turner Classic Movies, as part of a special summer series of family movies.
On July 27, 2008, the film was shown twice in a row on Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
without a host, but with commercials, and with "pop-up" animated ads for other TNT programs at the bottom of the screen just before and after commercial breaks.
Opening credits as shown on TBS
Now, when the film is shown on TBSTBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
, the image sizes for the opening and closing credits are often "marginalized", so that the credits for the preceding show, or the credits or opening scene of the show following the film, may be shown alongside them.
Between November 15 and 16, 2008, the film was shown on TBS a total of three times. There was no host, and, rather than having a pop-up ad before a break, the network chose to make extremely abrupt transitions to commercials - something that had rarely, if ever, had been done before with as popular a film as The Wizard of Oz. The pop-up ads for other programs did, however, make appearances after the breaks.
Television ratings
The showing in 1983 was the 25th network prime-time showing, a record then for any film or television special. In the first nine showings, all on CBS, The Wizard of Oz gained at least 49% of the television audience. Between 1960 and 1965, the film even beat out ABC-TV's Walt Disney Presents (in 1960) and NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (from 1961 to 1965), which aired opposite the film. Between 1965 and 1967, the Disney program was not shown at all during the same week that The Wizard of Oz was telecast by CBS. The reason is unclear, but it is conceivable that NBC, which aired the Disney program at that time, had grown tired of being regularly beaten in the ratings by Oz whenever the film was telecast. When the film moved temporarily from CBS to NBC, it would frequently preempt the Disney program altogether, and when CBS bought the film back from NBC in 1976, it again began to beat Disney in the ratings. And, on one occasion, it preempted Disney yet again, after the series moved to that network in the 1980s.)Changes made in running time
From 1968 to 1984, very minor cuts were made to the film to make room for added commercial time and in order to have the film "clock in" at two hours. The film was carefully edited so that no actual dialogue or singing was removed, only moments such as camera pans and establishing shots, as well as MGM's written forewordForeword
A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...
to the film: For nearly forty years, this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart, and time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion, etc. However, it is possible that the cuts may have alienated at least some of the viewing audience, especially since they were able, starting in 1980, to see the uncut film on videocassette.
On a few occasions beginning in 1985, again because of the increased time spent on commercial breaks, the film was time-compressed to fit it into a two-hour running time without cutting it. (In "time compression", the film is run at a slightly faster speed which is supposedly undetectable, but observant viewers can apparently notice a distinct "chipmunk"-like alteration of the voices when this is done. It has been observed that film aficionados strongly oppose this method of televising a movie.) However, The Wizard of Oz is now always shown complete and at its regular speed on television, both with and without commercials. When shown with ads, the film now runs about two hours and fifteen minutes, simply because of the increase in commercial time.
March 1991 showing
The March 1991 showing was the first after the film gained protected status from the Library of Congress and the National Film Preservation Board. Networks opted to no longer shorten the film by "microcutting" a few individual moments throughout the movie as had been done from the late 1960s to the early 1980s to make room for commercials and keep it in a two hour broadcast. This extended the running time of the film from 8 P.M to 10:07 P.M., and sometimes even longer, depending on the amount of time spent on commercials. It was one of the first 50 films selected for this protection.The move to cable
From 1959 to 1991, the film was shown on television only once a year, except, as previously noted, in 1963, when it was not shown at all. From 1968 to 1991, whether telecast on CBS or NBC, the film was always shown during or just before the springSpring (season)
Spring is one of the four temperate seasons, the transition period between winter and summer. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and broadly to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth. The specific definition of the exact timing of "spring" varies according to local climate, cultures and...
months. In 1991, it was shown twice during the year for the first time. The reason for this was that CBS wanted to switch the date of the film's TV showing so that it would be run around Thanksgiving rather than late winter/early spring. 1991 also marked the first time since 1956 that the film was shown in November. This also happened in 1993, when the film was telecast in both February and November of that year. The film was not shown on television at all in 1992, 1995 and 1997, marking the first time since 1963 that a year was skipped in showings of the film. Turner, which owned most of the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television library at the time (now owned by Warner Bros.), began moving to make its properties exclusive to Turner-owned outlets in the late 1990s; as such, in 1998, The Wizard of Oz made its last appearance on CBS, moving exclusively to Turner-owned properties the next year.
2000 marked the first time that the film was shown on U.S. television during the summer. 2002 marked an unusual frequency of showings when, for the first time, it was shown on television five times in one year. And in 2003, if one counts up all the showings on the several Turner-owned networks, it was shown a total of seven times within one year - a far cry from the once annual-only telecasts.
On November 6, 2011, TBS became the American television network on which The Wizard of Oz has been shown most often, when the film had its 32nd showing on that network, finally breaking CBS's long-held record of thirty-one showings. CBS's thirty-one showings of Oz was once an all-time television record for prime time telecasts of a feature film on a commercial television network. It was broken only as recently as 2004, by ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's annual TV airings of Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
's The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic film that dramatized the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the Hebrew-born Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince, becomes the deliverer of the Hebrew slaves. The film, released by Paramount Pictures in VistaVision on October 5, 1956, was directed by...
(1956), which that network has been telecasting since 1973. However, despite being shown annually, The Ten Commandments has not had nearly as much impact when telecast as has The Wizard of Oz. As opposed to the forty-two years it took for CBS to reach a total of thirty-one telecasts of Oz, TBS, by frequently showing it several times in one week instead of once annually, has surpassed CBS's record in a mere twelve years.
Differences between network and cable showings
In addition to being shown on cable several times in one week, another difference between showings on NBC, CBS, the WB network, and cable channels is that when the film was shown on CBS and NBC, it was always presented as a "special" instead of just a televised film, no matter what time of year. This meant that the film would pre-empt two hours or more of regular television programming on the specific network which showed it just for that one night. Today, especially when shown on Turner Classic Movies, it is frequently presented as just another film in a time slot already reserved for the showing of a movie, not a true television specialTelevision special
A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...
, and no longer just annually. And it is often shown twice in a row on the same day, so those who missed the first showing might catch the second. This was something that television executives would have considered unthinkable during the years that the film was annually telecast.
Some might argue that the method of presenting Oz as an annual television special gave the telecasts a certain aura which today's showings of the film do not retain, especially since it has been easily available on video in one form or another since 1980. Promos for the CBS and NBC showings during the 1960s would begin airing on television as far as two weeks in advance of that year's telecast; today's television showings of the film receive little, if any, advance publicity at all. The 1960's CBS promos, especially, de-emphasized the fact that The Wizard of Oz was actually a theatrical motion picture being shown on television; the film was treated as if it were a beloved special program rather than a mere film. On the major commercial networks, the film was never termed a "CBS Movie Special" or an "NBC Movie Special", as movie specials shown on those networks are frequently termed, but as simply The Wizard of Oz - the only identification that viewers needed to know what was being referred to.
In November 2007, the film was accorded the unusual honor of being shown literally simultaneously on two Turner
Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. (commonly known as Turner Entertainment Co.) is an American...
-owned channels, TBS and TNT.
Film size
One of the advantages of The Wizard of Oz for television sets made prior to the HDTV era is that it was not made for the wide screen like today's films. This means that the film's visual dimensions when shown on an analog TV set were almost exactly the same as they were when the film was originally shown in theatres. The 1955 and 1998 re-releases, however, were matted in movie theatres to produce a fake widescreen effect.Today, when shown on an HD channel, the film is pillarboxed so that its aspect ratio is preserved. On DVD, the film has always been issued only in its original 1939 aspect ratio, despite the "fake widescreen" 1998 theatrical re-release.
TNT showed the film in High-Definition in November 2006.
Outside the United States
The movie has also been shown on television successfully in Great BritainGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and is shown every year in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, but it has not become the television phenomenon there that it has in the U.S.
Broadcast television networks and airdates in the U.S.
Times are mostly Eastern Standard Time (taken from TV Guide and from The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History). However, the late spring and summer showings are all Eastern Daylight Time.- 1956 - CBS - Saturday, November 3–9:00 p.m.
-
- The film's first showing on television. It was shown in color although very few people owned color TV sets, and the Kansas sequences were shown in black-and-white. The film would not be shown on television again until 1959. This marked the only time that CBS or any other commercial network began the film at such a late hour. Future showings would begin earlier in order to allow children to see it more easily (although, beginning in the late 1970's, CBS's showings of it began to be scheduled at 8 pm, the same hour that showings of it between 1959 and 1968 would end). In addition, the prime time hour generally given to affiliates for local programming would be taken back in order to run the movie early. This practice continued until the film was sold to NBC.
- 1959 - CBS - Sunday, December 13 - 6:00 p.m.
- The first of the film's annual showings. It was the success of this telecast, which gained a wider audience than the first, that persuaded CBS to make the film an annual tradition on television.
- 1960 - CBS - Sunday, December 11 - 6:00 p.m.
- 1961 - CBS - Sunday, December 10 - 6:00 p.m.
- 1962 - CBS - Sunday, December 9 - 6:00 p.m.
- 1964 - CBS - Sunday, January 26 - 6:00 p.m.
- The reason that the film did not air in December 1963 has never been stated as far as is known, but some say that it was because the nation was still in mourning over U.S. President John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's assassination, which had occurred on November 22, 1963; others say room needed to be made for more Christmas themed specials and that the movie would fit in better during January. For whatever reason, the movie continued to air early rather than late in the year from 1964 until 1991.- 1965 - CBS - Sunday, January 17 - 6:00 p.m.
- 1966 - CBS - Sunday, January 9 - 6:00 p.m.
- 1967 - CBS - Sunday, February 12 - 6:00 p.m.
- Last airing on CBS until 1976. Would be shown on NBC beginning in 1968; at this time, the showings were moved from midwinter to late winter/early spring.
- 1968 - NBC - Saturday, April 20 - 7:00 p.m.
- First showing by NBC, in Spring rather than Winter.
- 1969 - NBC - Sunday, March 9 - 7:00 p.m.
- 1970 - NBC - Sunday, March 15 - 7:00 p.m.
- 1971 - NBC - Sunday, April 18 - 7:00 p.m.
- 1972 - NBC - Tuesday, March 7 - 7:00 p.m.
- The first time that the film aired in the middle of the week, rather than on a weekend. This would not happen again until 1979. The network also took back the prime time access hour from local stations in order for children to see it more easily.
- 1973 - NBC - Sunday, April 8 - 7:00 p.m.
- 1974 - NBC - Sunday, March 10 - 7:00 p.m.
- Delayed from February 24 due to a breaking news story of some sort. NBC immediately announced that rather than start the movie late, it would be easier to push the showing back a few weeks and run it early in the evening.
- 1975 - NBC - Easter Sunday, March 30 - 7:00 p.m.
- 1976 - CBS - Sunday, March 14 - 7 p.m.
- The year that The Wizard Of Oz returned to CBS. It remained there for twenty-two more years, a likely record in those years for a film's showings on one network. Beginning in 1991 The Wizard of Oz would move back and forth from spring to late fall, rather than airing in winter to early spring. Another change was that CBS now would no longer begin the movie before normal prime time. Before 1976, when run on a day other than Sunday, NBC would take back the 7 p.m. Eastern / 6 p.m. Central timeslots from affiliates to run the movie early enough so children could see it before bedtime. Also, prior to 1968, CBS always took the 6 p.m. hour to run the movie early. Logic was that times had changed and children now stayed up a little later than they had in the past. From now on, if shown in a Sunday 6 to 8 or 7 to 9 pm time slot on CBS, the film would preempt 60 Minutes60 Minutes60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, so, in 1978, CBS moved the showing of the film to 8 pm, and then, in 1979, began to show it on other days of the week instead of on Sunday. (As of 2010, 60 Minutes continues to air in the same Sunday 7 p.m. time slot on CBS.) However, so that Oz would not interfere with syndicated programs such as evening game shows, CBS decided to now always begin the film at 8 pm., despite the fact that this would make the film end at 10 pm or later, a rather late hour for young children to still be up. This marked a complete change of attitude from previous years, when The Wizard of Oz was considered such a surefire ratings winner that no syndicated program would have ever been considered important enough to interfere with the film's scheduled time slot.- 1977 - CBS - Sunday, March 20 - 7 p.m.
- The last time that the film preempted 60 Minutes.
- 1978 - CBS - Easter Sunday, March 26 - 8 p.m.
- 1979 - CBS - Friday, March 23 - 8 p.m.
- 1980 - CBS - Friday, March 7 – 8 p.m.
- 1981 - CBS - Friday, February 27 - 8 p.m.
- 1982 - CBS - Saturday, March 27 - 8 p.m.
- 1983 - CBS - Friday, March 18 - 8 p.m.
- 1984 - CBS - Friday, March 30 - 8 p.m.
- 1985 - CBS - Friday, March 1 – 8 p.m.
- 1986 - CBS - Saturday, February 15 - 8 p.m.
- 1987 - CBS - Friday, March 6 – 8 p.m.
- 1988 - CBS - Wednesday, February 24 - 8:30 p.m.
- Delayed due to a Presidential news conference.
- 1989 - CBS - Sunday, March 19 - 8 p.m.
- 1990 - CBS - Tuesday, February 20 - 8 p.m.
- 1991 - CBS - Tuesday, March 19 - 8 p.m.
- Soundtrack remastered in stereo using CBS StereoSound system.
- 1991 - CBS - Wednesday, November 27 - 8 p.m.
- The first time the film aired twice in the same year. This was done to switch it to a November date.
- 1993 - CBS - Friday, February 26 - 8 p.m.
- 1993 - CBS - Wednesday, November 11 - 8 p.m.
- Again, shown twice in the same year to switch it to a November date.
- 1994 - CBS - Thursday, November 23 - 8 p.m.
- 1996 - CBS - Friday, May 10 - 8 p.m.
- This was the same day that the new film Twister, which contains plenty of references to The Wizard of Oz, was released to theatres. The first time that the film aired close to summertime.
- 1998 - CBS - Friday, May 8 - 8 p.m.
- This was the last airing on CBS - so far. Beginning in 1999, Turner Broadcasting took charge of telecasting the film. The 1998 telecast featured brief clips of behind-the-scenes information about how the film was made, shown before and after commercial breaks.
- 2002 - WB - Sunday, November 24 - 7 p.m.
- First broadcast TV airing since 1998. WB continued CBS's long-abandoned practice of scheduling the film at an earlier hour so that children would not have to stay up too late in order to see it.
- 2003 - WB - Sunday, December 7 - 7 p.m.
- 2004 - WB - Sunday, December 19 - 7 p.m.
- 2005 - WB - Sunday, December 18 - 7 p.m.
- Last broadcast (as opposed to cable) airing - so far.
- The film's first showing on television. It was shown in color although very few people owned color TV sets, and the Kansas sequences were shown in black-and-white. The film would not be shown on television again until 1959. This marked the only time that CBS or any other commercial network began the film at such a late hour. Future showings would begin earlier in order to allow children to see it more easily (although, beginning in the late 1970's, CBS's showings of it began to be scheduled at 8 pm, the same hour that showings of it between 1959 and 1968 would end). In addition, the prime time hour generally given to affiliates for local programming would be taken back in order to run the movie early. This practice continued until the film was sold to NBC.
Cable showings
November 21, 1999, TBSJuly 3, 2000, TCM
-
- The first time that the film was televised during the actual summer months. From now on, in addition to airing during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or Easter seasons, it would become a Fourth of July tradition.
November 19 and 25, 2000, TNT
-
- The first time that the film was telecast twice only six days apart.
July 4, 2001, TCM
December 1 and 2, 2001, TNT
-
- The first time that the film was telecast two days in a row.
July 4, 2002, TCM
November 28, 2002, TBS
December 8, 13, and 25, 2002, TNT
-
- These 2002 airdates mark the first (and so far, the only) time that the film was telecast five times in one year.
July 5 and 6, 2003, TCM
November 16 and 21, 2003, TBS
December 13 and 14, 2003, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2004, TCM
December 8 and 12, 2004, TNT
November 19, 20, and 24, 2004, TBS
July 3 and 4, 2005, TCM
November 11, 12, and 13, 2005, TBS
July 3 and 4, 2006, TCM
November 10, 11, and 12, 2006, TBS
December 11 and 17, 2006, TNT
June 3, 2007, TCM
November 9, 10, and 11, 2007, TBS
July 27, 2008, TNT
December 20 and 21, 2008, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2009, TCM
September 27, 2009, TBS
November 13, 14, 15, and 22, 2009, TBS
December 19, 20, and 27, 2009, TNT
July 2 and 3, 2010, TCM
November 26, 27, and 28, 2010, TBS
December 17 and 18, 2010, TBS
December 25, 2010, TBS
-
- The first-ever Christmas Day telecast of the film in the U.S.
February 12, 2011, TCM
-
- Shown for the first time as part of the annual 31 Days of Oscar31 Days of Oscar31 Days of Oscar is a programming franchise aired each Oscar season by the U.S. and Asian Turner Classic Movies cable networks during the month of the Academy Awards...
festival.
- Shown for the first time as part of the annual 31 Days of Oscar
April 17, 2011, TBS
April 24, 2011, Cartoon Network
-
- Cartoon Network premiere
November 4, 5, and 6, 2011, TBS