Toto is listed in the end credits as being played by Toto, when he was actually played by a female dog named Terry.
Dedication right after opening credits - "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. To those of you who have been faithful to it in return ...and to the Young in Heart ...we dedicate this picture."
The Oz characters that Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Margaret Hamilton play are not actually listed in the cast list at the end; only their Kansas counterparts are. However, Billie Burke (who plays only Glinda the Good Witch) and Pat Walshe, who plays only Nikko, the Head Monkey, *are* listed in the closing credits as having played those characters.
The credits say "Photographed in Technicolor", not "Color Sequences by Technicolor", thus making it seem as if the entire film were made in color. It is not known if this was deliberately done to enhance the surprise when the picture turns into full three-strip Technicolor, but it is quite possible. Posters at the time also advertised the film as being in Technicolor, but made no mention of sepia tint or black-and-white. The advertisement for the film's first telecast, however, did say "in color and black-and-white" (the Kansas sequences were shown on TV in black-and-white, not sepia, until the 1990 telecast, when they were restored).
In the opening credits, The Singer Midgets, who portray the Munchkins, are not billed under their real name, but as simply The Munchkins. In the cast list at the end, they are billed as The Singer Midgets. None of the actors who play Munchkins are given an individual credit. In the posters and advertising publicity for the film, the group was billed as The Munchkins.
Clara Blandick, who plays Aunt Em, Pat Walshe, who plays Nikko, and Toto are not listed at all in the opening credits, only in the closing ones.
As in some other M-G-M musicals of the '30s and '40s, the heading "Musical Program" appears at the top of the card listing all the music credits (arranger, composer, lyricist, conductor, choreographer, and so on).
Contribute to this page
