Tales of The Wizard of Oz (1961)

A 150 episode series of shorts (often five minutes or less) based on _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ by L. Frank Baum. This series portrayed the Munchkins as crowds of globs, named the Scarecrow Socrates and made him a fool, called the Tin Woodman Rusty and made him a bully, and called the Lion Dandy, and made him seem like one. The Wizard can only do card tricks and speaks like W.C. Fields. A constant threat is posed by the solid green Wicked Witch of the West, who tries to make the dragonet Desmond follow her orders, when he has no malice toward the friends. The show chronicles a long stay in the land of Oz. Whereas in the book the Wizard could supply something to the three in one day apiece, here he tells Rusty to grow a heart with ruby red rutabaga seeds. Dorothy is also pressuring the Wizard to send her home. This took many days for him to figure out in the book, but here it is drawn out passed all plausible competence. This was the earliest work by Rankin and Bass.