Journey Back to Oz

IMDb Rating
	6.1

Journey Back to Oz is an animated sequel to the MGM film The Wizard of Oz that was released in 1974 by Filmation. It serves as an alternate Oz film with elements taken from The Marvelous Land of Oz.

Liza Minnelli provides the voice of Dorothy Gale, who was played by her mother Judy Garland in 1939. Margaret Hamilton, formerly the Wicked Witch of the West, returns as the voice of Aunt Em

Unlike the MGM film, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have one farmhand who does not have an alter ego in Oz, although his voice actor Larry Storch provides the Tin Woodman's singing voice only.

Plot

Dorothy and Toto return to the Magical Land of Oz. The Scarecrow is now king of the Emerald City and an old Witch named Mombi, cousin of the Wicked Witches of the West and East, is trying to take over Oz and overthrow the Scarecrow with her army of angry green elephants.

Cast

It featured a distinguished vocal cast:

• Liza Minnelli as Dorothy Gale
• Mickey Rooney as the Scarecrow
• Danny Thomas as the Tin Woodman (speaking) 
• Milton Berle as the Cowardly Lion (speaking) 
• Rise Stevens as Glinda
• Ethel Merman as Mombi
• Margaret Hamilton as Aunt Em
• Paul Ford as Uncle Henry
• Larry Storch as Amos (Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's farmhand) / Tin Woodman (singing) 
• Jack E. Leonard as the Signpost
• Paul Lynde as Pumpkinhead
• Herschel Bernardi as Woodenhead Stallion III / Cowardly Lion (singing) 
• Mel Blanc as Mombi's crow 

Songs

The soundtrack was released six years later in 1980. The songs were:

1. A Faraway Land: Dorothy
2. Signpost Song: The Signpost
3. Keep A Happy Thought: Dorothy
4. The Horse on the Carousel: Woodenhead Stallion III
5. B-R-A-N-E: Scarecrow
6. An Elephant Never Forgets: Mombi
7. H-E-A-R-T: Tin Man
8. N-E-R-V-E: Cowardly Lion
9. You Have Only You: Glinda
10. If You're Gonna be a Witch - Be a Witch: Mombi
11. Return to the Land of Oz March: Dorothy
12. That Feeling for Home: Dorothy

Trivia

• Princess Snow-White from the 1993 film Happily Ever After also made by Filmation Studios bears a striking resemblance in her design to Dorothy's animated counterpart in that film.

• Jack Pumpkinhead is a primary character, but is only ever referred to as "Pumpkinhead" and never as Jack.

• Woodenhead Stallion III may be loosely based on the Sawhorse.

• The Signpost is similar to the Postman who appears in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Purple Prince of Oz, however it is unlikely that the animated character was directly inspired by this obscure piece of trivia.

• Actors Mickey Rooney, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, and Paul Ford all appeared in the 1963 comedy film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

• Rooney appeared together with Judy Garland in a number of movies when they were teens in the 1930s.

• Mel Blanc, the voice of Mombi's crow, voiced the Sawhorse in Shirley Temple's Land of Oz (1960).
• Mombi is indeed the cousin of the Wicked Witches of the West and East and the Jester, Singra is their cousin as well, it is classified that Mombi and Singra are sisters.

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