Hey, weirdos. It's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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Weirdos! Happy holidays, and you guys, thank you so much for making us the most listened to show on Amazon Music.
You guys fucking rule.
That was unreal. Truly rule.
And you know what? But growing up, one of our holiday traditions together was watching The Wizard of Oz as a whole fan.
So we couldn't think of a more fitting way to spend today than to revisit the fan favorite episode 281, The Dark Side of the Wizard of Oz.
Take a trip with us over the actual rainbow and hear about its unsettling history and the actual peril that the actors went through to create one of history's greatest classic films. Enjoy the holiday break, you guys, and we will be back on Thursday.
oh ho ho merry ashmas hey weirdos I'm ash and I'm elena and this is growing your own lupus i'm totally kidding it's actually morbid it is uh but i was just watching a tiktok about growing your own loofah and i really want to grow my own loofah now ash got real invested you know how some tiktoks are one minute and some are like 45 minutes and a half yeah i was on one of those ones that's 45 and a half minutes not actually i think it's like the max is three but I was gonna say I think it's three but it feels long just being hyperbolic but anyways I just saw one of those really long tiktoks and this guy
was growing his own loofah he grew a couple of them and then he was like peeling it which looked really satisfying like I was like I want to do that and then he took the whole thing out and it was like gigantic I was like you could cut that in half put one in your kitchen sink put one in your shower and I was really thinking about that but then I was like kind of looks like it would hurt on your body when I say she had all of those thoughts and she had them all out loud I can vouch for that most of my thoughts happen out loud when I'm at Elena it was a fun little process to watch it I always love
someone like having an argument with themselves and then like coming to a conclusion with both sides of their brain like both sides of the argument that happened in their brain come together I don't know if I even came to a conclusion you didn't believe in you we had to start working so i'll come to a conclusion later today and i guess i'll let you guys know next episode yeah if i'm gonna grow my own loofah or not because what we've come down to i think is that you were concerned it wasn't gonna feel good and then you said on my skin no i said on my body on my body i don't think it would feel
good on my body like it looks rough like it looks like i'd be like it looks almost like um like a pumice stone it does which feels good on your foot but you're not gonna pumice stone your shoulder exfoliation station is where we are.
But like these days, I guess you're not even supposed to exfoliate as much as I used to think.
I feel like everything's stupid.
Yeah, me as well. But anyways, I don't even know the climate in which you're supposed to grow a loofah.
So I guess we can just move on.
Yeah, we'll move on from this.
We'll figure it out.
Don't worry. We'll update you, let you know.
Are you on drugs right now?
Are you? All right.
I'm like, no, I'm on life.
And the answer is no, we are not.
They know to to drugs but you know it's just it's the holiday week it's the holiday season it's almost thanksgiving i'm gonna eat a lot of food i'm excited i'm gonna be cooking today like crazy yeah i'm hosting doing thanksgiving i'm doing thanksgiving so it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting i'm particularly excited about your pumpkin and sage pasta your are you making the pesto bread that i requested yes i am because i got all the stuff to make it excited about that and i'm honestly two more things i'm also really excited about the sausage stuffing oh yeah and um the streusel the sweet potato
sweet potato casserole yeah you're all invited see you there and you know what i'll post some recipes because they're all recipes i found on like the interwebs so i can run recipes in case anybody thinks any of that sounds good it does uh but yeah i'm excited i love i like cooking a turkey I like doing a little herb butter rub underneath the skin all up in there how do you feel like ripping out the guts into like the cavity oh I mean that's my job it is but how do you feel about it the same I feel about my job oh yeah yeah I thought you meant like it's your job because you're cooking no I mean like
it literally is my job to go into like cavities that no one else wants to go into yeah describe your job in a really weird way you go first I guess yeah there it is I'll go first I cut dead things off of people yeah so it's just kind of might as well it's a turkey it's easier I think do you put um like lemons or like oh yeah you gotta let me let you let y 'all know in case you're wondering you got to put a little citrus in there that's what I thought a little bouquet of herbs maybe some thyme some rosemary some parsley yeah you gotta you gotta really get the aromatics in there you also rub it in salt
right yeah that's a brining process some people dry brine some people don't brine at all it's really up to everybody i i've brined before do you even brine bro she doesn't even brine here did you even brine bro yeah and you want to put some like garlic and onion in there like really get it get going do you ever uh do you put a shallot in there yeah oh i love we love a shallot we love a jean shallot in there and the really important thing is basting my dudes baste that gosh darn bird that's important even if you cook like a chicken yeah baste the hell out of it baste forever it makes a difference
even when i make like chicken breastises yeah i baste them you gotta baste that yeah it works but you know that's been a thanksgiving with us lupus and Thanksgiving's with Ash and Elena so we're right on target here I think we're right on brand true crime true crime you know luffas and true crime and turkeys uh but yeah today's also gonna be kind of like a different episode a little bit it's like we're in the dark spookiness but this is like a different one I feel we never really done anything like this particularly I'm very excited I'm pretty excited so let me we'll start this off the proper
way yeah so I Elena Elena.
That's you. That's me.
I have been obsessed with The Wizard of Oz since I was a little little girl.
I used to literally have to dress up like Dorothy every time I watched it.
I had the ruby red slippers, had the outfit, my mom would braid my hair.
I know every line of that movie I watched a hundred thousand times.
It's adorable. So that was, like, my jam when I was little.
And I was was always wondering when i should allow the girls to get into it because like i'm weird and like i i watched a lot of shit that i was like wow i can't believe that didn't traumatize such as lab but maybe it did i don't know the girls have watched labyrinths and they love it but uh but but wizard of oz you know some people i remember drew was saying the flying monkeys freaked him out and i remember john was like no the flying monkeys are like scary and i was like i don't know guys yeah it's funny because i don't know men that they were that's how i usually feel just kidding um i always
thought that like they were a little bit scary but then they are in watching it with the girls i realized i've only seen it once that's wild yeah that's really why i only watched it one time and then it's not that i didn't like it i think i just like didn't really get that either you vibe with it or you don't yeah like it's it's a i think it's like one of those things you watch it and you're either like wow this is my entire personality now or you're like yeah maybe i'll watch it again someday yeah see i watched coyote ugly when i was little and And I felt like that was my entire personality.
And I still do. That's who we are as people.
That is. You're the Wizard of Oz and I'm Coyote Ugly.
Yeah. I think those honestly describe us pretty well.
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I was worried.
I didn't know. I was like, is five good?
And then this past Halloween, a couple of people in their dance class and their school had Dorothy costumes.
And I was like, oh.
And they were like, what's that about?
Oh, people are watching Wizard of Oz.
But I was like, I don't know.
And they came home one day and were like, I really liked that outfit.
Yeah. Who's Dorothy?
can you so I started explaining it to them and this is how I usually introduce movies that I'm not quite sure if they're ready for yet like Labyrinth I did this too we talk about it a lot talk about like the plot we talk about it we talk about the story and then what I'll do is I'll show them little clips of it every now and then I'll be like oh look at this fun clip of them in the scary forest with the with the winged monkeys and I'm like do you like that and they're like that's cool and I was like all right we're here so after a few days of that I was like let's do this we had but they were so excited.
We sat down as a family.
We watched The Wizard of Oz.
I was in my glory like I was when we watched Labyrinth.
Those are my favorite things about being a parent is showing them those things, because you're like, oh, I want you to love it.
Because you relive your childhood, the happiness and memories from your childhood.
You see it through their eyes.
And so we sat down.
We watched it. They adored it.
They've watched it how many times since then?
Probably 100 times, and it's only been two weeks.
like i feel like a terrible aunt but yesterday one of them was like tt will you watch that with me and i was like oh you want to watch like anything else yeah you're like i literally can meanwhile i'm like let's watch it again but and of course while we're watching it i immediately was like guys who's your favorite like you gotta have a favorite of the gang you know so and i knew it i knew that my little feral middle child was gonna love the cowardly lion yep because she She herself is a lion.
She loves lions. Not cowardly, but a lion.
Not cowardly at all.
And she loves lions.
Oldest, I knew she was going to dig the scarecrow.
I just had a feeling.
Yeah, kind vibes. Yeah, she likes that whole vibe.
He had the leader of the pack.
And they both love Dorothy.
They think she's like the coolest. That just beats me.
And my littlest one just loved the whole thing.
She didn't know what to do.
So we got in the discussion of, I was like, you know, when I was little, I was literally in love with the Tin Man.
tinman yeah like in love with the tinman my mom can tell you I used to be like can I marry the tinman and mom was like you can't but like that's a nice thought and I don't know what it is and I've never really like fully thought about it like and I think it's just now it's because before it was like you're little and you're like I love the tinman whatever you move on you grow up and all of a sudden watching it with the girls again I'm like suddenly like you don't move on or grow up I didn't move on from that because I still think the tinman's hot what's that about me Like, I was watching and I
was like, no, I'm still, like, really attracted to the Tin Man.
He's from our neck of the woods, you said, right?
He is. A lot of them are from Boston.
Hell yeah, brother.
Like, the Wicked Witch, Margaret Hamilton, she was from Boston.
Oh, shit, I didn't know that.
Edit. Margaret Hamilton is not from Boston.
I just wanted her to be.
Sorry about that. Uh, Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow, Boston.
Um, I actually think, I'm not sure if Bert, I think his name is Lair.
I'm not really sure.
I'll get to it in a second.
but the guy who played the uh Cowardly Lion he might have been from around here too a lot of them are from here and the tin man you said was from door man is from Dorchester I love that so and he has like a thick Boston accent and I think that's like ingrained in my brain to just automatically like connect to that's the most attractive like when he says like the tin man forgot to get the tin uh the tin maker forgot to give me a hot uh -huh and they both go no hot no hot no hot just like yes i love you like swoon and then i realized that not only do i love the tin man but i love jack haley the man who played
the tin man like it was a big realization week for me like i really had like a i was it was a journey it was an eat pray love situation i just like had to go through it god that movie i never saw that movie or read that book but i feel like it's a journey of sorts so it's a journey watching the movie because it's 42 years long yeah this was was my, like, my journey through why do I find the Tin Man attractive.
And I realized that I find Jack Haley attractive.
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you should do one of those tick tocks where it's like show your childhood crush and then show who you married it's like just is there any is there any resemblance like any is the 10 minute the 10 minutes pretty tall he is he's tall he's kind he's a hot and eyes he has a hat he has no hat but he has one he has hot you know yeah and he's got he's got various expressive eyes i wonder if he has a nice jaw you do love a nice great jaw i definitely have a type that's for sure we we all all know that but so this is this is what brought me this big long story that I just like feel like you all needed
to know because we I also had like a really fun conversation on Twitter with a bunch of listeners about this and yeah they were saying a ton of them were into the tin man and they were like oh my god I thought it was alone and then a lot of people were like I was a scarecrow girl so like we got or like I was a scarecrow guy and we got like this big discussion of like why the hell do we find these yeah and it was really fun so like thanks for getting into that discussion with me and it made me think about the fact that wait i remember coming upon all these weird dark like fucked up things that happened
during the making of this movie which is funny that like we're all so in love with like that well those of us who are like into this movie and find it beloved like you can just be like well that was the 1930s i don't know like that was going on but when you really look into it you're like damn the making of this movie was like a harrowing adventure do But do you know what?
I feel like, it's not that I don't like The Wizard of Oz, but I feel like I feel that when I watch it.
Yeah, there's a lot.
I feel the darkness.
There's some darkness.
Yeah, the first time I watched it, and I guess the only time until recently, I was just like, oh.
It didn't feel good about it.
Yeah, see, I felt great about it.
I apparently am not intuitive to the darkness, but now I'm like, wow, there's a lot of dark shit.
It's my empathetic ways.
So what we're going to do today is we're going to go through all the fucked up dark secrets behind The Wizard of Oz.
I'm excited. Because some people have actually asked us to do this in the past. And recently when I mentioned the girls were watching it, somebody was like, you gotta do, you gotta do the weird stuff behind The Wizard of Oz.
Behind, it's like the man behind the curtain.
And actually, I think it was Michael from the Spookies podcast that was like, you guys should cover that.
And I was like, little do you know.
Little do you know.
Working on that now.
So let's start. We're going to go through some of these things.
So I'm just gonna go like list by list, but we're really gonna get into them Okay, let's go So the first thing we're gonna talk about, because it's the most important, is the Tin Man makeup Obviously Jack Haley There is a big, long, very long -standing, like, legend, myth, rumor that is untrue That John even thought was true That the Tin Man, the original Tin Man who played him, died because of the makeup they put on him that's a big long legend of this movie that people are like well the original tin man died from the makeup and they had to replace him no that didn't happen in fact john used it
because i met when we were watching it i mentioned how like i was like oh my god swoon tin man and he was like too bad what happened to him huh like he made a joke like that's too bad and i was like nothing happened to him and he was like what do you mean i was like let me tell you a story Oh, sorry.
Nothing happened. So something did happen to the original Tin Man, but it's not what we think.
So Jack Haley was not the original Tin Man.
Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the—actually, not even the Tin Man, the Scarecrow.
Oh. And Ray Bolger, who is the Scarecrow in the movie, was originally cast as the Tin Man.
So like swippity -swoppity.
So at some point, they decided to switch roles.
because I think Ray came out and he said that he really felt he was better suited for the role of Scarecrow and he like just really liked that part and he thought he'd play it better.
He does he does a great Scarecrow.
And he is like it wouldn't have worked switched.
No. So we have Buddy Ebsen who is like in the Beverly Hillbillies he was like a very well -known comedic actor all that good stuff like everybody knew who he was at the time.
He was cast as the Tin Man.
So Ebsen started rehearsals and the wardrobe fittings for his new role and everything was going fine with wardrobe everything he said in fact he said quote I was a guinea pig they didn't know how to simulate the tin man's garments so I found myself doing tests with clothes made of real tin and clothes made of silver paper and clothes made out of cardboard covered with silver cloth the makeup was just as bad try this try that in the end they glued a cap on my head and covered it with glued on and covered it and glued on a rubber nose and a rubber chin and then covered the whole thing with clown
white makeup and then powdered aluminum dust onto my face and head oh so yeah everything's going fine no problems here i don't see anything in there that could go awry no so everything was fine he was covered with aluminum dust every day and that was fine he had recorded every line of the tin man songs and when they began filming so he was already he had all the songs recorded everything was ready to go things went well until october 13th 1938 which was only nine days after they started filming ebsen suddenly said i'm feeling horrific and he was having labored breathing he was having chest pains his arms
and legs were cramping and and, like, just, like, like, completely cringing up.
He could barely walk.
He was, like, passing out, and he said, he was quoted as saying, quote, one night after dinner, I took a breath, and nothing happened.
They got an ambulance and had me go down to Good Samaritan for a couple weeks.
My lungs were coated with that aluminum dust they had been powdering on my face.
Oh, my God. He was blue and barely breathing when he arrived.
That's so scary. His lungs were coated with aluminum.
powder. He was put in an iron lung.
Dude was in an iron lung and spent weeks in the hospital recovering.
Then after that he had to spend more than a month recovering at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego.
He had to like just lay in bed for weeks.
Oh god. Now this is what's nuts.
Everyone at the MGM studio producing the film was just pissed.
MGM got pissed about like a lot of things back in the day that were actually their fault.
Like I'm sorry what?
They were furious that he He was missing filming and literally demanded him back on set.
That's cute. He was literally dying of respiratory failure in an iron lung.
And they were calling the hospital saying he needs to be back on set.
Yeah. Well, he's in an iron lung right now.
Yeah. He can't come to the phone right now.
He's in an iron lung.
Like, I'm sorry. Like Taylor Swift remix.
It's wild. And he was quoted as saying, it seemed they couldn't understand that an actor could get sick.
They were furious. hilarious murvin leroy kept and he was like the head of the studio kept calling the hospital and saying he can't be in bed he's due on set and jack dawn called me to tell me i couldn't possibly be sick because he had used aluminum dust pure aluminum dust on my face so they're saying you can't know it's not they're trying to cover their ass too but they're like no no it can't be the aluminum dust because it's pure you're like that's actually exactly why i'm so sick right now Well, and that's what's crazy is at the time they did think pure aluminum dust was pretty fine.
Wow. In fact, I found a paper published in the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy.
You know it, right?
Yeah, I read that at night.
Yeah, it's a really good one.
To fall asleep. There was a period of time between about 1943 and 1979 where people who worked in mines, I almost just said miners, but I thought you guys would confuse that and be like people under the age of what?
Like mine workers, miners.
You get it now. They were literally forced.
This is wild to me.
This is such a dark thing in history.
They were literally forced to inhale aluminum dust as an experimental medical treatment.
And a preventative measure to stop a disease of the lungs called silicosis.
So not only were they breathing in the fumes from mining.
Mining. But also they were like, hey, can you sniff some of this?
It's an experiment.
Oh, wait until you hear how they did it.
So silicosis is a lung disease that's caused by long -term inhalation of crystalline silica dust or the particles.
And these are found in a lot of environmental structures like stone, rock, clay, things that miners are working with.
Miners who were diagnosed with this would at first just find themselves having this, like, nasty cough all the time.
like it's almost like black lung kind of thing and they would have shortness of breath and it really isn't diagnosed for like years usually all i'm thinking of right now is zoolander right when he says like i think i've got the black lung pop you just like looked like have you even did the fucking hand it's so good it is zoolander's the best oh i tried not to like it when i was younger but But it's funny.
But it would be found on chest x -rays, like, years later.
So what would happen was these employers would blow this finely powdered version of aluminum dust called McIntyre powder into the changing rooms of the miners, and they did this through the fucking air systems. So they would just be in their changing area, and there's aluminum dust particles being blown in through all the air ducts.
For experimental purposes.
Now, in this paper, in that journal, this paper is called Trading One Risk for Another, Consequences of the Unauthenticated Treatment and Prevention of Silicosis in Ontario Miners in the McIntyre Powder Aluminum Inhalation Program.
Me as well. And it's by Janice Martel and Lee L.
Giudotti. Sorry, sorry T.
But yeah, two really smart people.
And I'll link this paper so you can go look at it because I'm sure you want to.
yeah i'm gonna read in this they talk about a guy named jim hobbs and they said he was 37 years old for the first time that he tasted that he tasted aluminum dust it was march 1978 whoa and it was his first day going underground at rio algom's quirk 2 uranium mine now after changing from street clothes into his mining gear hobbs followed the other miners into a tunnel -like building that that led to the cage that would transport them underground for their eight -hour shift of drilling, mucking, and blasting.
The building, dubbed the gas chamber by those who entered it, was lined with benches, and Hobbes followed the routine of the others, taking a seat and waiting for the cage call.
Before that call came, and after the last man entered the building, the doors shut at both ends, the ventilation fans stop, and the supervisor yelled what would become a familiar phase to a surreal phrase in a surreal ritual that Hobbes would experience prior to every shift for the next year and a half oh my god breathe deep boys that's what they would yell what in 1978 yep the hiss of compressed airlines was quickly followed by a cloud of black dust filling the room obscuring Hobbes's vision of all that surrounded him as he took his first breaths a very finely ground aluminum powder, swirling rapidly
from punctured canisters attached to the airlines.
His chest felt heavy, his exposed skin and clothes were blackened, a metallic taste formed in his mouth, and he soon joined the choir of coughing and gasping arising from the others.
Oh my god. After ten minutes, the doors opened, and Hobbes and his shift partners were herded into the cage.
His first industrial medical treatment was over.
and he had to do that every day for a year and a half what like what why were they trying this what were they trying to get out it was gonna stop uh silicosis what so yeah that's how little concerned they were by aluminum powder which is why they called the hospital and we're like no he needs to go back here no buddy you're fine it was pure aluminum dust we're not worried about it thank you and the doctors were like and the doctors were like and even the doctors were like Like, OK, we're not like vibing with that aluminum dust thing.
Like all of us kind of feel like it's probably going to become a problem in a few years.
But if we're even ignoring that, if he's not just being poisoned by it.
He's still in an iron lung.
He's still having an allergic reaction to it.
So like something's happening back here.
And so, yeah. So they were like, yeah, no, he can't come back.
Like, I'm sorry. That's not something that can happen.
Now, Buddy Ebsen, because, of course, you're like, sue the studio.
That was absolutely my first thought.
Well, Buddy Ebsen said he didn't sue the studio because it was a very different time and all of the studio execs were in each other's pockets, which I'm sure it's not that different than now.
I was going to say.
But if he had sued MGM, he would have been blacklisted by all other studios.
Yeah, because you're a difficult actor at that point.
He said, quote, you didn't just sue lightly.
You didn't just lightly sue MGM because it was a power and there was a certain cohesion between the moguls.
they all used to play poker together on saturday nights and decide who were the good actors and who were the bad i mean look at jean harlow mgm showed up to her husband's like time yeah death scene yeah and was like yeah we don't need to call the police we know that's fine it's where that we are the we are the investigators here yeah they were a power yeah so after a few weeks of trying to get him back from like the brink of death um to then paint poison on him again and have him do it again like that was their plan like let's just put you back in the makeup they're like we're making a fucking
movie guy yeah so finally they gave up because they were like we can't wait any longer and he was really really sick yeah they were like we can't wait for you so the head of the studio mervin leroy decided to just fire ebsen and he grabbed jack haley to take over as part of the tin man now uh I wrote in my notes now Jack Haley is a babe literally has nothing to do with anything else I'm saying I literally just wrote it in my notes and I just realized I love to write myself little notes that maybe I'll say that was for me yeah but like I'm giving it to you guys I do that sometimes too and I wrote
I just need to clear that up for myself I literally wrote that next so whatever he also had the weirdest contract that wasn't very weird then but sounds weird now what i said basically and this was something that like was like i said wasn't weird then a lot of actors and actresses had this basically he could be forced to play any role in these studios because his contract basically put him on loan to them oh like they could just call him and be like we got a role for you get in here now you have no say in it oh wow so they called him up and they didn't offer him the role they called him and said
hey you're the tin man get in here you have no choice okay and so he had to and he said quote the type of contract I had I had to respond to their commands I had no choice I was under contract and they could lend me to any studio it was the most awful work the most horrendous job in the world with those cumbersome uniforms and the hours of makeup but I had no choice wow like you had no say in it I love that he was like I fucking hated it Yeah he was like this sucked his costume was crazy heavy part of it was like really metal and probably so hot like so hot he couldn't sit so he would lean against
this thing like it was like a board that was like specifically made for actresses and huge gowns and corsets to lean against when they couldn't sit down they would just lean against this to get any kind of relief oh my god he would they had one there and he would just lean on it and actually uh he would do this like between shots a lot like just to get some relief because he literally couldn't sit his back must have been killing him and it was funny because uh the guy who played the cowardly lion bert he said that it pissed him off because he was his costume was so heavy we'll get into his costume
don't worry uh -huh because his costume has some dark shit too but he said it used to piss him off because he also was like an insomniac in real life so he said he would walk by jack haley just leaning against a board in full costume out colds between like he was like that dude could fall asleep next to a board and he's like he used to piss me off i was like fuck that guy like why can he sleep like that i can't even sleep in my bed that's hilarious i just like i'll link the uh book i found on this it's really interesting there's a lot of like behind the scenes stuff yeah i love that but so he just stepped
in he wasn't told shit about why buddy epson was fired either yeah because you just like in those days you went in and people People got fired all the time for like anything.
For gaining five pounds at Thelmatod.
Exactly, at Thelmatod.
So you go in and you didn't ask questions.
Right. You just, okay, this is mine.
I guess luckily for him, they did change the way they did the makeup, which shows that they definitely knew it was a poison in the first place.
They made it into an aluminum paste instead of a dust. So he wouldn't be inhaling the dust. But you're still inhaling aluminum to some degree.
To some degree. I'm sure he never had any problems after it.
Afterwards. awards but um they what they did was they painted white grease paint on him like clown makeup yeah and then they paint they use the paste that had aluminum dust in it to put that aluminum sheen over him so it wasn't dusted on like yeah with roy ray it was literally dusted on so it was just like yeah and like all this yeah it makes me think of like translucent powder that's exactly what it is yeah and you're just like yeah because it just gets like all over you but unfortunately this pace did get into his eye and it caused a bad infection in his right eye and he was gone for four days
while they had to save his sight oh my god he was gonna lose sight did they like discard all aluminum based products after this no they didn't so while all this is going on by the way ray bulger as the scarecrow was also dealing with the horror of the makeup he had to wear every day too because we're not in like the you know you know the uh tom savini kind of makeup here like we're not in like the 2000s yeah you know what we're doing we're in 1930s they're doing what they can exactly and when you actually look at the scarecrow makeup and that you're like that's pretty good and the tin man makeup
is like the tin man looks great too like the scarecrow looks like a burlap sack yeah it's his head but it was gnarly it's not like now they have like you know They're really like they have certain brushes and stuff that they'll use and like substances that can take the makeup off really nicely, too, and gently.
They would just tear that shit off of you.
Yeah. And what Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow, said was, quote, I came home exhausted and had two bourbon old fashions.
The drinks were therapeutic.
I needed the alcohol to let me down, and they had enough sugar to kind of give me a lift so I could manage to eat my dinner and fall into bed.
Oh, man. That's how they felt at the end of these days.
now he remembers nothing else about this like these months he said but quote going to bed and getting up and going to work and half the time i don't even remember that so they were just like they were just trucking through and when you hear what they did to keep dorothy on task oh yeah there the filming days were insane and they were in these like a lot of people like think that dorothy you know or dorothy judy garland had it like easier in the costume sense but she did she she did in this essence but she had it bad in a different way yeah she had it like but they had yeah they had these gnarly
costumes that they were spending like literally like 13 hour days in they couldn't take them off right because they weren't willing to redo the makeup so if you broke for lunch you either tried to eat lunch in that makeup if you couldn't too bad oh my god the lion costume i can't imagine being in that for like 13 hours a day oh yeah and what both um ray and uh Jack Haley said was quote the mask wasn't porous so you couldn't sweat you couldn't breathe through your skin you don't realize how much you breathe through your skin until you can't do it we felt like we were suffocating oh my god yeah
he also discovered after the last take of the film that the corners of his mouth and his chin were permanently lined from what yeah like they he said it took months and months for them to even fade like his the corners of his mouths where like had like lines like a joker makeup oh my god yeah and i know it's insane and jack haley said that his costume was quote no less awful they pulled my hair back as flat as they could and put some sort of rubber skin over my head and glued it down behind my ears they covered my face with cold cream then they took a white chalk like solve and painted my face
white the idea of the white stuff was was to close my pores so the silver paste that made me look like i was made of tin wouldn't damage my skin they painted my face silver and glued on a silver nose they glued a strip of rubber that was supposed to be tin under my chin and glued each individual rubber ribbit onto my face then they painted my lips black because painting my face silver made my mouth look too red oh my god coloring my lips black made my gums and tongue duller i couldn't breathe through my face none of us could and bert larr had it worst of all and then like think of god only knows
what they were using for glue like nowadays you use like liquid latex like spirit gum and what was the thing that you used for rose yeah but this was probably just like glue on your skin this fucking like gorilla glue probably it's like let me superglue this to your face and rip it off every day well and when hayley says that burt laur had it worst of all burt laur played the cowardly lion yeah that was real lion hide yeah you told me that the other day and i'm still not over the cowardly lions costume was made of real lion skin real lion fur real lion hide it was 90 pounds and it smelled they
said ew of course it did yeah and they said it literally smelled and they were so heavy to walk around in so heavy to move and they said that he would take it off at the end of the day and literally be dripping with sweat oh like um um yeah i can't i just couldn't even talk i'm like yeah and then his face he had like a lot of prosthesis on on his face like he had a lot of you know the like mouth area that's supposed to look like a cat so they made it so his mouth couldn't open that wide so he couldn't eat and for 13 hours a day literally and they said he would literally have to eat or drink only
like a milkshake or soup or something you could suck through a straw basically and he said that because if he tried to chew he would break the prosthesis and they didn't want to redo it so he literally couldn't eat and he He would get pissed, I guess, at Jack and Ray for nomming in between shots whenever they could because he literally couldn't.
And every once in a while, he would just get pissed and just grab a sandwich and just bust through his makeup.
I don't blame him. Hangry is a real thing.
Because these people, all of these actors, were literally starved on set.
They were not given food.
And if they were given food, they were told that they were fat.
It's insane. Well, and then think about you're lugging around in 90 pound costume all day where you literally like can't, your body can't even cool itself down.
So you're sweating, you're super hot and then you can't eat.
I wonder how much weight that guy lost. Oh yeah.
Oh, I'm sure. And they said that they had to use a ton of arc lighting from different studios to get the effect of all of these sets.
And you know, and so it is a billion degrees.
And so they would literally between shots like run over to the doors and like open the doors and just get fresh air and like breathe like all of those all the main four actors would literally they said would just be like gasping for breath outside the door between shots like trying to get any kind of what a great this is literally torturous yay but yeah so the cowardly lion had a tough pure just only based on the fact that he's wearing real lion fur yeah fuck that and then you can't eat it's like insane That's 90 pounds.
Really wild. For 13 hours a day.
Now let's get on to some of the other makeup issues and some of the accidents that happened on this set.
Yeah. So the Wicked Witch of the West was played by Margaret Hamilton.
She's phenomenal. Amazing.
We love her. Now let's talk about her makeup.
Obviously, if you've seen the movie, she's green from head to toe.
Yes. Green makeup back then was made with copper oxide.
It was made with copper, which is toxic.
Yeah. So the makeup people said that they had to be completely thorough when removing her makeup every night before she left, because if they left any, it could literally be fatal.
Like it could poison her.
How did it not poison her throughout the 13 hour day?
Don't know. So they said, quote, every night when I was taking, this was like a makeup person, every night when I was taking off the witch's makeup, I would make sure that her face was thoroughly clean, spotlessly clean before you, because you don't take chances with green.
so when she was burned spoiler alert i remember that i didn't want to take any chances i knew that makeup had to be cleaned off so we're going to talk about that burn situation right now and how they just said even when she was burned we had to clean the makeup off remember that oh no i don't want to talk about that so in the scene where the wicked witch of the west leaves munchkin land in like a puff of smoke in the beginning um and there's like fire and smoke there was an accident so it was december 23rd 1938 they had put a false piece of yellow brick road where she had to exit okay so she was to
back up onto this and it was rigged with an elevator to bring her down and out of the shot while she was lowering down the smoke and fire would come up and obscure her going down now they practiced this a ton because she had to go backwards and hit the spot just right because if the elevator went down and only one of her feet was on it she could like break her legs yeah so i guess the opening of that elevator shaft there was really narrow too so margaret hamilton was instructed and practiced a million times to bring her elbows in tight as soon as it started going down because if she didn't she
would literally break her arms or her shoulders and they were literally they weren't like let's figure out a way to make that not happen they were just like do your best hold your elbows in because if not you're gonna break both with your shoulders like wing it bitch like what and there was also two guys waiting below in case she broke her legs coming down they could carry her awesome so those are the concerns so thoughtful guys then weirdly those are the concerns they're worried about her breaking her arms or like her legs but we have like whole ass fire going on but weirdly nothing like that happened
she didn't break a leg or an arm or anything legs and arms were fine in fact the first time they did this This whole shot, it was perfect.
Went off without a hitch. Victor Fleming, the director, was like psyched.
He was like, that was perfect.
But he said, as always, we're going to do one more shot just to have it in the cam.
Just in case. Oh, no. That's when you know, too.
That's when you know.
And this is when the shit hit the fan.
So Margaret Hamilton actually recalled something that Billy Burke said.
She's the one who plays Glinda, Billy Burke.
She actually said, quote, boat we were about 40 feet away from the fire and miss burke shook her head and said oh i'm not going to stand here and i said why not miss burke and she said oh my dear it's much too hot and i thought you're 40 feet away but i'm gonna be right in the middle of it yeah right she was like uh shit like what so they had taken a break and when they came back to do this second shot just the insurance shot uh a bunch of mishaps happened nothing that got anybody hurt at first but it was things like you know she wasn't hidden by the smoke the fire happened too late the fire didn't
go off at all it was just like everything was signs from the universe saying you already got your shot take that we got the shot we got the shot fleming let's just let it go now she said quote and this is crazy that this is how much victor fleming the director did not give a shit about these people So, she said, quote, and then we got the full tilt of Mr. Fleming's impatience and anxiety.
In no uncertain language, she told us to pull ourselves together and get the shot done.
He said, there's no excuse for this.
The minute she gets her foot on, I want, and I said, Mr. Fleming, I want to get both feet on.
And he said, yes, yes, of course, but I want the shot done right and right now.
Uh -huh. Well, it went wrong.
The fire went way too early while Margaret Hamilton was not under the stage yet.
So the broom caught fire, the broom that she was holding, and it caught her face on fire.
She said, quote, I felt warmth on my face.
That's all. It's still unbelievable.
There was a whole lot of running and hullabaloo and shouting.
And my hat and my broom were on fire and I didn't even know it.
She was literally in shock.
Of course. She ended up with first degree burns on her face, mainly her chin, nose, cheek, and forehead.
Her eyebrows and lashes were completely burned off.
She had second and almost third degree burns on her hands.
That was the worst part.
The skin on her right hand was completely gone.
It was just raw flesh.
Just raw flesh. Now, remember that makeup?
The toxic green makeup thing?
Did it not like burn into her skeleton at that point?
Well, when the flesh on her hands literally peeled off from the burns, they still had to remove the makeup, and the only way to do that was alcohol.
No. So they had to use alcohol to scrub the toxic copper oxide -filled green makeup off the hands of Margaret Hamilton after she burned the flesh clean off of them.
And her face. You know how when older people are like, I used to have to walk backwards up a hill to school in the snow.
Everyone in The Wizard of Oz has the right to say that.
I did. They can. They're like, I had my hands cleaned with alcohol after suffering third degree burns and like peeling my skin back.
She said it was the most horrific pain she's ever felt in her life.
She was out for six weeks healing.
And I bet they were pissed.
Oh, they were on her ass.
In fact, her doctor answered the phone once while they called her at home.
And he was like, she's an idiot if she doesn't sue your ass.
Like, you're not. She'll get back when she's good and ready.
Like flipped out. Oh, good for him.
I love that. And they were probably like, yeah, watch her.
They were like, mm -hmm.
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She said the only reason she didn't sue is because she wanted to work again.
And she never would have if she was sued.
So did they have to pause filming then?
They did, yeah. And she did refuse to work with fire ever again in the movie.
She was like, figure it out, I'm not working with fire.
Now, in fact, when she got back to set, she was due to do that skywriting scene.
That Surrender Dorothy scene.
I love that. There's a band called Surrender Dorothy, I remember, like from high school.
Yeah. Great band name.
Surrender Dorothy. So good.
I want to call it. it oh I can't but good job guys yeah seriously that was good one she was doing the close -ups because there's close -up shots of her like on the broom like laughing and there's smoke behind her like yelling at Dorothya yeah just screaming and screeching um but it required her to sit on a steel saddle on her broom uh -huh and it was raised up and then smoke would pour out of the back from a pipe under the saddle oh god that's how they rigged this whole thing I feel like I don't want to do that now she was told by everyone no this is completely safe don't worry about it you're good
like when have we ever put you in danger before you know i feel like this type gonna explode under my badonkadonk but they mentioned you know if you'd like we did make you a fireproof costume and she was like why why'd you make me a fireproof costume if this is completely safe and it's probably not even fire like why would i i don't trust a single thing you say so she was like no so she said she wouldn't do it with the smoke and the fire she's like no she said she would do the close -ups she was like do the close -ups of my face add shit in afterwards and she was like i don't know what to tell you
with everything else so her stunt double betty danko said she would do the rest now she was a young girl at this point and she was probably trying to like be like an upcoming actress so she's like i'll do anything oh yeah and she's a stunt girl so she's like she's done a few things like this and she's like oh yeah and you gotta be down for anything but margaret actually told her before she left set that day She was like, I'm really worried for you.
I don't want you to do it.
Like, I'm worried something's going to happen.
You're going to get hurt.
And she was like, no, I need the money.
I don't want them to think I'm hard to work with.
Well, turns out they did two good takes on the broomstick.
And the third time, the pipe literally exploded under her.
I knew you were going to say that.
She said, quote, I felt as though my scalp was coming off.
I guess that's because my hat and my black wig were literally torn loose.
They found them days later at the top of the stage.
Oh my god. the explosion blew me off the broomstick i managed to grab it with both hands and throw my leg over it i hung upside down while the men handling the wires lowered the broomstick to the floor and put me face down on the stage she was completely burned and her left leg had a giant hole in it where her dress had become fused because it was burned into this giant hole in her leg what the fuck i want to hear what's even better i don't quote while i lay there on the floor waiting for the ambulance the wardrobe woman came running in and she said what did you do with the hat i have to turn
it in you know i'd be like there's a motherfucking hole in my leg and i suggest you get the fuck away from me unless you'd like a matching one i was just lit a flame lame you what i'd be like you can take the hat when you find it and shove it right up your like i am brunie the fire spirit from frozen 2 right now and you are asking me where that hat is can you what you're laying first of all face down because i can't even have like the nicety to put you on your back like what and then she's like i need to hand in that hat i need to turn that in you know it's like well you're gonna get in trouble
today okay you're gonna have some explaining you you know what you should cite explosion for why you didn't turn that person was exploded in the hat i don't know hat literally exploded she had permanent scars on her legs from it i guess and i guess later at some like some kind of hollywood thing i don't know if it was like it was like years later she ran into victor fleming and he tried to look under her skirt to see the scars because he said he felt so bad what he tried to see her leg scars because he wanted to see how bad it was i'd be like well my leg exploded so that's how bad it was that's
how bad it was what the fuck victor yeah i'd be like victor get away from me you bad news get your bad news okay now victor fleming speaking of him i'll skip ahead to something with him because please do He actually wrote And admitted to this incident He said When Judy Garland couldn't stop breaking into giggles At the pseudo menacing advance Of Burt Lahr's Cowardly Lion So when they first meet the Cowardly Lion And he runs after Toto And then she whacks him on the nose I guess she kept breaking into giggles Because that's funny And I guess Burt Lahr was really funny Because he was like So she
kept laughing I was going to say she was literally young And so he said, quote, he escorted her off the yellow brick road and said, now, darling, this is serious.
Slapped her in the face, then ordered her to go in there and work.
And she said it. Yep, happened.
And everyone around the set said, I saw it happen.
He literally slapped a 17 -year -old girl in the face and was like, get back to work and stop laughing.
Wow. They weren't kidding when they said things were different back then.
And then he, I guess, immediately felt bad.
so he started going around to the crew and asking people in the crew to punch him in the face good and so they were all like no because they're like I'm gonna lose my job I don't know what I can't it's a really weird way to handle that situation instead of just like going to her and saying I feel really bad and also how many of the crew you know he hadn't met any of the crew so he's literally walking up to them and they're like hi I'm Joe Mr. Fleming nice to meet you like And he's like, punch me.
No, I won't punch you in the face.
Right in the kisser.
Please punch me. Like, what?
And I guess Judy, like, saw this happening because she immediately went back into the scene.
Of course she did. The scene you see in the movie is exactly what happened right after she got slapped.
The first take she did was the one in the movie.
Oh, wow. So the one you see in the movie is right after she just got slapped in the face by Victor fucking Fleming.
Oh, she was so abused.
It's really sad. Oh, it's horrific.
What they did to her.
She actually heard all this, like that he was walking around, like, asking crew members to punch himself.
and i guess she like overheard this and she went over to him and said because he was like you should just punch me in the face to her to which i would say okie doke and i guess she said i won't do that but i'll kiss your nose and she did oh what a cutie like what is what they did judy so wrong yeah they did her dirty they did her so wrong yeah i would have punched victor fleming straight like that's your time just kidding but like what what a pure and wholesome human what a strange rangeway who was like led into such a shitty path of life oh yeah watching judy the mother ruined me yeah it's ruined
me i mean her real name is francis gum huh yeah now speaking of dorothy and the horrific things that were done to her judy garland had the saddest life at 14 she was working on her first real movie called pigskin parade it was about like a football coach sounds horrible sure does and the head of the studio louis uh louis b meyer i don't know if if it's louis or lewis but get ready for the tweets about that my guy but uh he's a piece of shit so i literally don't care what his real name is good um he would call her quote fat little pig in pigtails wow so i don't care if it's lewis or louis yeah
okay no um asshole said that let me tell you mr glasshouse should have kept his rocks to himself go ahead and google what he looks like Like, yeah.
Name again? Excuse me, Glasshouse.
Louis B. Mayer. Okay.
I think it's Louis.
But yeah, like, go away, Mr. Glasshouse.
We're loaded. This is when she started.
Oh, come the fuck on.
Exactly. Like, I'm sorry.
Was there a mirror on set that day, sir?
Like, please. Turd. Now, this is when she started being placed on these crazy diets of only, like, soup and cigarettes and all that shit.
seriously now for oz the studio execs focused heavily on her weight and basically made her feel like shit that she even had boobs because she was 17 at this point she's like turning into like that time when you're getting women have boobs and now dorothy was supposed to be like a younger girl like she was supposed to be like i think in the book she's supposed to be like 12 but i think in the movie they have her more around like 15 so cast a 15 year old if that's what you well and so they were like we want you to look younger than 17 so obviously she's not so they were literally documenting her
food intake for months leading up to shooting wow like the execs studio execs are documenting a young girl's food intake for months and that is like and obviously did but will affect you for the rest of your life 100 if you start eating like that this stuff was the reason she died the way she did and like developing that relationship with food is so so dangerous.
It's so sad. They also kept her on a steady pill schedule at this point as well.
They would force her to take what they called pet pills to stay awake, aka meth, and downers to sleep and chill out.
So she would sleep for like four hours and then they would just like shake her awake, force some pet pills down her throat, and make her work for like days straight before she would crash again.
Oh my god. Yeah. Now during filming of Oz, she was on a diet of soup, scoop dozens of cigarettes a day and black coffee that's it can you imagine her stomach and on top of it they made her wear crazy corsets under that dress and strapped down her chest as tight as they could to make it so she didn't look like she had a chest wow so she was and that's like against her will like and she's sitting there having to like and it's painful and she's having to like pretend tend to be this like peppy yay like right just a young girl and yeah like i just can't imagine what like condition her stomach was in with all
those cigarettes coffee on like an empty stomach and then pills yeah my god like can you imagine how sick she felt all the time no because i've had to go on like medicine before where like i've like like i broke my pelvis and they had to put me on morphine yeah and you like you couldn't eat and i was the sickest i have ever been yeah i I can't imagine having to be in that state while doing a movie where I was also just being treated like shit all the time.
Like when I had whatever pain pill they gave me after like my first C -section, I took one of them and I was like so sick.
I was like, I've never taken that.
Like, wow. I could not handle that because I'm just usually I have like a pretty good pain tolerance, like a fairly good one.
And so I usually can get like if something hurts, I'll take like an Advil.
Yeah. And it's like that usually is fine for me.
so but this i was like oh i just got cut open maybe i should take this yeah oh my god never again i was like no this is not worth the sickness i feel we had to go back to the doctors when i was like that and we were like yeah like i can't take this handle it they had me take a half and even a half i was still like horrible i just see i was like they just gave me motrin afterwards and i was like that's all i can do yeah but on top of all of this with judy garland um some of the actors who played some of the um characters in munchkinland they were like sexually assaulting her on set good yeah um
and her husband one of her husbands later said quote they would make judy's life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress my god the men were more than 40 years old at that point and she's 17 yeah and she like is just turning 17 gross and she's like made to look like a child in that like way younger what the fuck yeah it's just really messed messed up and I get I do um from what I read though I guess the three guys like the the lion tin man and scarecrow were like super protective of her yeah and they were all like good dudes and none of them did anything like that and they were like
really tight as like a little unit like a squad yeah I love so that's nice to know at least she had she had the comfort of some kind of protection there but uh another thing that's really crazy about this is um if you've seen if If you remember the poppy scene where the Wicked Witch of the West causes them to fall asleep in the poppies, poppies.
Well, lucky for them, Glinda casts a counterspell during that that causes snow to fall and they all wake up.
Unfortunately, Glinda was like kind of that maybe she was the bad guy here because the snow that fell was 100 % asbestos.
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Now this was the 1930s, and asbestos was actually used in Christmas decorations then, like fake snow.
What the fuck? But still, this is wild to know now.
Especially when you watch it and you're just like, oh, that's just straight up asbestos.
And it's all over their faces, all over everything.
thing they're literally like in their mouths like it's just like they're just like living in it and it's it's funny because i read a one of the articles i read was on atlas obscura and they put it best by saying the wizard of oz quote literally douses its main characters and carcinogens correct literally what it does and when you watch the scene you're just sitting there being like poison yeah all over your body you're all being doused in poison wow asbestos Yes.
And a last little thing, well, last big thing that I'll touch upon, which is like kind of the saddest thing to me.
Um, but I'll leave you on like, well, no, I'm going to leave you on a sad note.
I'm sorry. But, uh, I'll give you a couple of things after this, but, um, the woman who played Auntie Em, who Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, you're just like, I love you.
I love you so much. Her name was Clara Blandick and she was famous.
She was like on Broadway and tons of movies.
Yeah. This was actually one of her like smallest roles, but like she took it because she just loved the movie and they loved having her name on it now she after the wizard of oz was in like failing health um it was like through the 1950s and she was going blind um she was the victim of severely painful arthritis all over her body and they couldn't get it under control back then just real quick too this is like a suicide trigger so just this is gonna be a minute where i'm gonna to talk about it so april 15th 1962 she returned to her home after church she placed photos and letters and mementos from her
career all around her she surrounded herself with newspaper clippings of her career her awards movie credits she got dressed in a royal blue gown she did her hair and she took sleeping pills and she laid on the couch with a gold blanket over her and placed a plastic bag over her head oh wow she passed away that way and she left a note that said quote i am now about to make the great adventure i cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer it's all over my body neither can i face the impending blindness i pray the lord my soul to take amen oh apparently so sad she is buried very close to charlie
grapewin who played uncle henry her her husband oh my gosh like yards away wow right next to each other is that just like a weird I don't know if it was like meant to but it's like a nice little like but how sad is that like she and she had this beautiful amazing career yeah can I say something weird it's like beautifully sad like the way that she did it I'm like I'm glad that she was able to like take control of the way I mean she was in control of it that was what she wanted to do but like how sad that she had no other option like yeah it's such a bummer that like medical stuff has kind of so far
and it hadn't come that far to relieve her of any of that pain that is really sad because i can't imagine being in chronic pain and there's nothing no because it's nothing to help you this like just watching people go i've obviously i've never like gone through that but watching people go through that i can't imagine yeah i really can't and to have it all over your body yeah i hope she did have a great adventure i hope excuse me i hope she's having i hope she's still having that great adventure go off she's over the rainbow having a blast oh that one really i know thanks i know i'm sorry do you
have anything um good in there i guess this just shows you how close like the three main characters like the um ray bulger and bert lahr and jack haley were uh when i think ray was the last one to pass away out of all of them um and when jack haley died he gave a eulogy at his funeral and he said jack it's going to be a very lonesome it's going to be very lonesome on the yellow brick road now that's how close they were and just to leave you on like not the saddest of notes but more like wow margaret hamilton get it okay the wicked witches lines most of them were cut and a lot of her scenes were cut
from the final film because execs and focus groups said the performance was way too terrifying they said kids literally couldn't handle it go off like so margaret hamilton just scared the shit out of everybody that's what i i was hired for so she's only on screen for like 15 minutes in the film but she had tons more oh that's and it was all like really scary like she was terrified i would i wish they had like uh did a version like where they could have released that version i know i'm like can we have her deleted scenes yeah i want to see her scary ass scenes for real but yeah i wonder if they
could ever uncover them someday i know i wonder i think that there's or who knows have they i'm not even sure i should look i know let's find out but that is some of the dark secrets i found about the the yellow the yellow brick road but about the wizard of oz and how fucked up the filming was wow that was really entertaining question it definitely is cursed i feel i feel like i'm it's a lot i feel like i'm never gonna watch that movie the same with your children when you you watch it again like and you're like you watch it with a different you exploded yeah you had to go to the hospital you almost
went blind yeah you did this and for in the second half of the film i haven't looked to see this but margaret hamilton's wearing green gloves instead of green makeup because she could they even when she came back it hadn't healed enough that she could put makeup on so she had to wear gloves on her hands oh wow and i want to look for it the next time i do too now yeah because i guess she also said that like victor fleming grabbed her hand when she came back and was like it looks good and she was like no that's like freshly healed skin yeah it looks pretty but it's not thick enough to do anything
and like that's how nasty victor filming sounds like the worst and i wish that everybody had asked to punch him in the face actually did punch him in the face i know that would have been nice yeah but yeah that's the dark shit about the wizard of oz oh and just like because i people might be wondering uh because there's this big legend that one of the actors who played one of the munchkins like hung themselves in a tree oh yeah that's not true you can see it in the original part of the film that is completely untrue just what people were seeing was a bird that they had on set that like puts its
wings up and kind of looks like it and people have photoshopped like an actual hanging person in there it's not true it didn't happen or is that what they want you to yeah there's no i mean there's absolutely no evidence or no police and i was gonna say nothing we know all the other horrific things about yeah it would have leaked out but it's still in a very enduring rumor because everything i was reading i every time i would like peek over over at comments of it, like any like, you know, little movies about it or books or anything, there was always a million people being like, well, someone hung themselves on the set.
Like that is an enduring rumor.
People really believe that.
And I did. I did for a while.
Whenever it first came out, I was young and I remember trying to see it.
I was like, what is like?
And you could see the bird. And I remember being like, is that?
But it's not. Yeah.
Yeah. I remember definitely hearing that.
I never looked for it, though.
Yeah, that didn't happen, though.
At least not that you can find anywhere.
Well, that's settling that it didn't happen.
Yeah. But everything else happened in this, so thanks for that.
Yeah. It's a fucked up movie.
But I thought it might be, you know, it's a holiday week.
We're just going to give you this weird, weird off episode.
Yeah. That's still spooky, but like in a different way.
Yeah. Humans are weird. They certainly are.
You know? I really enjoyed that.
That was a cool episode.
Yeah. I just wanted to do something a little different.
Yeah. I like that. Hope you guys dug it.
It's your show. Go off.
Yeah. It's my show, man.
Yeah. well, we hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird!
But not so that you decide to direct a movie and do any of the things that were done on this movie set.
Thank you and good night!
Bye! Follow the yellow brick road.
Follow the yellow brick road, or don't.
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