Special Effects in Old Movies

Before CGI, long before, how were certain special effects in movies created?

In addition to being a big Buster Keaton fan and wanting to highlight his work, I'm also reminded of the tornado in "The Wizard of Oz." That thing was so scary as a kid but still feels incredibly eerie today.

The Wicked Witch Episode of Sesame Street Has Been Found

Ladies and gentlemen, it is finished, the end has come, the fifth and last Golden Ticket has just been found right here in Paraguay.  the lost and banned episode of Sesame Street featuring the Wicked Witch of the West has turned up online.

I was planning on making a joke about how this post syncs up with "Dark Side of the Moon" but the video already did that joke.

And here is the episode:

For a compilation of just the Wicked Witch parts, click here.

And a few thoughts...

For someone who was trying to rehabilitate her image, this was an INSANE move for Margaret Hamilton. The stark contrast of with makeup/without makeup is one of your main tools to get kids to not be afraid of you. So why not have a plot where the wicked witch is proven to be able to disguise herself to look like an ordinary old woman? Yes, even though the old woman may look normal, she's still a witch underneath and, don't forget, she wants to steal your dog.

"I won't give her back this broom until she gives me a little respect" is terrible principle.

The guy's acting is also terrible. I've always accepted Sesame Street's "big" acting because it was for children and that's the norm for children's programming, but this is just bad.

A lot of the reaction to this episode involves adults being shocked that anyone found this to be scary - the whole reaction was a huge overreaction. I don't think so. In the 50 years or so of Sesame Street's existence, how many villains have their been? How many villains with magical powers? The bar is set by Oscar the Grouch whose main weapon is being impolite. This episode would be a violation of viewer expectations.

When I was a kid, my one friend opined that the scariest villains in the world were Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West. I quickly realized the verisimilitude of the statement and assented. He then added that when he was younger he opined that they must be married and that was too large a logical leap for me.

The Wizard of Oz is All a Dream

 

I've always held the pedestrian view that whether Oz was all a dream or a real place was purposefully left ambiguous and up to each viewer to decide.

I've also always decided that Dorothy really went to Oz - just because that's the much more interesting movie in my opinion.

Everything that suggests it was a figment of her imagination can (very loosely) be explained. She wakes up in her bed because the magic of the ruby slippers sent her there. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, etc. all look strikingly like the people she knows in Kansas - well that's just coincidence. She is drawn up inside a tornado and, not only survives, sees other people in there. There's even two guys rowing a boat in the tornado... Well, it's a children's fairy tale kind of thing, I guess.

When you really think about it, it does start to sound crazy but children's movies often are.

But there is one aspect, in fact one shot, that indicates unequivocally that it is absolutely all a dream. Still within the cylinder of the tornado, there is a shot where Miss Gulch, riding on her bicycle, transforms into the Wicked Witch. 

This one shot, this brief moment, absolutely can not be explained away. In the real world, this can not happen and can not be reconciled. 

Well, let's see, maybe Miss Gulch was always the Witch and now we're just seeing her transform using her magic. But the Wicked Witch doesn't just show up in Oz the day that Dorothy does, she's pre-existed there for years. Well, maybe she's lived in both dimensions and lived parallel lives. But Miss Gulch knows Dorothy and the Wicked Witch has no idea who she is when the meet for the first time.

No, the image you see above is the kind of thing that only happens in a dream. It was all a dream.

Google Chicanery

Via Reddit:

The thread says there's also a Thanos one.

Top Ten Album Easter Eggs

Cracked.com has a really interesting article about the top ten album easter eggs.

Read it here.

For me, the most mind-blowing one is #6 Aphex Twin though he loses points for the fact that the song, on a surface level, sucks.

Of particular interest - and the reason I found the article in the first place - are #9 and #8. #9 is real (obviously) and I've known about for a long time. I even bought two copies of the album just so I could ruin one by opening the back of the CD case. It wasn't strictly necessary - getting to the booklet didn't have to mean ruining the case - but it turned out to be a good idea because I cracked a giant chunk of plastic off.

#8 is really intriguing and I'll be checking out that "combined" album soon but I have to regard it as the same as the Dark Side of the Moon / Wizard of Oz thing (which I also checked out by the way (summer vacations were awesome)). There are hugely suspicious coincidences that lead you down the path of "clues" but it IS only coincidence. The quote in the article where a "source close to the band" says that they can't believe it's taken the public this long to figure it out is rubbish. It's hard enough writing good music, it's hard enough producing good music and making a compelling album, you can't expect artists are going to add some hugely complicated extra parameter for themselves that they have to overcome like syncing to a movie.

I think most conspiracy theories start off for the exact same reason. In fact, there ACTUALLY people who still believe Paul McCartney is dead. THAT... is depressing. Still, I find this kind of thing interesting at least.