The Wizard of Oz.

Most people who know me well, know that I LOVE the Wizard of Oz. But if I was asked to explain "Why?" I am not exactly sure what that answer would be. I guess what I'm not sure about is when it all began - our kinship ... the Wizard of Oz and I.

Maybe it was when I was a little girl. I do remember looking so forward to it's annual appearance on television. WAY back in the day when you couldn't record anything and there was no such thing as a DVD or even a VHS. We just had to wait it out ... and then that night, when it was going to be shown, became a bit of an event for me. Popcorn, pillows, blankets. I remember being afraid at certain parts, but it was also SO exciting!

The Wicked Witch, Glinda (how pretty was she?), the cute munchkins, that Tin Man and Scarecrow ... I fell in love with the characters and the whole premise of the story. I never wanted it to end.

It also could have been when I was a young married mom. We were putting on a "roadshow" at our church, and our ward got to do the Wizard of Oz. That was back in the mid 80s, so they put a little twist on it - Dorothy was a Valley Girl and her ruby slippers were red high top Reebok's. And I got to be Dorothy.

We had to condense the entire movie into 18 minutes from start to finish ... in my opinion (since I had very little to do with the back end part of the production), it was nothing short of genius. The writers got that whole show down, the costumes were great, the music was great, and the sets, well - Nils Lindstrom, creative talent extraordinaire, had painted different scenes on an enormous scroll, so that as we were skipping "off to see the Wizard," the whole thing would move at the back of the stage, and take us from the farm in Kansas, to the woods, and into the forest, and then the poppy field, then on to the beautiful Emerald City.

Maybe it was years after that, when I went to see it performed at the Tuacahn Theater in St George. I was blown away by the talent of the four main characters, their chemistry, the sets, the music ... and then I saw it last year at Southern Utah University where Chloe was one of the flying monkeys and was so good at it, she freaked even her own mother out!

It might have happened when Mattel came out with Wizard of Oz Barbies - I do like Barbies. And I like Madam Alexander dolls, and McDonald's Happy Meal Toys, and Wee Forest Folk - all who came out with Wizard of Oz characters. (C'mon, they're cute, right?)

I'm going to guess that it must be a combination of all of the above ...


And then there is WICKED ... we can't even get started on how fabulous WICKED is!!!!!!