Tales of the Wizard of Oz | |
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![]() Official logo | |
Genre | Animation |
Based on | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum |
Directed by | Harry Kerwin |
Voices of | Carl Banas Corinne Conley Bernard Cowan Paul Kligman Alfie Scopp |
Country of origin | Canada United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 110 |
Production | |
Producers | Arthur Rankin Jr. Jules Bass Larry Roemer Antony Peters Bernard Cowan |
Running time | 5 minutes |
Production companies | Crawley Films Videocraft Productions |
Original release | |
Network | Syndicated |
Release | September 1, 1961 – December 1961 |
Tales of the Wizard of Oz is a 1961 animated television series produced by Crawley Films for Videocraft (later known as Rankin/Bass Productions). This is the second animated series produced by the studio and the first by Rankin/Bass to feature traditional animation. [1]
The series features stories derived from characters created in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Several characters are given additional names, including Dandy the Cowardly Lion, Rusty the Tin Man, and Socrates the Strawman. In this adaptation, rather than being dropped by a tornado, Dorothy and Toto are blown in from Kansas through a hole cut out of the landscape.
Each episode is a brief vignette about an adventure that the characters are involved in, often centering around the Wizard's attempts to fulfil the characters' wishes.
Artistic renditions of the Oz characters created for this series were later featured in the hourlong television special Return to Oz . The series was also adapted to a comic book for a one-shot issue in Dell's Four Color #1308 (March–May 1962).
As of 2018 [update] , this series has yet to be released on DVD.
Film: Return to Oz (Feb 9, 1964)