Talk:The Wizard of Oz on television

message: I removed the long list of the movie's broadcast history as it was overly long, non-notable and tantamount to trivia.--Thepinksuicidallemming 03:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion of broadcast history

message: I added a New York Times reference which said the film was first shown in 1956, which someone later removed, and added the claim that it was first seen in 1959 . Why? Added back the ref, since this aarticle has been cirticized for lack of refs in the AFD for the article listing all the showtimes [Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wizard Of Oz - Television Airdates]. Edison 19:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why was a referenced fact removed?

message: Four months on from my first encounter with this page and I think I should actually add this template. This article deals with the movie on American TV only, despite the fact that many other nations are highly likely to have screened it (I know it's shown every couple of years in Australia).--Thepinksuicidallemming 09:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be difficult to research for an American editor. You are in Britain: what have you done to remedy this lack? — Walloon (talk) 01:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Worldwide view

message: It has to be asked — gently, but necessarily: Is there anyone on this planet who really needs to know the exact date on which The Wizard of Oz was shown on TV every year from 1959 to the present? — Walloon (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not interestingtrivia.org; it's wikipedia.org. - JasonAQuest (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree.   I am doing a paper on the TV showings, and it was helpful to know that it was annual for so long.  Feel for certain there were more airings after 2009, but wasn't able to find any evidence for that.  Was glad this list was here. 205.132.0.172 (talk) 02:30, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Details

message: Time compression on video tape is usually accomplished by speeding up the playback slightly on a VTR equipped with dynamic tracking for the video and pitch-shifting for the audio.  This results in a fairly smooth picture with some residual vertical stepping effects.  The audio is pitch-corrected to avoid the "chipmunk" effect mentioned in the main article.  This is necessary to compensate for the increase in pitch introduced by speeding up the playback. Thomprod (talk) 18:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes made in running time:  time compression 

message: I have deleted this section because, first of all, it was rather irrelevant, and second, the film did not air at all on NBC until 1968, and certainly not in HD. HD television did not even exist until recently. AlbertSM (talk) 01:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: April 20th NBC HD section

message: Someone has recently vandalized this page, putting in a bunch of phony dates on which the film did not air, and including a totally irrelevant section entitled "Gifted presents". I have removed all the vandalism.AlbertSM (talk) 21:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Page vandalism

message: I have noticed that this is airing on Mpix in Canada this month. Should this be added to the broadcast history of the article? NorthernThunder (talk) 00:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canadian broadcasts 

message: Why can't anybody edit the article?AlbertSM (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing the article

message: This is great info, but too detailed for this article. It should be relocated elsewhere in Wikipedia: 
--Walt Disney, television pioneer--
Feature films by nearly all of the major Hollywood studios were not broadcast on network television before 1955, due to the studios' reluctance to anger theatre owners with a competing venue."Hollywood Sale: Disposal of R.K.O. Film Backlog for Video Use Poses Industry Problems," New York Times, January 1, 1956, p. X5.  The one exception was Walt Disney, who, understanding the potential of the medium as a promotional tool, did not hesitate to begin showing some of his films on ABC-TV once his long-running television anthology series premiered in late 1954. Disney films first shown on the program in the 1950s (in one-hour edited versions) included Alice in Wonderland (1951), So Dear to My Heart (1948), and Dumbo (1941), although occasionally a full-length Disney film such as Treasure Island (1950) would be split into two one-hour episodes shown a week apart.http://epguides.com/WaltDisneyPresents/ Several of these films were re-run on the Disney program in color when the program moved to NBC in the 1960s, and nearly all of these mentioned were re-released to movie theatres even after being shown on television. Some of the most famous old Disney films, however, such as Bambi (1942) and Pinocchio (1940), were not shown complete on television (or even in one-hour edits) until the 1980s, and Fantasia (1940) and Song of the South (1946) are the two remaining Disney classics which, even today, have never been televised complete or in one-hour versions. (Most segments of Fantasia, however, have been televised separately on Disney's long-running anthology series.) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was telecast complete for the first time ever (but with commercials) in February 2010.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/tvschedule However, it also made its television debut on the commercial-free Disney Channel.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.249.134.57 (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong article

message: Actually, there is such a list in this article, reportedly culled from TV Guide. AlbertSM (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. Just needs a cite — and you've done good work in finding those archival New York Times citations that I then fleshed out a bit. "Reportedly" is one of those dangerous "weasel words", as Wikipedia calls them. But I'm sure between the two of us we'll find a good citation. It's nice to be collaborating better. With regards, --Tenebrae (talk) 00:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Days of the week on which the film was telecast

message: I know it's well-meant and it was added in good faith, but this is uncited personal commentary and violates WP:POV. It's also OR speculation: "must have been" ... "most likely" ... We just can't say these types of things in an encyclopedia. This whole article is written like a personal essay and it really needs an enormous amount of work to be brought up to encyclopedic standard.
We also can't cite a wiki as a reference source. --Tenebrae (talk) 01:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Uncited personal commentary

message: I don't see how inclusion of intricate detail "which may interest only a specific audience" would ruin an article. Since when has tailoring an article to a specific audience been wrong? Most classical music articles are tailored to specific audiences. And we must remember that many members of today's viewing audience were simply either not around or are too young to remember the early telecasts of "The Wizard of Oz". AlbertSM (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I meant the listing of every U.S. broadcast and cable showing ever, which would seem to be of limited interest. Trivialist (talk) 12:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Intricate detail

message: I have had to add (and re-add) a citation to the phrase the film was always shown during or just before the spring months three times because someone always keeps removing it and putting citation needed. The citation I added is correct, and proves that during that period (1968 to 1991) the film was indeed shown during or just before the spring months. AlbertSM (talk) 18:42, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing and removing citations

message: I posted a list of fantasy specials aired in the wake of the Mary Martin Peter Pan. I think it's helpful in showing why CBS decided to telecast The Wizard of Oz in the first place, and I think that section should be reinstated. AlbertSM (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleting of list of fantasy specials

message: I made this into a new section because I changed the title of one section into "Telecasts in the pre-cable era", and as it was, "The move to cable" just looked like a subheading underneath it. Please do not change it back. AlbertSM (talk) 18:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: The move to cable

message: Tenebrae, why do you revert my changes whenever I try to cite from the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz website? It seems to be that this is as valid a site from which to get information as any. AlbertSM (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a self-published fan site (see that bluelink and WP:RS generally). And while Eric Gjovaag himself seems to be published in fanzines, he's not a recognized mainstream authority. But let's say fanzine publication makes him authoritative — his information still is all coming from other sources, so we need to cite the actual, authoritative, published original sources. Finally, we can't cite anything at all from http://thewizardofoz.info/wiki/Main_Page, since Wikipedia disallows us, quite reasonably so, to use wikia as reference sources. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

text: I would also note that The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) article itself is perfectly well-cited without using this self-published fan site, which no one there appears to ever have used except you yourself, in June 2013, when you presumably knew that fan sites aren't reliable sources for reference citations. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

text: "Presumably"? An encyclopedia really can't really be built on a foundation of guesswork. Aside from the fact that preemptions happen after TV Guide goes to press — as TV Guide itself always cautioned in its pages about its listings — if a claim is true, we can find it in a reliable source. But we can certainly cite the issue and page of TV Guide or the TV-listings page of a newspaper (many vintage papers are available as Google scans) as to scheduled airdates. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

text: As for today's edit, we also can't include uncited personal opinion or original-research observation. --Tenebrae (talk) 02:24, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: In 1965 and 1966, "The Wizard of OZ" aired at 7pm, not 6pm, according to TV listings in the Boston Globe and numerous smaller newspapers in New York State and California...all can be viewed on-line. Also on-line is a 1965 ad from TV Guide giving the time as 7-9pm. 108.20.114.62 (talk) 19:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  wrong time for 1965 and 1966 

message: I removed the sentence that said:
:Between 1956 and 1980, commercial broadcast television was virtually the only means by which families were able to see The Wizard of Oz, unless they attended the MGM Children's Matinees in the early 1970s or were in a city with a Revival house movie theater. 
This was cited to Movies Around Town, New York Magazine, July 4, 1977 p. 13.
I removed the sentence because prior to the availability of VHS starting in 1977, it was rare for any movie to be available to the general public after its theatrical release, except on television. Although some movies were available on cable television, cable was not yet available in many places at the time. Furthermore, the New York magazine item  indicates only that The Wizard of Oz was shown at one revival house for four days in 1977. It doesn't say anything about whether the film was available anywhere else, nor could it say anything about the film's availability in 1978 or 1979. In addition, the reference to "families" is misleading. Single people couldn't see The Wizard of Oz any more frequently than families could. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  1956 to 1980 

message: Article says: "The reason that the film did not air in December 1963 has never been stated, but some say that it was because of John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963"
Those that say that are unaware that the TV Guide Fall Preview issue in September stated that the movie would be shown that season in January. 2600:4040:5D38:1600:2001:AC9A:E84C:5D07 (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  nothing to do with JFK 

message: This does not belong in the actual article, but it may give some context to younger people, or future people, who live in a world of technological marvels and think they are ordinary.
In 1962 or 1963 we lived in a lower income blue collar neighborhood in Portland, OR.  The first color TV that any of us had ever seen was purchased by a family living near us whose father was a longshoreman (hence, made a decent enough income to support his 12 kids in middle class style.)  They bought it just in time to watch the Wizard of Oz and invited many friends of their kids to watch it with them.  Lucky it was a big house.  
This article is all proper and Wikipedian in its citation-supported sterility, but does nothing to convey the utter wonder that occurred at that instant when the film changes from black and white to color.  To modern people (2022, right now) that change probably appears as some sort of a metaphor - who knows, maybe even a clumsy metaphor.  But to a 6 year old kid who had never seen a color image on a TV, it was very powerful.  It still is.  I'm 67 now and I can still close my eyes and bring forth that feeling of utter awe and amazement that I doubt most 6 year olds are even capable of today.
We bought our own color TV in 1964 and the Wizard of Oz became one of our annual highlights.  Pizza was very uncommon in Portland at that time.  (There were two Italian restaurants which sold pizzas along with everything else, but I don't remember any "pizza parlors" as would come along a few years later.)  But that was OK because we did them one better: we made our own.  Our mother was a good cook and found a recipe for pizza dough.  We were each allowed to make ourselves a cookie-sheet sized pizza. (Not all pizzas were round back then because - surprise! - not all Italian pizzas are round even to this day.)  Then we could sit around and watch TV in the living room (only this once a year!) and watch the movie.  I've had a fairly good and adventurous life, but this is still at the high end of my personal yardstick of bliss.  FatBear1 (talk) 17:38, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical Context