The "Wizard Of Oz" Podcast

Like most everybody else I’m self-isolating in this very odd time. With no movies to review and my television show "Pop Life" on hiatus I’m finding things to keep myself busy. Today I spent a chunk of my day going through closets, finding discs of unlabelled photographs and other bits and pieces that have piled up in the nooks and crannies of my house and I came across a set of interviews I did at a rather loud party at the Tavern on the Green in New York City in 2009 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the release of The Wizard of Oz. I mixed and mingled with some of the original Munchkins like Karl Slover, who was just two feet tall when he played the first trumpeter, Villager Munchkin Ruth Duccini, member of the Lollipop Guild Jerry Maren and Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft, while enjoying Wizard of Oz themed drinks like the Gin Tornado. But mostly I soaked up the stories from some of the folks who were there when Judy Garland was swept away to a technicolour OZ. So, I banged the interviews together in a podcast, the first project from the newly dubbed Isolation Studios. Somehow the movie makes perfect sense for right now. "Someplace where there isn't any trouble? Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It's far, far away... behind the moon... beyond the rain."