The Quick-Seat Chair Goes To Hollywood – The Wizard of Oz
By Khadi Madama Quick-Seat Chair Wellness Coordinator
“We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.” People have been singing this catchy little tune ever since The Wizard of Oz first made it onto the silver screen in 1939. “We hear he is a whiz of a Wiz, if ever a Wiz there was.” When Quick-Seat Chair decided to go to Hollywood and review this classic masterpiece, my first thought was, If the Wizard of Oz is such a wizard, how did he miss putting any seating all along the famous Yellow Brick Road? Or, for that matter, in Oz!
Over the years, there have been many rumors about the making of this movie. Some are funny, and some are not so funny. However, it certainly had its share of problems, which appear to have set in coincidentally with the loss of its director, Victor Fleming. It seems that famed producer David O. Selznick had bought the rights to Gone with the Wind and had left MGM to form his own company, which was producing Gone with the Wind. David O. pulled Victor Fleming off of the set of The Wizard of Oz, causing serious repercussions with the cast, who were not happy that they had lost their director. All in all, The Wizard of Oz would have a total of six producers by the film’s end. With all of that hubbub, it’s no wonder that there were seating problems on the set. No one was even thinking about where all these cast members were going to sit, waiting on cue. Add to that their heavy and poisonous make-up. Margaret Hamilton’s make-up contained flammable ingredients that caught fire, burning her face. Lack of seating was only one of the problems, but bunches of crew members waiting on cue under hot lights in hot costumes, who were already grumpy at the loss of their director, were made much more uncomfortable with no place to sit. Don’t we all know how that must have felt? It must have been very difficult for ‘the Munchkins’ to sound happy singing the welcoming tune to the Lollipop League.
It’s difficult to watch “Oz” now through the lens of knowing just how many problems the movie had. The Munchkin cast members were outraged and even changed the lyrics of one of their songs, “Ding Dong the Witch is gone……” Just use your imagination with which word to substitute. Because of their high-pitched voices no one realized that they had substituted the word “witch” and the lyrics went on film as they were and are today.
The Wizard of Oz, played by actor Frank Baum, must have thought that he could be a wizard of an entire realm without any thought to architectural design or foot traffic. It’s easy to see when Dorothy and her friends finally get to Oz, after walking all that way without any place to sit, that there is a huge scramble of people. They finally get in to see the wizard—and guess what they have to stand for! There still isn’t a place for these four weary travelers to sit once all of their primping and pampering is finished. If only there was a Quick-Seat Chair headquarters in Oz.
Have you ever felt like you’ve walked a ‘yellow brick road’ around a hospital industrial complex or university without the benefit of a place to sit? Then you know how Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Lion, and The Scarecrow felt. At the end of the movie, Dorothy is told to click her heels together and repeat, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” If you can’t find a decent, safe place to sit on a long journey down long corridors, a seat that magically appears along a wall that you can open with ease like Quick-Seat Chair, you’ll be repeating those words along with Dorothy. Maybe when they film a remake, we can get Quick-Seat Chair on the movie cast list.
Quick-Seat Chair. Temporary Seating That Closes Itself