You know the flying monkeys, the yellow brick road, and the sweeping Technicolor magic. What you did not see was an actor fighting for his life in an oxygen tent, asbestos falling from the soundstage ceiling like snow, and a teenage star kept on a studio-mandated regimen of uppers and downers. This episode pulls back the curtain on the 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz, starting with MGM's decision to chase a rival's animated fairy tale profits and the ten screenwriters working in isolation who tried to turn the Scarecrow into a farmhand and the Tin Man into a convict.

The conversation explains why Depression-era box office anxiety turned the story into a dream, how contract players were swapped like parts, and how the original Tin Man's lungs failed after a week breathing aluminum powder. It covers the 100-degree three-strip Technicolor  ...