Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz has a gun?

Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz has a gun?

by Liv | Published on January 10th, 2008, 9:21 am | Arts

Ren's favorite movie is Wizard of Oz. We're watching it now. We watch it about 3 times a day. You tend to notice things you wouldn't normally notice when you watch a movie that much. However we're still baffled why in once scene The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz has a gun. Googling turns up this.

scarecrow_wizard_of_oz_gun.gif (54.6 KiB) Viewed 8241 times

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Huh? What are you talking about? The Scarecrow didn't have a gun?" Oh contraire. Check out the scene immediately after Dorothy and company leave the wizard to go after the witch. They are heading into the scary forest and in a number of shots Scarecrow is clearly carrying a gun - a rod, a pistol, a heater, death in a tube, a rapid bullet delivery system.

This of course asks, more questions then it answers. Some valid, as to why a "Children's' Film" would have a gun in it, or why they'd just randomly choose a gun. I'm quite convinced the reason the scarecrow does have a gun is as simple as a cut scene from the final edit, but I found no evidence to prove it. More to the point, why would editors let such an obvious blooper such as this make it into the final cut?

I must admit that the previous hypothesis put forth by Mr Holbrook does manage to suggest several problems with the Scarecrow packing a little heat. One, he's the one without a brain. So obviously he's not the smartest in the group, and also the fact that he is holding a firearm and is made out of flammable straw, really does make a rational person wonder why the heck would anyone give The scarecrow a gun?

Y'know it kind of looks like he broke off a part of the Tin Man...

Maybe that's the answer... I mean, what would a tin man crap? Tin? Guns? Hmmm...

Interesting post-script to the comment about about guns in 'children's films'; For E.T., Spielberg went as far as to edit out the guns in the hands of the govt goons to make the bicycle scene less threatening. They put in walkie talkies instead.

Not sure how I feel about this. I saw it as a kid and I don't think I was emotionally scarred from the experience of seeing Elliot ride up to the roadblock with gun-toting CIA guys. I mean, it makes more sense, right? Heck in many parts of the world kids are around guns as a part of life. I think there is a point where you have to say we've gone too far in trying to insulate children from disturbing or intense images. At what point are we setting them up for a culture shock when reality hits them head on?

Oh, and the tin man pees mercury. I mean, he just has to. :lol:

Molten solder perhaps, mercury would form an amalgam and he'd get a blocked urethra .

A Person wrote:Molten solder perhaps, mercury would form an amalgam and he'd get a blocked urethra .

No heart, but he has a urethra... who'd've thunk it?

Well a stopcock anyhow January 10th, 2008, 3:06 pm

Well a stopcock anyhow

A Person wrote:Molten solder perhaps, mercury would form an amalgam and he'd get a blocked urethra .

I'm convinced he'd only have molten solder problems after "All you can eat night" at "Jose's house of Habanero" :twisted:

This of course asks, more questions then it answers. Some valid, as to why a "Children's' Film" would have a gun in it, or why they'd just randomly choose a gun.

The answer dear heart is very simple. The Wizard of Oz came out in 1939 and there was no such a thing as children's films. It was a different world then and guns weren't as big a deal then as they are now. Talking about bloopers though, there was one scene that's been cut out now where you could see a man carrying a ladder across the rear of the scenery.

RebelSnake wrote:
This of course asks, more questions then it answers. Some valid, as to why a "Children's' Film" would have a gun in it, or why they'd just randomly choose a gun.

The answer dear heart is very simple. The Wizard of Oz came out in 1939 and there was no such a thing as children's films. It was a different world then and guns weren't as big a deal then as they are now. Talking about bloopers though, there was one scene that's been cut out now where you could see a man carrying a ladder across the rear of the scenery.

Here's more trivia: it was a typo in the script. Scarecrow was supposed to be carrying a nun for protection. :twisted:

I am LMAO right now....

I remember that about E.T. and thought Spieldberg was being to anal, but he has always been about creating the "perfect fairy tale"...

But the question of course, other then a mistake, where did the scarecrow get the gun from?

Liv wrote:But the question of course, other then a mistake, where did the scarecrow get the gun from?

I still think it looks like it could've been Tin Man's winky. Hmm... would that make it a Tinky Winky???

Jan 29, 2008:

It makes sense. I mean, everyone else but the Scarecrow can protect themselves.

Dorthy has her shoes, The Lion is...well, a Lion, coward or no, and the Tin Man's made of Tin.

The Scarecrow is made of straw, has no brain. I think hes at the disadvantage, wandering the yellow brick roads of Oz.

Okay, with The Wizard Of Oz again. Yes, we must watch it every single day. It seems every day I can manage to dissect the movie and pose another question to ponder. Today: when the awkward Wizard says he'll take Dorothy home himself she says "Oh, will you? Could you? Are you a clever enough wizard to manage it?" He replies, " You cut me to the quick", and then proceeds to tell them how he accidentally ended up in Oz and couldn't figure out how to get back. At the end when the hot air balloon takes off without her she pleads with him to come back and get her. He says he cannot because he doesn't know how it works. Well if he didn't know how to work it in the first place how could he promise to get her home and why did he get so insulted when she called his bluff. He even admits he's a good man but a terrible wizard. She was better off finding her own transportation because the clumsy wizard is probably still aimlessly floating around somewhere over the rainbow.

shannon wrote:...the clumsy wizard is probably still aimlessly floating around somewhere over the rainbow.

He is, or at least was! I heard the Wizard had a close encounter of a Big Boy kind... He and Dr. Evil almost collided not once but twice! :mrgreen:

Well if he didn't know how to work it in the first place how could he promise to get her home and why did he get so insulted when she called his bluff.

Could be because he was a con artist from the beginning, don't ya think?

RebelSnake wrote:
Well if he didn't know how to work it in the first place how could he promise to get her home and why did he get so insulted when she called his bluff.

Could be because he was a con artist from the beginning, don't ya think?

Bingo. There's an obvious ref to P.T. Barnum there. You ever noticed that the guy who plays the wizard also plays about four roles? Apparently the wizard was doing cloning research.

I have it on good authority that the Munchkins controlled the Oz black market trade in guns, hair gel, and Ecstasy. The witch and her flying monkeys had the monopoly on the opium trade. Why do you think the crew passed out in one of her fields?
The scarecrow's gun looks like a zip gun of some sort. No doubt he was forced to make his own gat. The whole thing was nothing but a turf war. The wizard was obviously losing, and with Dorothy's unwitting help and the red shoes he planned to take over all of Oz . He couldn't wear the shoes himself, so he was going to pimp Dorothy. Instead, he ended up in an ashram in California and eventually died of syphillis.

Sadly, it didn't improve when the Triad took over the Emerald City. The scarecrow was a closet homophobe and busted a cap in the lion's a** during a rave three weeks later. He recruited the witch's former bodyguards and the monkeys and led them in a failed coup against the tin man. In retaliation, the tin man smuggled a goat into the scarecrow's bedroom one night, and the next morning, all that was discovered of the scarecrow was his hat. The goat is still on death row, going through the appeals process. Glenda was assigned as his public defender.

The Tin Man had a make-over, and is now referred to as " Boss Goldie". But word on the street is that he's been main-lining Quaker State and the Munchkins are just biding their time...

Liv wrote:I must admit that the previous hypothesis put forth by Mr Holbrook does manage to suggest several problems with the Scarecrow packing a little heat. One, he's the one without a brain. So obviously he's not the smartest in the group, and also the fact that he is holding a firearm and is made out of flammable straw, really does make a rational person wonder why the heck would anyone give The scarecrow a gun?

Unless that thing fires White Phosphorus rounds, napalm, or something, there's not much danger of it igniting the Scarecrow himself. If it's as home-made as it looks, he''d be more at risk from the barrel exploding. I have seen hot lead start brush fires on gun ranges, but conditions usually have to be just right, i.e., extremely dry.
A bullet fires when the firing pin hits the primer and ignites the small quantity of gunpowder needed to propel the slug out the barrel and towards your target. (Well, there is that whole case-less ammo thing, but the piece he's carrying doesn't look that high-tech) It's an "explosion", yes, but a very controlled, localized one. Not a lot of actual "fire" involved in the process.

Of course, if he made the gun, he might have been making his own rounds, too, and all the gunpowder required would require extra caution...

I think all scarecrows should have guns. And there is nothing wrong with childrens shows with guns. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, afterall, arms Yukon Cornelius with a revolver and no one cares there.

Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, has died at 89.

His caretaker, Linda Dodge, said Carroll died in his sleep at her home.

He had heart problems and received a pacemaker in February. Until January, he had lived in his own home.

Carroll was one of more than 100 adults and children who were recruited to play the movie natives of what author L. Frank Baum called Munchkin Country in his 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Carroll once said the Munchkins made only 125 dollars a week while filming the movie that would become a classic. via