Was Dorothy rude?

That's EXACTLY what I mean! And I'm surprised I never saw that clip considering I've watched plenty of Family Guy. Clearly I'm not the only one who was insulted!

Now don't even get me started on the favoritism Charlie Bucket showed his Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka. His other grandparents might as well have been a dying compost heap in that bed.

^This

Yes, and it's not so much that she had a favorite but that she told him that he was her favorite in front of the others. The movie writers could have had her pull him aside in a special scene just the two of them for her to pass along that tidbit. Actually the writers could have even added in an extra musical number for her to express her favor. It will forever be a missed opportunity. Just imagine the song we never got to hear. Perhaps "Those extra 12 minutes I had with you before we met Tin Man made all the difference" or "Good Lord, those other two were dead weight".

Oh well.

Hmmm. I hadn't considered that she was just being nice. She didn't really need to do that though. He wasn't suffering from a lack of self-esteem, just a missing brain.

Gracious sakes! I had forgotten that.

I think people in the olden days tended to be a bit more blunt than they are now but that's still pretty cold. Makes me glad she was nice to him in the movie now, but I still think she should have played favorites a little more privately.

Thank you! And I can assure you I look at basically everything from a different angle.

I'm probably reading my own experiences into it. Having felt second or third best before, it made me feel sorry for the other two. I don't remember them looking sad, though, so perhaps all was well. 🙂

True. And don't forget those talking trees. They scared me to death when I was little.

I remember those days. And despite the somewhat silly topic of this thread The Wizard of Oz is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I always thought Dorothy was very sweet. This thread is 25% because that one particular scene genuinely didn't sit right with me and 75% silliness. 😊

"If you are of 'a certain age', you'd have experienced the annual ritual of watching TWOO on Thanksgiving night."

It never aired on Thanksgiving night until 1991, and again in 1994 (the night before Thanksgiving in both cases). By 1991 it had already lost most of its "event" status due to how common VCRs were, as well as how common video rental stores were and how cheap VHS releases were to buy outright, by that time.

1998 was the last year for the annual broadcast on one of the "big three" networks (CBS), and after that it moved to cable networks, and those broadcasts don't even count in my opinion, especially since they often broadcast it more than once a year. Cable + multiple times a year + deep into the home video era = not an event at all.

So during the entire era of the "big three" network broadcasts (1956 to 1998, CBS and NBC; CBS for most of the years), it was broadcast on the night before Thanksgiving a total of two times, both in the 1990s.

It seems like a good idea though. Tying it to a major holiday like Thanksgiving would have made it even more of an event. And since most people are home, or at someone else's home, on Thanksgiving, it probably would have increased viewership. It also would have increased awareness of when it was going to be broadcast if they'd consistently shown it on Thanksgiving, as opposed to, "Well, we might air it in February, or maybe March, or possibly April, or perhaps December..."

I grew up in the 1980s and during that decade it was broadcast every year on CBS in either February or March (7 times in March, 3 times in February).