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How Did This Get Made?
How Did This Get Made?

Return to Oz

January 30, 2026 • 1h 1m

Summary

⏱️ 10 min read

Overview

Paul Scheer, Jason Manzoukas, and June Diane Raphael dissect Disney's 1985 dark fantasy sequel 'Return to Oz,' exploring how this disturbing, desaturated adaptation of L. Frank Baum's books abandons the joy and songs of the original for electroshock therapy, detachable heads, and industrial horror. The hosts grapple with whether this faithful-to-the-books approach works as children's entertainment or simply traumatizes viewers with its bleak portrayal of Oz.

Opening and Initial Reactions: Trauma and Confusion

The hosts introduce Return to Oz and immediately express how disturbed they are by the film. None of them had seen it before, and they're shocked by how dark and traumatizing it is compared to The Wizard of Oz. They discuss the film's troubled production history and Disney's identity crisis in the 1980s, noting how the studio was desperately trying different genres to regain relevance.

  • The hosts are traumatized by Return to Oz and none had seen it before
  • Disney made this big-budget film in 1985 during an identity crisis, experimenting with darker material
  • The film follows Dorothy being institutionalized and nearly receiving electroshock therapy before returning to a destroyed Oz
" Traumatized. Yes, truly. Traumatized. "

The Wizard of Oz vs Return to Oz: A Fundamental Disconnect

June articulates her core problem with the film: The Wizard of Oz is a perfect movie with important life lessons, and this sequel undermines everything. The hosts discuss how Oz was a dream in the original but is real here, creating narrative confusion. They struggle with Dorothy appearing duller and more wounded despite being younger, and how the film expects emotional connections to completely different versions of beloved characters.

  • In The Wizard of Oz, Oz was a dream, but in this movie Oz is real, creating fundamental storytelling problems
  • The deeply important lessons Dorothy learned in the first film are completely thrown away
  • Dorothy seems significantly younger but feels much older, wounded, and lacks the joyful innocence of Judy Garland's performance
  • The film feels like a sequel to a movie we haven't seen, with references to events we didn't witness
" There's no emotional connective tissue between the two films. I mean, this isn't a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, as far as I'm concerned. This is sort of another telling of the book. "
" This is more of a sequel to Hereditary than it is Wizard of Oz. "

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