Tales of the Wizard of Oz (1961)
Tales of the Wizard of Oz, created in 1961, was an animated television series crafted by Crawley Films for Videocraft, (later known as Rankin/Bass Productions.) This was the studio's second venture into animation and Rankin/Bass's inaugural foray into traditional animation. Characters from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz are given additional names, including Dandy the Cowardly Lion, Rusty the Tin Man, and Socrates the Strawman, expanding upon the original with these fresh monikers.
With 30 Day Free Trial!
Tales of the Wizard of Oz
1961Seasons & Episode
The Wizard makes a balloon that will send Dorothy and Toto back to Kansas, along with Rusty Tinman. But the Wicked Witch has plans to sabotage it.
In order to kindap Dorothy and make her a slave, the Wicked Witch disguises as actress Miss Lashes Goregous to get in the castle. Meanwhile, Socrates gets a movie magazine in his head for a brain, making him act like a Hollywood actor.
Because he's afraid of his own shadow, Dandy Lion seeks help from the Wizard to give him courage leading into trouble!
Dorothy and the Wizard try cooking in the kitchen and baking a cake for lunch, but it leads up to a big mess, including a flood of cake batter!
We are introduced to Desmond the Blue Dragon, whom is suffering from a heartburn and doesn't want to do the Wicked Witch's dastardly deed to sabotage the Wizard's party and eat Dorothy. However, the flightless dragon causes some trouble at the party, until the Wizard extinguishes Desmond's heartburn.
The Wizard of Oz and the gang build a powerful rocket that'll try to send Dorothy back to Kansas. But, as always, disaster comes near with our heroes doing something dangerous!
Socrates, Dandy and Rusty join the army, which causes explosive mishaps with the strict sergeant.
In search for a heart, Rusty buys one from the Wicked Witch of the West disguised as a gypsy. The heart turns out to be a ticking timer bomb.
The Wicked Witch needs a soft mattress, so she kidnaps Socrates to stuff him into the bed. Now Dorothy and Dandy Lion must rescue Socrates from the Witch before he stays a mattress forever!
Dandy gets advice from the Wizard to roar for courage. But, however, the Wizard has his own problems. His water of youth shrunk him back into a baby!
Dorothy and Rusty find themselves in a rubbery land after trying to fly, where they meet the stretchy, stuttering Robby the Rubber Man!
Socrates and Dandy Lion picnic in the happy forest. Little do they know that all the plants there are alive and want their food! Dandy winds up becoming king of the forest.
Dandy Lion has a house redecorating service. He also paints furniture that magically becomes real. However, one of his new clients turns out to be the Wicked Witch of the West!
The Wizard's magic wishbone is missing, so he, Socrates and Rusty look for it, as well as a running gag where they mess through an overloaded closet. They also turn the place upside down (LITERALLY!)
After saving a Munchkin from danger, Dorothy, Toto and the Wizard go sailing. They use the Wizard's bag of wind to move the boat, but the wind causes a storm!
While going fishing, Socrates Rusty and Dandy fish up a trombone, drum and cymbals. They wonder why they're there and they practice playing. Their music sounds horrible, and when they play for the Wizard, he says the instruments were thrown in the lake because the previous musicians were TERRIBLE!
The Wicked Witch of the West tries to use Dandy Lion to steal some honey from a hive of angry bees. However, her plan backfires when the bees listen to Dandy's orders.
Dorothy bakes roast chicken and a pie for Rusty Tinman, who's coming over for dinner. The Wicked Witch sneaks in and hides in the oven. But then Rusty enters, which leads into a mess of things!
After making a telephone, the Wizard makes a soda that makes two Munchkins talk! But when the Munchkins start hogging the telephone, there's talking trouble ahead!
The Wicked Witch of the West chats with her boyfriend, The Count. But when he leaves this world, the Witch makes her own absentminded Count that needs a brain. She relies on Dandy Lion for a brain!
With producer Maxamillion Cinema coming to Oz, Rusty prepares his play. But Dandy, Toto, Dorothy and ESPECIALLY Socrates nearly ruin the show!
Socrates, Rusty and Dandy are playing golf. However, Munchkins make mischief and Rusty shuts them up. The Munchkins get revenge on the tinman by rigging the game.
Socrates Scarecrow and Dandy Lion fly around on a magic carpet the Scarecrow got this morning. But things take a turn for the worse when the Giant Beatnik of Cloud Nine kidnaps them!
The Wizard and Rusty transform the castle into a fancy hotel because the Flying Monkey convention is coming for their next meeting. Turns out, the Monkeys are painful pranksters and our heroes want them out! Not even Munchkins can get rid of them.
Dandy Lion takes Socrates and Rusty to the art museum. There, Rusty acts like a big-shot art expert. Then Dandy is accidentally locked in the museum at closing time, just as the statues come alive!
While doing paper deliveries for Rusty, Toto is captured by the evil Oz dog catcher and taken to the pound! Now it's up to Rusty to bail Toto out of jail... I mean the pound.
The Wicked Witch is invited to a reunion of the Oz School for Sorcerers. There she meets her old schoolmates, Velma Villain (another witch) and Frankie Dracula (a corpse-formed monster.) They reminisce about old times, including picking on a goody-goody young Wizard of Oz.
Dandy Lion, being frightened by his own shadow, is confronted by the ghost of his grandfather. He tells Dandy how he used to have courage as a baby and in his childhood. Turns out, it must have been Dandy's childhood habit of thumb-sucking giving him courage!
Socrates finds a way to help Dorothy, the bubble-gum champ of Kansas, get back to her hometown. The Witch goes in onto the plan to make Dorothy's homeward-bound hopes become a (literal) train wreck!
Rusty Tinman disobeys his good conscience and listens to his evil conscience, to go into the Wizard's lab and make a heart. He chooses the wrong spell (called ""King of Hearts"") and the magic just makes hundreds of King-of-Heart cards!
Tired of being wooed by a phony television hunk (called ""Romeo Repulsive,"") the Wicked Witch decides to make her OWN boyfriend. She nabs Socrates and magically makes him into a sexy Romeo! However, watching the action, a little Munchkin snitches to the Wizard about the evildoings.
Socrates Scarecrow has several Munchkins create a bridge to help Dorothy and Toto get back to Kansas. However along the way, the bridge collapses (thanks to the idiotic Scarecrow's antics) and they fall to the land of Tick-Tock! All the residents are clocks including an elderly Grandfather Clock. Socrates and Dorothy wind the clocks since the old clock watcher left the land.
The Wicked Witch magically transforms herself into a near-perfect Rusty Tinman, and plays evil pranks on Dandy Lion and Socrates. However, when the REAL Rusty shows up, the old double-trouble gags begin!
Due to a little see-saw mishap, two territories of Munchkins break out into a war of bow-and-arrows. Dandy Lion watches and tells the Wizard, who calls a meeting of the Oz Nations to do something about the battle!
After a tune-up by the Wizard, Rusty Tinman takes a nap. But the Wicked Witch of the West unscrews Rusty and steals his iron pellets (his food). When the Tinman wakes up, he falls apart!
Dandy has a girlfriend - a sexy lioness named Lulabelle he chats via mail with in the Lonely Hearts Club. But when he sends a false photo of him doing a brave deed, Lulabelle wants to come and meet Dandy Lion personally! So Dandy requires help from the Wizard so no one finds out.
After having rid of the old schoolmaster, the Wicked Witch ties up the current teacher and takes her place at the Oz School House, where Dorothy and Socrates are students.
Topsy-Turvy (the mayor of Topsy-Turvy town) and his servant don right-side up shoes and go to Oz to visit the Wizard. Meanwhile, Dandy Lion's eyes are going bad and he has glasses, but he thinks his eyes are going crazy when he sees Topsy's upside-down car!
Dorothy and Socrates cross paths with Robbie the Rubber man, whom shows off his stretching talents to Socrates. However, a stray bull nearly attacks our heroes, but not with Robbie around!
Dandy Lion runs a barber shop/hair salon. He has the Good Witch of the South coming as a customer, but the Wicked Witch of the West is determined to ruin the hair appointment.
The Tin Man repairs the pool of the Frog King (who naturally is French). As thanks, the King gives Tin Man a horn that will summon frogs anytime he needs them.
The Witch needs to protect her corn garden from crows, so she attatches Socrates Strawman to a pola, and uses the poor scarecrow to frighten the birds away. But Socrates then devises a plan to give the Witch a taste of her own medicine.
The Wicked Witch pours some of her invisibility formula into Rusty Tinman's oil can. When Rusty oils himself, he vanishes from view, confusing everybody!
Socrates and Rusty trade their brain and heart, so Rusty now has a heart and Socrates has a brain! But now they begin to talk and act like each other, with Rusty being a kind dimwit and Socrates being a big bully!
Rusty runs the Oz newspaper business, with Dandy Lion working on the ink and printers. He then hires Socrates as a reporter to get the ""scoop"" from the Wizard.
Rusty harasses a young Munchkin who was fooling around with his car. But the Munchkin's brother accidentally stumbles into the Wizard's growth formula and becomes gigantic, ready to pulverize the tin man!
The Wizard tells Dandy Lion that the problem of Dandy being a coward is that he is too warm. So he tries to cool him down for courage, but none of them really work, not even freezing the big feline!
It's Thanksgiving, so Dandy, Socrates and Rusty catch a live turkey bird. Rusty plans to kill it and cook it, but Socrates and Dandy befriend the fowl and name it Gabe. How can Socrates and Dandy feel about losing a new friend?
Rusty refuses to pay money for a charity raffle that Dorothy is holding. But when Dorothy sets up a fake heart as the prize, Rusty pays all he's got for the raffle tickets.
Everyone is preparing for the Munchkin Dance Contest, with Rusty tap-dancing and Dandy doing ballet, that is, except for Socrates Strawman, who can't dance. So Dorothy uses a fan to make the light-as-straw scarecrow dance around in the wind!
Dorothy decides to throw a dinner party for Socrates, Rusty and Dandy. But when she tries to make a Crepe Suzette for dinner, it burns in the oven and makes everybody sick.
Rusty, Socrates and Dandy are fire chiefs, but having three chiefs on duty leads to trouble, so Dorothy calls a meeting and makes Dandy Lion the new fire chief. Rusty is jealous, but then his workshop catches fire, and Dandy and Socrates (his assistant) bravely put out the fire for him!
When Rusty Tinman goes on vacation to Salad Gardens, he finds a misfit out of the sexy female tomatoes - a lone, green tomato. He helps her fit in, even by trying to paint her with red lipstick! But this green tomato may not REALLY be a tomato...
When Socrates and Rusty go to a beatnik coffee shop where Dandy Lion performs ""beatnik poetry,"" their state of being ""financially invalid"" causes a crazed teenage Munchkin waitress to force them into dish-washing.
After being tossed out of his house by the Wicked Witch, Dandy Lion is visited by the ghost of his grandfather, who tells him all about his courageous ancestors.
This episode features Boomer Rang the World Boxing Champ (a boxing kangaroo). During one of his personal appearances, Socrates knocks him out and must fight the marsupial in the ring.
While hiking and mountain climbing at Oz Hills, Dorothy and the Wizard spot an old-fashioned hillbilly feud. There, they see that the Zeek Hilly and the Hilly family are fighting against the Billies (with Zed Billy.)
Tales of the Wizard of Oz, created in 1961, was an animated television series crafted by Crawley Films for Videocraft, (later known as Rankin/Bass Productions.) This was the studio's second venture into animation and Rankin/Bass's inaugural foray into traditional animation. Characters from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz are given additional names, including Dandy the Cowardly Lion, Rusty the Tin Man, and Socrates the Strawman, expanding upon the original with these fresh monikers.
Watch Trailer
With 30 Day Free Trial!
Free Trial Channels
