Everywhere I look lately I see Wizard of Oz memorabilia - little tin men, miniature Dorothys, signs that say things like "Things just aren't the same since that house fell on my sister." I love the movie, The Wizard of Oz. I'm not sure if I'm seeing all these things because it's getting close to Halloween or if it's just the craze du jour and I'm really kind of sad about the whole thing.

The movie, The Wizard of Oz, was released in 1939. In the 1956 it became the first Hollywood movie to be shown on network television and it continued to be shown every spring for decades. You see, The Wizard of Oz is a story about a tornado taking little Dorothy far from her home in Kansas. Tornadoes occur primarily in the spring and hence, every spring they would show the movie and I would look forward to seeing that amazing film. I looked forward to it all year long. That all ended in 1980 when the movie became available on home video.

The anticipation is gone. The excitement of sitting down in front of the old black and white, and eventually color, television and watching the movie with friends and family is no longer there. Once again delayed gratification bites the dust. At the push of a button, or two, we can view Dorothy and Toto anytime of the day or night, all year long. It has lost its allure and it's a shame.

I'm sure the producers of The Wizard of Oz never dreamed it would still be going strong seventy two years later. And I'll bet they're rolling over in their graves at the continued profits from merchandizing they're missing out on. So fly on monkeys, go get 'em!