Showing posts with label The Wizard of Oz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Wizard of Oz. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Monkeying Around

Monkey Shines
The Wicked Witch of the West
&
A Flying Monkey

In the midst of all the Holiday bustle let's take a moment to always remember the monkeys. Why? Because it is National Monkey Day that's why!

Tis it being the season and all I thought we should celebrate with monkeys of a whimsical nature. So here to represent is one of the winged monkeys from the classic The Wizard of Oz.

You know those little flying bastards who would swoop down and kidnap Dorothy and her friends in the movie, yeah those.

Here we see one conspiring over a crystal ball with HRH the Wicked Witch of the West.

What's more fun than a flying monkey? Why a barrel of monkeys! Remember those from when you were a kid? If you do then you are old.

Mic Drop!

National Monkey Day on the WWW -

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/monkey-day-december-14/

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Celebrating Judy Garland

Celebrate!
Mike Clifford & Judy Garland
June is Pride month, and also happens to be the month that legendary gay icon Judy Garland passed. With the 50th Anniversary of her death arriving on June the 22nd former Teen Idol Mike Clifford decided to cover her signature song "Over The Rainbow" in celebration of her life.

Oh and what a cover it is. Clifford who actually knew Judy (she attended his singing gigs around the Los Angeles area) - Always found her to be kind and supportive of his music career. Of course it was a big deal for Mike that he actually was friends with his idol.

Clifford delivers one of the best vocal performances of his career with his rendition of the song classic from The Wizard of Oz

Let your troubles melt like lemon drops and celebrate Judy's life by hitting the video below...

Happy Pride Month


Mike on the WWW at:
https://www.facebook.com/MikeCliffordsWonderfulWorld/
https://www.reverbnation.com/mikeclifford6   

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

"Will You Love Me Tomorrow" Mike Clifford

You Will Absolutely Love Him!
Mike Clifford
Former Teen Idol and Entertain Me favorite, Mike Clifford has come a long way since his Close to Cathy days. He is living proof that you aren't getting older, you are getting F#cking Better!

Mike is here to hit us with his best shot yet. An amazing cover of the Carole King chestnut Will You Love Me Tomorrow.

I asked Mike to name ten things he will always love, no matter what, tomorrow. Behold the anointed ones...

1) Classic Cars
2) Mexican Food
3) Dogs & Cats
4) Aircraft
5) PBS
6) The Wizard od OZ
7) Space Exlporation
8) The Ocean
9) Butterflies
10) Every Flower on Earth

Stop and smell all the flowers with Mike. Feel the love by watching the video for Will You  Love Me Tomorrow after the jump.

PS Yours truly has a blink and you miss it cameo in it - OK, now it's time to watch it, and watch it now! Jump minions, jump for Mike's love! 



Give your love to Mike at:
https://www.facebook.com/MikeCliffordsWonderfulWorld/
https://www.reverbnation.com/mikeclifford6
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/will-you-love-me-tomorrow-single/1397186208
http://store.cdbaby.com/cd/mikeclifford25  

Monday, February 26, 2018

Blonde Oprah

Mrs. Which, I Presume...
Oprah Winfrey
She's back and she's blonde, get used to it. That's correct peeps Oprah Winfrey is giving you blonde ambition in her latest opus A Wrinkle in Time. She plays a character named Mrs. Which, is she a good one, or a bad one? We will find out on March 9th, unless you have read the novel, well then I assume you already know the answer.

For those of us unfamiliar like me here is the storyline:

"Following the discovery of a new form of space travel as well as Meg's father's disappearance, she, her brother, and her friend must join three magical beings - Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which - to travel across the universe to rescue him from a terrible evil"

Sounds pretty standard, but here is the ahem, wrinkle that makes this guy want to go see it:

"The movie, is about what it means to be a source of light in a world in which darkness seems only to proliferate. It also makes the case for thinking independently when conformity is the norm." 

Yes the perfect antidote to the times we live in.

Oprah is quoted, saying:  

“I felt like we were making the new Wizard of Oz for another generation.”

Color me very intrigued...Blonde Oprah on a Blue Monday indeed!

A Wrinkle in Time on the WWW:

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Michael's Musings

As You Can See It Has Gotten Cooler In Los Angeles
Michael Shinafelt
Hey Peeps, today is the day we tug the turkey and toss the salad, "yes" Virginia it's Thanksgiving!!!

It's also Thursday which is the day of the week I share my thoughts and feelings, because after all sharing is caring. 

Time to stuff that turkey, gobble, gobble!


I am thankful for a many things this year, one is that my testosterone level is healthy and ready to rumble.

Riding on a bummer that Gold's Gym Hollywood is holding no spin classes tomorrow. I could have really used a good helping of Jessica after the culinary sins I will be committing today.

The Wicked Witch of the West really exerted herself in The Wizard of Oz, when she used poppies to make Dorothy and crew sleep. She could have simply had the winged monkeys serve up a giant turkey.

While I am not a fan of the show's music, I am thankful for the cast of Hamilton.

Mashed potatoes rule!

Brie rules too.

Southern California is having such a mild winter, check off another thing to be thankful for.

Who doesn't love jazz hands?

Today is also the day of Football and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Choices are a good thing. Unless your Sophie.

Once I had an awesome pet duck named Duke, no we didn't eat him for Thanksgiving, but the Holiday made me think of him.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Be thankful I am on Instagram & Twitter at:
https://www.instagram.com/michaelshinafelt/
https://twitter.com/mshinafelt?lang=en   

Monday, March 30, 2015

Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops: "The Sound of Oz"

Everyone knows the songs from The Wizard of Oz; from Ding Dong The Witch is Dead, If I Only Had a Brain to Over the Rainbow. In fact Over The Rainbow is often cited as the greatest movie hit of all time. Few, however, know the names of the men who wrote Rainbow and the rest of the classic Oz score. 

The remedy for their anonymity now is in the hands of Aaron Harburg -- great-grandson of The Wizard of Oz lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg -- who has begun production on The Sound of Oz. The feature-length documentary honors both his great-grandfather and Oz composer Harold Arlen.

Aaron is conducting a campaign on Indiegogo to raise funds for his mission. I recently got to speak with him about it...so follow the yellow brick road and hear what he had to say.

MS: The songs from The Wizard of Oz are so well known, whey did it take until now for a project like this to happen?

AH: That's a really good question, since the songs have endured for 75 years it's pretty amazing. My Grandfather, Ernie Harburg has attempted to address this for his book Who Put The Rainbow in The Wizard Of Oz? But the book never really obtained the kind of notoriety it should have. I guess the powers that be elected the songs just weren't that important to the story.

MS: That's interesting because the songs from the film are so iconic, especially Over the Rainbow. Who doesn't know that one?

AH: The Wizard of Oz has always just been part of my family. But it wasn't until I went to New York and looking around, I was at some restaurant, or whatever, and it just struck me
Not only would everyone know Over the Rainbow, but they would probably have a personal connection to it. The Wizard of Oz has been a part of everyone's lives growing up. This might be less the case now, because it is not an annual television event anymore, but for a lot of people my age and older it definitely is. It's amazing to me how much impact it has had. 
Aaron Harburg: Making Great Grandpa Proud
MS: Want to hear something shocking? I have a spin instructor who is forty-two and she asked the class how many people have not seen The Wizard of Oz and nobody raised their hand. She said she hadn't and I thought: "Well you're a freak!" (laughs)

AH: Yeah exactly, exactly! (laughs)

MS: How long have you been working on the documentary?

AH: I actually started working on this in 2012. I moved to Los Angeles and spoke to a number of producers, studios and whatnot, I just wasn't getting the support and enthusiasm
I thought I was going to get. Last year at the Oz-Stravaganza in Chittenango, New York, which is the biggest Oz festival I met Ryan Jay who is a nationally syndicated film critic and has worked at a couple of television networks like VH-1, Showtime all that type of stuff. So he's had a bit of productions experience and he was super enthusiastic and decided to come on board. We shot a trailer last year in New York and are doing a crowd funding campaign, instead of dealing with investors so we can have creative control. That's my goal right no, I'm no longer working for my family estate, but I'm working on something I am very passionate about. I feel like it's a matter of justice and it has to be told.

MS: Can you spill on any juicy behind the scenes tidbits on the making of the songs?

AH: Hmmmmmmm...well Ira Gershwin actually intervened as part of the process of writing Over the Rainbow. That's not too well known, but there are a lot of little stories that we're planning on telling. There's two sides to the documentary. On the one hand there's the collaboration between my Great Grandfather and Harold Arlen songs were made, and them as people. Then there is the part about how the songs have taken on their own life and in our culture and impacted countless people sang it at The Oscars recently, there's the Hawaiian version that everybody knows, not jut Over the Rainbow, but Ding Dong the Witch is Dead was a big deal recently. But we will definitely address what was going on behind the scenes. 
We're Off To See The Wizard...

MS: Something that I found interesting that is stated in the trailer is that there is no mention of a rainbow in the book by Frank L. Baum.

AH: Yeah, that's right. There was no mention of a rainbow, so my Great Grandfather had a penchant for rainbows, he also wrote Finian's Rainbow, Look to the Rainbow. a rainbow then had a very different meaning than it does today. (laughs) It is was in his songs like a symbol of hope. There is a story behind the song Over the Rainbow. Allegedly my Great Grandfather was in the gardens one day thinking about: "What are we going to call this song, what lyrics are we going to put to this music?" Hearing the music and then creating the words is a crazy process. There was a Japanese gardener who had turned on the sprinklers and they were spraying and he wanted to get out of it, and he could see a rainbow and he thought to himself: "If I can just get past the rainbow I'll be fine" right then it clicked. That's the legend. (laughs)

MS: I believe it when I get creative ideas they come from super odd places.

AH: Yeah (laughs) Harold Arlen came up with the melody on the way to Grauman's Chinese Theater. He had to pull over so he could run into a drug store and jot it down on a piece of paper. That's totally crazy! (laughs)

MS: You're creative you know that's how it works. 

AH: Yeah totally! I wake up in three in the morning going: "Oh my gosh what a great idea" and then I can't sleep for the rest of the night. 

MS: Over the Rainbow still packs power, it's a go to song for many American Idol contestants.(laughs)

AH: Well it's a great song for people to show off their range: "look I can do an octave leap!"
(laughs)

MS: I am really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

AH: This has been an interesting journey for me personally because when I hear Over the Rainbow, since I never got to meet "Yip" he died before I was born. So when I hear that song it's almost like he's speaking to me, "the dreams that you dare to dream" they really do come true. That's been the biggest part of my inspiration to get this documentary made. 

Learn more about the documentary at:

http://www.thesoundofozmovie.com/

Be a part of The Sound Of Oz at: 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sound-of-oz

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Pentatonix Catch A Tornado To The Land Of Ahhhs...!

They're "Wide Awake"
That's right, the PTX gang join YouTube sensation Todrick Hall and hitch a ride on a tornado and land in Ahhhs! Not to be confused with the land of Oz, but it certainly is Emerald City adjacent.

Pentatonix journey opens with the sole female group member Kirstie Maldonado as "Dorothy" crooning "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and then along comes a twister....Hey, the story has not changed, but the way in which it is told is unique and fun!

Kirstie, is front row and center for the bulk of the re-telling of a young girls journey of self. Not only does she play "Dorothy" but being the only female, she also plays "Glinda" and "The Wicked Witch of the West" -  You go Kirstie!

The concept is the brainchild of Todrick Hall (with I am sure input from PTX) - also pays homage to the classic movie, "The Wizard of Oz" and utilizes images of the late great Judy Garland over the final number of the voyage.

So which of the Pentatonix Guys plays "The Scarecrow", "The Tin Woodsman", "The Cowardly Lion" & "Toto" too?

Catch a tornado to Ahhhs and find out!

                                                                The Wizard of Ahhhs                        


Represent with Pentatonix at: http://www.ptxofficial.com/

Connect with Todrick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/toddyrockstar

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Witchcraft: Sandy Zacky


The Wicked Witch of the West
"Entertain Me"'s favorite Chanteuse, Sandy Zacky has spirit, the Halloween spirit that is. Just in time to get your Witch on Sandy has posted her rendition of the classic song "Witchcraft".

The above photo is not of Sandy...but to get you in the Halloween state of mind, we chose a shot of a spell caster everyone knows, The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

Sandy with a "Y" in Concert
Many unexplained things happen this time of year that defy logic, according to Sandy with a "Y" when it comes to singing.... "Now that's the kind of witchcraft I like to practice"!

Join Sandy in a cool Halloween groove and check out her take on the classic "Witchcraft"....Boo!

Put a spell on yourself and listen to Ms. Zacky sing "Witchcraft" at:
http://www.myspace.com/sandyzackymikeclifford

Follow Sandy daily on her Facebook fan page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Sandy-Zacky-Fan-Page/142692019103428