SkiP HappEns Podcast
Skip Clark is a dynamic and captivating podcast host and radio personality who has left an indelible mark on the world of broadcasting. With a voice that can command attention and a personality that oozes charm, Skip has become a beloved figure in the world of entertainment. His passion for storytelling and his ability to connect with his audience shine through in every episode of his podcast and every moment on the airwaves.
Skip’s journey in radio began decades ago, and he has since evolved into a seasoned professional who effortlessly navigates the waves of the media industry. His deep knowledge of music, pop culture, and current events keeps his listeners engaged and coming back for more. Skip Clark's enthusiasm and authenticity make him a trusted voice in the world of podcasting and radio. His dedication to his craft and his commitment to providing quality content continue to make him a standout in the world of broadcasting.
SkiP HappEns Podcast
Oz Extravaganza Celebration: Exploring Festivals, Characters, and Nostalgia
What if you could step into the magical world of Oz and celebrate its enduring legacy with fellow fans? This episode is your ticket to the incredible Oz Extravaganza, an annual festival that brings the enchantment of L. Frank Baum's timeless tale to life. Joined by special guests Mark Baum and Allison Laird, we explore the event's fascinating history and this year's stellar lineup. Expect nostalgic highlights like the 85th anniversary of the film, Technicolor effects, appearances by Jane Lahr, daughter of the Cowardly Lion actor Burt Lahr, and Robert Welch, grandson of the film's special effects artist Buddy Gillespie. Plus, hear from Gita Dorothy Morena, Baum’s great-granddaughter, and renowned pottery artist Irma Starr, making this a truly magical gathering.
The excitement doesn’t stop there! Get a sneak peek into the Wizard of Oz Festival at Quadling Country Park. Gourmet treats, whimsical entertainment, and a grand parade with beloved characters await you. Evening shows hosted by John Fricke promise captivating stories from our special guests, capped by a surprise finale on Sunday. We also take you inside the All Things Oz Museum for a treasure trove of memorabilia. Finally, hear from Bob Allison Laird about the beloved Oztravaganza event in Chittenango, where Dorothy costumes reign supreme. This isn’t just a festival; it’s a celebration of all things Oz, packed with nostalgia and fun for the whole family.
Thanks for listening! Follow us at youtube.com/c/skiphappens
John Carucci from the Dinosaur, and this is the Inner Harbor podcast, and with me I have two guests, mark Baum and Allison Laird, and we're going to talk about Oz Extravaganza.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, it's exciting.
Speaker 1:It's a fun time of year and it's a family event, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oz Extravaganza is a family event, formerly OzFest, years and years ago we changed it back in 2009 to OzStravaganza, and it is great for the whole family to come out, of course, based on the book the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the MGM movie the Wizard of Oz, written by L Frank Baum, who was born in Chittenango, new York, and that's why we're there.
Speaker 1:That's why it happens, and each year you do something a little different. What are some of the special things we could be looking forward to this year?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so every year we have special guests and different attractions. You know we used to have the Munchkin actors from the 1939 film come. For several years We've had guests from Wicked on Broadway and the Wiz and all kinds of different Oz incarnations, if you will. But this year we're really excited. We've got a great guest list and we're celebrating the 85th anniversary of the movie and it starts with Jane Lahr, who's Burt Lahr's daughter the Cowardly Lion's daughter will be here and we're really excited to have her join us this year. She was here once before in 2017. She's got just great stories and family photos and stuff from her dad and it's just really interesting stuff. If you're a fan of the movie, you know it wouldn't be the same without Burt Lahr's performance as the Cowardly Lion.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you he was my favorite character as a kid growing up. He just seemed so much fun and you know what did you think about him?
Speaker 3:Oh, I loved him. I loved him. What did you think about him? Oh, I loved him, I loved him. You know, he's very dynamic, he's very funny and you know everybody does the. If I were king of the forest impression.
Speaker 2:King of the forest Shown here. That's about the only words I know. And then we've got Robert Welch coming this year, who is the grandson of Buddy Gillespie, who did all the special effects for the movie. And Robert's cool because he's coming with some backdrops and he's also coming with an Oscar, so you can take a picture with an Oscar. So that'll be, I'm excited just to do that.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Our theme is actually Technicolor Oz this year.
Speaker 3:So we're really going to focus on a lot of those special effects. You know, the tornado, some of the backdrops which you know I don't know if you're aware, but most all of that was painted in. So yeah, like when Dorothy is leaving Munchkin land and she's heading, you know, on the yellow brick road, she was only actually able to walk so far and then it was just a big painting right there.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. I mean, when you think about it, the special effects back then, what they were able to do, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, compared to today with the computers and all the AI that we have, it was amazing what the results came out to be Incredible that they were able to do that All practical effects and this this guy was the master and Robert actually wrote a book. He put together a book called the Wizard of MGM which is all about Buddy's work, not only on this film but on several films and, yeah, just amazing pieces. He's got a great presentation where he can show you, like, the different settings and what's real, what's not. You know what plants are there and what's actually painted. So it's going to be really awesome. We're excited about that. And then we have a big guest list this year Huge yeah let's hear about the guest list we have Gita Gita.
Speaker 2:Dorothy Morena is going to be here. She is L Frank Baum's great-granddaughter and Matilda Jocelyn Gage's great-great-granddaughter, and so she'll be here talking about the family and just kind of all the things growing up, growing up a Dorothy in Oz, right.
Speaker 3:She's also a Jungian psychotherapist and has written a book on sort of the psychology of Oz.
Speaker 2:The Wisdom of Oz. The Wisdom of Oz, which is the title of her book.
Speaker 1:The Wisdom of Oz.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 1:That's a great title for a book.
Speaker 2:It is, it is. And then this year we have Irma Starr coming. This will be her first festival. She is a world-renowned 17th century style slipware pottery artist and she has works in the Smithsonian, in the Nelson, in the Everson, here, and then she does a Wizard of Oz, a wonderful Wizard of Oz collection that we have at our museum, and so she's going to be here kind of talking about her craft and how to keep that art form alive, the 17th century pottery that she does, and so she's going to be really neat and, like I said, it's the first festival for her ever anywhere. So that'll be fun. She'll be doing a signing and she'll be doing a signing at the museum. She's actually going to be with you at the museum.
Speaker 3:Sunday Sunday 11 to 1230.
Speaker 2:Yep, so you can come see her and meet her and she'll doodle on your ornaments and stuff, so that'll be fun. And then we've got Gabriel. Gale will be here. He's an author, illustrator. He did the ages of Oz books and then the art of Oz and he's a. He's a fun character. He's the, he's the and he's an architect by trade and he was always a big Oz fan and grew up kind of wondering how would these characters in the books work? How would the flying monkeys be able to fly? How would their? So in the art of Oz he kind of deconstructs a lot of that and he's got like what they would look like, the characters that you don't see on the pages, how the mechanics of it would work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know how TikTok monkey's wing structure would work, and it's really cool.
Speaker 2:Like an engineering perspective. Yeah, yeah, it's really neat. And then his ages of Oz books are fiction books that are kind of the story of Glinda as a teenager who finds out she's a sorceress. So he's going to be here with us this year. We're excited to have him back. And then we've got I'm excited about this We've got Steve Margosius coming and Steve worked with us.
Speaker 2:He's he's been in a five-year project. This is year nine of a five-year project with us. Covid kind of took some time out of the middle and we had a year that we had to miss for illness on his. So we've, we've got Steve back. And Steve Margosius is not a well-known common name but you definitely know his work. He wrote Fame, the Musical. He's the composer and orchestrator of a lot of Broadway shows, including the who's Tommy, which just got nominated for a Tony Award. But he did orchestrations for Newsies and Aida and all these big Broadway shows. Big River, soul Doctor he composed Soul Doctor. So he's got all these Broadway shows. But then also he took a little break from Broadway in the 70s and worked on some other projects and he did all the orchestrations for Meatloaf's Bad Out of Hell album Wow.
Speaker 2:So he is yeah he's, he's, he's right in the right in the dinosaur sweet spot there, and you know a song that has been on uh rotation more recently yes, total eclipse of the heart.
Speaker 1:Yes, everybody was playing it, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:so so he's coming. He's got a new project called new songs from oz and you know it's really great. He took local kids uh, local high school kids and he partnered them up with broadway stars and he wrote all these new songs new o Oz songs and he's got them together. So they've recorded them. Now they're done in the recording studio. He's going to come share some of that with us and it's a really great project.
Speaker 1:So it was very nice Any screenings going on at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not doing any movie screenings per se this year, but we do have a lot of people with a lot of different clips and things showing you know what's going on, and we've got some specials too. Of course our whole event is hosted by John Fricke. You know he is the world's preeminent Oz historian. If you have the DVD of the Wizard of Oz, he's the guy on the commentator track. He's also, you know, he came and hosted our event for the first time in 1990. His first book came out in 1989, the Wizard of Oz, and then he's he's hosted our event in 1990. Since then he went on to get a Grammy nomination for doing the liner notes on a Judy Garland CD that came out.
Speaker 2:He has written nine books on Oz and Judy Garland. He has produced two television specials on Judy. He won two Emmy awards for those. He has become the spokesperson for the Smithsonian for the Ruby slippers and the scarecrow costume that are there. He was the spokesperson for the San Diego fair when they featured Oz. He has been on QVC. He's the official spokesperson for Warner brothers for all their wizard of Oz things and nobody told him he's too big a star to come back to Chittenango and host our event every year.
Speaker 2:So he still comes back every year and hosts our event and we're not telling him. So that's a secret. Don't share with John if you see him, just get his autograph and move along. That's all.
Speaker 1:Now there's some participation things going on for the kids. Let's hear about some of those.
Speaker 3:Absolutely We've got. So we did a coloring contest. All those entries are submitted coloring contest, writing contest. But there at the festival we have a costume contest. We've got the Munchkin Mile Kids Fun Run and the Toddler Trot, so yeah, there's all kinds of fun things to be participating in. And then, you know, if the kids enter the costume contest they can even be part of the parade.
Speaker 2:And who doesn't want to be in?
Speaker 3:a parade.
Speaker 2:That's even more fun. Skip doesn't want to be in a parade. Parades are great. So the costume contest is great because also and Allison and I were talking about this just the other day there's so many categories there are. It's not just show up as your movie person right, you can come as someone dressed from the movie, but you can come in costumes from the book. You can come as a group. There's group or business categories for groups of people. I know a few years ago there's a Chittenango Pride category. Trader Joe's came all dressed as the winged monkeys a few years ago. So that was fun. They had a whole group thing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, the costume contest is great and this year, because we're always trying to push the boundaries a little this year at the costume contest, so normally the contest happens and then the judges deliberate and while they're deliberating it's just quiet time. You know, this year we have Mums the Mime who's going to be there performing on stage. Wow, we have Mums the Mime who's going to be there performing on stage. Oh, wow, yes, which will still be quiet time.
Speaker 1:I guess yeah.
Speaker 2:I expect if you come you'll see all the favorites. He'll be breaking out of a glass box fighting against the wind. I don't know. A mime is a terrible thing to waste, so we're putting him to good use.
Speaker 2:We're putting him to good use. So Mums the Mime will be there and Moms the Mime will be there. And then Saturday, we've got another thing going on at Quadling Country Park, which is Stickles Park, at the other end of the village, just a few blocks up the road. You can walk the whole thing on our Yellowbrook Road sidewalks, but we're going to have Jilly Dogs there with gourmet popcorn and hot dogs, and Dad's Ice Cream will be there and Buddy the Clown will be there doing balloon animals and clowning around if you will and clowning around if you will, and we'll have photos with Glinda and Dorothy. I mean all our costume characters will be there. You know, saturday and Sunday, but Saturday Buddy the Clown is going to be in the parade also with his band. He has a band I Clowns the Buddy which will be in the parade.
Speaker 1:So we're kind of excited. Who's that?
Speaker 2:I'll have to see, we'll find out. At the same time, I'll do that one from my float, wherever I am. I know the dinosaur is going to be in the parade. So that's nice, all right, oh yeah, yeah, because I saw your paperwork come through, so I know that's going to be oh, that's good.
Speaker 3:Carol got it in, so that's good.
Speaker 2:We'll save a space for you. Yeah, but the parade on saturday, you know, here's the the thing. There's so much going on and it's all family friendly. Um, they're, it's all free. Free admission, uh, to the festival. There's free parking on saturday, which is our busiest day.
Speaker 2:Uh, we borrow one of the trams from the state fair so there's a tram up and down so you can park at the high school park at the legion and take your tram. But but friday night there's fireworks, fireworks. Saturday is the big parade, sunday we have a grand finale. That's really special. We're going to have some secret things happening yeah so Sunday at the grand finale.
Speaker 2:Grand finale happens at 4 o'clock Sunday and the last few years we brought in like somebody joins us by video. So we had last year it was Stephen Schwartz who wrote the musical Wicked and Pippin and Godspell, but obviously Wicked. So this year we've got something really special planned. So that's going to be exciting at the closing. But then Friday and Saturday night, both of those evenings, starting at 6 o'clock, there's a show that John Fricke hosts and it's kind of like a talk show. So it's like going to see the Tonight Show, but with John Fricke, and he'll interview the guests that we have coming. So instead of just, you know, meeting them at a table, getting an autograph, you actually get to hear their story and you know, like I said, jane's gonna share pictures and and things of her dad and and a lot of the behind the scenes stuff. So you get that.
Speaker 2:So john's doing the show friday and saturday. That's also free. It's right at the festival, uh, right inside the church. So and you know, rain or shine, where they there, rain or shine, there's rides and games and foods and vendors and all kinds of things to do. There's a lot of photo opportunities and different, you know, backdrops, like with the.
Speaker 2:Oscar, like with the Oscar Allison, has been practicing her speech, so she can just tape her acceptance speech.
Speaker 1:Yes, I got a feeling that line's going to be long to take a picture with an officer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pretty neat, pretty neat thing that he's doing so we're, we're excited Robert's bringing that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there's so much at the festival and there's so much going on. You know, pancake breakfast on Saturday morning, I mean it's just, it's nonstop thing. And then we've got our costume characters, who are led by the fabulous Sean Ryan and Jeff Sadecki I always want to add an S in his name Out of Florida. Sean is a costumer, costume designer and recreator and he has recreated the Wizard of Oz costumes for our characters, and the characters will be around the park. And then our director of characters is Corey Corey Taylor, who is the house manager at Syracuse stage. So we've got a lot of local actors involved and it's just really a great event. They are great and it's a good to good to come have your pictures taken with the characters. So, again, it's all free and it's just a really nice event, you know. And then, not for nothing, we've got this little thing called the all things Oz museum.
Speaker 3:Oh hey, I know that place, let's hear about that and I think Allison runs that place right.
Speaker 2:I do, I do.
Speaker 3:So we're actually not just open these three days either. We're open Wednesday through Sunday at 10 to 5. And we have all kinds of pieces ranging from, you know, early on the bomb stories I don't know if you're aware, but he actually wrote 14 different Oz books.
Speaker 1:I heard about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we've got like first and second editions of the books. We've got a mimeographed copy of the contract for that first book. So it kind of starts there and works its way through all of the different iterations of Oz that there have been. So we've got things from stage versions the ruby slippers from the stage production of Chasing Rainbows. We've got the large green glasses worn in the original Broadway production of the Wiz, worn by Andre De Shields. We have the Madame Morrible dress that was worn by legendary Patty Duke in the San Francisco productions of Wicked. And then we've got some things From around the 1939 film, Judy Garland's signature. We've got some original Munchkin appearance costumes, Like from when they came To our festival before or when they got their star On Hollywood Walk of Fame. We've got some original movie costumes From After the Wizard Muppets Wizard of Oz. We've got some original movie costumes from After the Wizard Muppets Wizard of Oz. Did you know that was?
Speaker 2:a thing David Alan Greer played Uncle Henry and we've got the Uncle Henry costume from Muppet Wizard of Oz and I love that. I love that more than anything. Ashante played Dorothy when she was in concert a few years, a few months ago, here in Syracuse. She was here and she actually signed all of our stuff in our case. So that was nice and yeah, it's just, we've got so much stuff.
Speaker 3:And it really We've got over 16,000 pieces. Right now, about 1,500 pieces are on display. So, as you can imagine, there's just a ton of stuff that's out there. And we're you know we rotate it all the time.
Speaker 1:Right keep it nice and fresh people haven't seen certain things.
Speaker 2:They'll see another thing different the next time. Absolutely, I like that. Right now we've got oz peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 3:That just went out oz peanut butter canisters from the 60s.
Speaker 2:There were peanut butter canisters in the 60s and 70s that were wizard of oz, and then all kinds of jelly jars with oz characters. So that display. I walked, walked by it the other day. Those are also peanut butter jars Are they yeah, oh, I walked by it the other day and I'm like what is this? It's a new display.
Speaker 1:Free jelly jar. Oh yeah, and I know there's Wizard of Oz plates that came out. Yes, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep. So there's all kinds of collectibles and the funny thing is the movie. So the book was wildly popular in 1900, right, and as early as 1902, they had a musical, the Wizard of Oz musical, and it's kind of grown from that right. And the Wizard of Oz musical was fun because it opened in Chicago and then it went to Broadway. It played for seven years on Broadway and on tour and it opened at the Majestic Theater. And then in 1975, january 5th 1975, the Wiz opened at the Majestic Theater, same place where the Wizard of Oz had opened, got it full circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 72 years before that, so that was kind of cool. But yeah, the museum is right on the main drag there in Chittenango. It's 219 Genesee Street, it's right across from Village Hall, on the Yellow Brick Road sidewalks and it's open year-round, like Allison said. But the museum's a fun story too, because that actually came out of the festival. So the festival group started out. Well, 1978, clara Houck started the festival. She was the librarian in town and she didn't think we were celebrating that L Frank Baum was born there. So she had the kids make masks on paper plates of their favorite characters and they did a little parade around the parking lot of the library and then they went in and sang happy birthday to l frank bomb and had cake and ice cream and she read the first couple chapters of the book and that was the first. That was the first event of what became an annual event and turned into australia that was 1978.
Speaker 2:This will be our 47th festival this year and and yeah, now we have 30, 35,000 people who come every weekend or every year for that weekend you have people come from all parts of the country.
Speaker 1:We do.
Speaker 2:We've had visitors from all 50 states and 29 countries, and it's fun. When you go to the museum, you can scan a little QR code on our sign-in sheet, and Allison has put together a map that shows you where everybody has come from the last six, eight months.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's a little interactive experience it is.
Speaker 2:It is. And then you know the group was a part of the village and then it became a part of the Chamber of Commerce. And when we were a part of the Chamber of Commerce back 2009, when I joined the committee, we had an opportunity in 2010. There was a collector that was retiring to Florida and he wanted to sell his collection. He had about $100,000 worth of stuff, and so he said, well, I'll sell it to you for 10 grand. So we got our money, collected up money and bought it, and then the video store had just gone out of business and so we rented the video store space and we put up this collection that we had bought, and that was kind of the beginning of the of the museum.
Speaker 2:Since then, we filed and got our charter with the state of new york. We're a chartered historical foundation. We're a 501c3 non-profit. Our actual name is the international l frank bomb and all things historical foundation, but that does not fit well on a sign roadside that you have to read. So we thought all things oz museum works much better for us, sure, but yeah, we've got thruway signs now yeah, we're we're all over where we participate with.
Speaker 2:I love New York, and and so the museum has really taken on a life of its own. We've become the place that everybody goes to. When they finished an Oz project and they have something that they think should go in the museum, it used to be we would beg for things, and now they come to us and say, would you like? And we have to say yes or maybe maybe there's better usage for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to ask you that question. So if somebody does have something that they may think you'd be interested in, they can bring it by then.
Speaker 2:Yes, they can talk to Allison, allison will sign them up.
Speaker 3:I'll take a look at it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we've got, we've got the museum building and we actually have outgrown it already. We have two annex buildings that we lease in town as well. So it's a it's a big thing, but you know our big fundraiser for the year, ostravaganza, and that's what. That's what's exciting and that's what's coming up May 31st to June 2nd.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. One last question Out of all the costumes that people come in dressed in, what is the one that you see the most of? Either one can answer or you both can answer.
Speaker 3:Oh, dorothy, by far.
Speaker 2:I was going to say Dorothy, yeah, on any given day during the weekend, you'll have a thousand Dorothys running around. There you go.
Speaker 1:All right, once again we have our Bob Allison Laird from Oztravaganza and that will be coming up on May 31st, june 1st and June 2nd in the village of Chittanango, john Carucci on the Inner Harbor Media podcast. Thank you so much, bye, bye.
Speaker 3:Bye, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, son.
