The Wicked Witch and Mr. Rogers

The Wicked Witch and Mr. Rogers

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Dorothy Gale

When I was about six, my sister and I watched The Wizard of Oz in our family’s den with the lights out. Our black-and-white TV made it all the creepier. Then my mother came in and, perhaps reading my face, gently asked me, “Do you want to come in the kitchen?”

I shook my head quickly back and forth as I didn’t want Mom to take me out of the room. Truth be told, the Wicked Witch was the most sinister thing I’d ever seen, and she scared the hell out of me.

I had nightmares of walking across a field of witch-infested ditches. Yet, along with legions of other kids, I continued to watch The Wizard of Oz each year when it was broadcast.

Once we had a color TV and I saw the cartoonish green color of her face, I realized that she wasn’t quite so scary after all.

More than twenty years after my first viewing, I was flipping through the channels and there was Mr. Rogers with his guest, Margaret Hamilton, the actress who had played the Wicked Witch. She was a kindly old woman by then and was on the show specifically to show children that the movie was all pretend. Mr. Rogers helped her on with her witch cape and hat and they talked in very soothing tones about how sometimes it’s fun to pretend.

I thought to myself, well yeah, this could really help little kids and what a good thing it was they were doing.

Well anyway…it helped me…a little. 🙂

Here’s the Mr. Rogers link, if you or someone you know could use some soothing too.

-Hank