187. The Wiz with special guest Christian Turner - a podcast by Scott and Pete

We ease on down the road this week and watched the Wiz (1978) with our friend Christian Turner. How exactly did heavy hitting director Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon) manage to direct this Wizard of Oz reimagining with an all-black cast, based on the Tony winning musical, is beyond us but we're all here for it. We're also here to remind you of the banger songs on this soundtrack. Released to a mixed reception, it has since found a cult following with audiences thanks to its television showings through the decades since its release. We finally get to talk about the Supreme diva herself Diana Ross on the podcast, who stars as a Harlem school teacher who finds herself transported to a Land of Oz by the way of a dystopian New York City, where she befriends a Scarecrow made of trash (Michael Jackson), a Coney Island Tin Man (Nipsey Russell), and a disco cowardly lion (Ted Ross). At the time the most expensive movie musical ever made, we discuss the insanely talented cast. We talk how this movie revists into adulthood, and that it's screenplay was adapted by MTMUG patron saint himself Joel Schumacher, who helped make this musical into the coke fueled fever dream we know and love. Topics discussed are the Facts of Life episode where Tootie nearly misses her high school graduation to auditon for Dorothy, the weird self-help seminar tone of Schumacher's script, and how JJ from Good Times was almost the Scarcrow. "Don't you carry nothing that might be a load. Come on, ease on down, ease on down the road!" 

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