The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)

The film is known for staying particularly close to the novel, its primary elimination being the journey to Glinda, which is only now slightly less of a deus ex machina than in the MGM version. Also borrowed from that version are the red "magic shoes" rather than the silver shoes of Baum's text. Some familiarity with the later books is clear, as the houses are the same two-chimneyed domes found in the artwork of John R. Neill, who never illustrated the first Oz book. It is one of the rare films to depict the various forms the Wizard appears to each of the travelers, such as the Beautiful-Winged Lady (shown to be a puppet rather than the Wizard in a costume, as in the book), the Terrible Beast (looking like an ordinary rhinoceros) and the Ball of Fire.

Unlike most Japanese animated movies, it was first released in the United States; the English dialogue was recorded first and released in North America on October 6, 1982, and the Japanese-dubbed version was not released in Japan until 1986. The English version of this film, edited by Johann Lowenberg and produced by John Danylkiw, appeared on television in the United States in 1982. Alan L. Gleitsman was the executive producer of Alan Enterprises, which did the English dub for the North American release. New Hope Entertainment was also involved in producing the English-dubbed version. It was distributed in English-speaking countries and territories, including the United States and Canada, by Alan Enterprises. Paramount Home Video released the English dubbed version on VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and CED in the 1980s and on VHS in 1991.

Although this movie is in no way related to the 1986 anime television series produced by Panmedia outside of having the same source material, the fact that the movie was released in Japan in the same year that the TV series was first broadcast (and that both this film and the TV series were released in English in the U.S. and Canada) sometimes leads to the two works being confused. But despite that however, some information say that this film was actually originally released in Japan in 1982 and in North America later on, in 1983 for television, considering that the Japanese dialogue was recorded first, but might have been either released on that same year, or delayed until 1986.[2]