MYTH DEBUNKED: "The Wizard of Oz" Did NOT Have a Hanging Munchkin

 

By: Jack Martin 
Article last updated on October 12th, 2022  

Today we will be covering The Wizard of Oz Hanging Munchkin Scene myth. This myth is so old that it actually pre-dates social media and the Internet itself. This myth has been able to survive and find its way around the web for many, many years, but today we will debunk it once and for all. ***(I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors you may find while reading this report.)*** Now, let's get into it...

We have debunked many ridiculous myths on this blog, but this one might be the most ridiculous (remember that for later). The Hanging Munchkin is a very well-known myth that some people claim appears in the original print of the classic film "The Wizard of Oz". People who believe this myth claim the film contains accidental footage of an onset suicide by an actor who played one of the Munchkins. Although this myth dates back to the 1990s, it became mainstream in 2011 when a YouTube video was posted by the now-defunct channel called SuicidalMunchkin. 

^^^Here is a screenshot of the scene in question. This scene takes place in the forest shortly after Dorothy and The Scarecrow meet The Tin Man. The person who started this myth claims you can see someone hanging, but in reality, it was just a bird brought on set from the Los Angeles Zoo. As you can see the figure in the background is clearly a bird and not a person. If you watch this scene while using a digital copy of the film and look in the background, you'll see the bird, but if you watch the film on a grainy VHS tape, what you'll see appears to be a small person hanging from a rope. The story attached to this myth goes something like this...during the filming of the movie; one of the Munchkins died by suicide perhaps due to loss of family member or lover, and hung himself from the roof of the studio and the filmmakers later accidentally captured the aftermath of it on the film. This "theory" is totally false. No one, actor, crew member or otherwise, died on-set during the filming of this movie. However, people who believe this myth claim that during the 1989 restoration of the movie, this hanging was edited out and replaced with the bird seen in all modern versions of the movie. The video was proven false by many people online, but that doesn't mean people have stopped believing in this myth. Still to this day people keep posting it on social media. This is and isn't surprising to me. It isn't surprising because social media is a toxic place that loves stuff like this, but at the same time, it is a bit surprising that this myth still continues to live because David Mikkelson debunked it way back in 1997. "No one, munchkin or otherwise, died on-set during the filming of this cinematic classic, much less in a cut that was used in the finished version of the movie. To give the indoor set used in this Oz sequence a more “outdoors” feel, several birds of various sizes were borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo and allowed to roam the set. (A peacock, for example, can be seen wandering around just outside the Tin Woodsman’s shack while Dorothy and the Scarecrow attempt to revive him with oil.) At the very end of this sequence, as the three main characters move down the road and away from the camera, one of the larger birds (often said to be an emu, but more probably a crane) standing at the back of the set moves around and spreads its wings. No munchkin, no hanging — just a big bird. The unusual movement in the background of the scene described above was noticed years ago, and it was often attributed to a stagehand’s accidentally being caught on the set after the cameras started rolling (or, more spectacularly, a stagehand’s falling out of a prop tree into the scene). With the advent of home video, viewing audiences were able to rewind and replay the scene in question, view it in slow-motion, and look at individual frames in the sequence (all on screens smaller and less distinct than those of theaters), and imaginations ran wild. 
The change in focus of the rumor from a hapless stagehand to a suicidal munchkin (driven to despair over his unrequited love for a female munchkin) seems to have coincided with the heavy promotion and special video re-release of The Wizard of Oz in celebration of its 50th anniversary in 1989: someone made up the story of a diminutive actor who, suffering the pangs of unrequited love for a female “little person,” decided to end it all right there on the set, and soon everyone was eager to share this special little film “secret” with others. Since (grossly exaggerated) tales of munchkin lechery and drunken misbehavior on the “Oz” set had been circulating for years (primarily spread by Judy Garland herself in television talk show appearances), the wild suicide story had some seeming background plausibility to it. (Other versions of the rumor combined elements from both explanations, such as the claim that the strange figure was actually a stagehand hanging himself.) The logistics of this alleged hanging defy all credulity. First of all, the forest scenes in The Wizard of Oz were filmed before the Munchkinland scenes, and thus none of the munchkin actors would yet have been present at MGM. And whether one believes that the figure on the film is a munchkin or a stagehand, it is simply impossible that a human being could have fallen onto a set actively being used for filming, and yet none of the dozens of people present — actors, directors, cameramen, sound technicians, light operators — noticed or reacted to the occurrence. (The tragic incident would also had to have been overlooked by all the directors, editors, film cutters, musicians, and others who worked on the film in post-production as well.) That anyone could believe a scene featuring a real suicide would have been left intact in a classic film for over fifty years is simply incredible." 

-David Mikkelson, Snopes.com founder 

Remember earlier when I wrote that this myth might be the most ridiculous one we've covered on this blog? Well, the reason why I wrote that is summed up perfectly by Mikkelson in this quote:"And whether one believes that the figure on the film is a munchkin or a stagehand, it is simply impossible that a human being could have fallen onto a set actively being used for filming, and yet none of the dozens of people present — actors, directors, cameramen, sound technicians, light operators — noticed or reacted to the occurrence. (The tragic incident would also had to have been overlooked by all the directors, editors, film cutters, musicians, and others who worked on the film in post-production as well.) That anyone could believe a scene featuring a real suicide would have been left intact in a classic film for over fifty years is simply incredible." You see, when you study this myth beyond face value it quickly falls apart just like all of the other myths we've covered. Come on, you really think someone killed themselves on the set of this movie and the studio left it in there? So just to wrap up..."The Wizard of Oz" Did NOT Have a Hanging Munchkin. Case closed. 

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