Before Gary Kurtz joined forces with the Magic Kingdom to lead Dorothy back to the yellow brick road, Walt Disney planned another return to the wonderful world of Oz with Cubby, Bobby and Annette.
In 1957, Walt Disney announced that the Disney Studio was going to make a feature film entitled The Rainbow Road to Oz. In her newspaper column, Louella Parsons mentioned that Disney had cast Mickey Mouse Club stars Jimmie Dodd, Annette Funicello, Darlene Gillespie, Bobby Burgess, Kevin Corcoran, Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine for the " all-live" movie. She quoted Disney as saying, "Many film stars move to TV shows, and I think it's about time to move some of the TV favorites into motion pictures." A month after Parsons' article, a TV special featured three production numbers from the Oz film. But, after all this publicity, the Disney Oz film was never made. Why? […]
