Tales of the Wizard of Oz Tales of the Wizard of Oz Tales of the Wizard of Oz is a 1961 animated television series produced by Crawley Films for Videocraft (later known as Rankin/Bass Productions). This is the second animated series produced by the studio, and the first by Rankin/Bass to feature traditional animation. The series features stories derived from characters created in L. Frank Baum's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Several characters are given additional names, including Dandy the Cowardly Lion, Rusty the Tin Man, and Socrates the Scarecrow. Artistic renditions of the Oz characters created for this series were later featured in the
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) best films of 1939. Roger Ebert chose it as one of his Great Films, writing that ""The Wizard of Oz" has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them." Writer Salman Rushdie acknowledged ""The Wizard of Oz" was my very first literary influence" in his 2002 musings about the film. He has written: "When I first saw "The Wizard of Oz", it made a writer of me." His first short story,