ORIGINAL MUNCHKINS FROM WIZARD OF OZ
In case you missed....we had four of the original Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.
VIDEO: At 8:40 we had a game show featuring questions like:
1//WHY DID BUDDY EBSEN, OF THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, LOSE THE ROLE OF THE TINMAN?A . HE'S WAS A COMMUNIST
B. ALLERGIC TO POWDERED ALUMINUM
C. HE HAD A DRINKING PROBLEM
2//WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE WITCH'S ARMY?A. WITCH'S BRIGADE
B. ORKS
C. WINKIES.
((see answers below))
One of them did a soft-shoe in the weather center, believed to be the first time in broadcast history that a Munchkin has danced during a weather forcast. Mickey Carroll At age 7, he began dance lessons at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, MO. It was at the Fox that he met entertainer Jack Haley. Haley took him to Hollywood, where one of his first jobs was as "Mickey" in approximately seven of the Spanky and Our Gang series.
At 17 he was one of six bellhops in the 'Call for Phillip Morris' live television ads, and at 18 was appearing in shows with Mae West. While under contract to MGM, he went to school with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. It was Judy Garland who offered him a part in 'The Wizard of Oz'. Soon after, he left show business, realizing that his height would prevent him from having any long-term success as an actor.
Little known facts: Mickey's actual god-father was mobster, Al Capone and he has worked with Hollywood greats George Burns, Jack Benny, Al Jolsen, and Gracie Allen during his radio career.
Meinhardt Rabbe, who played the coronor, has a book about his life's adventures. He is 80 years old--- the oldest surviving Munchkin. When he was a boy in the early 20's, his lack of growth was a mystery, he writes in his memoir "Memories of a Munchkin." There were no computers or websites to find comfort with other little people; he had never heard of the word "midget" until he was 17, when he took a trip from the family farm in Wisconsin to the Chicago World's Fair Midget Village in 1933. A man puffing a cigar asked if he was looking for a job.
"I was stunned by his instant acceptance. Someone was actually interested in me because I was small," he wrote.
He eventually took a job in the village, but only as a way to pay for college. Many of those "little people" as they now prefer to be called, ended up as munchkins. Raabe said the production was the first opportunity for little people to "act independently as people, not freaks."
1//b
2//c