Journey back to oz tv cut with live bill cosby as the wizard

This is a subject deserving of a definitive answer…but it can’t be answered without providing a backstory.

In 1976, ABC acquired the broadcast rights to JOURNEY BACK TO OZ from Filmation, the film’s studio. At the time, Bill Cosby was riding high with his FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS (also produced by Filmation), as well as starring in a new ABC series called COZ. Taking advantage of Cosby’s star power at the time, ABC wanted to transform JOURNEY BACK TO OZ to a Christmas television special to air in December, 1976. Because the running time of the original film was 86 minutes, ABC wanted to extend its running time by commissioning Filmation to shoot 16 minutes of live-action interstitials featuring Cosby as the Wizard, a character otherwise not seen in the theatrical release. The sub plot of the linking segments was the Wizard getting two lost Munchkins to join Dorothy for Christmas, while moving the plot along.

Cosby was contracted to have two airings of the TV version, which is why there were plans for syndication to include an alternate TV version with Milton Berle in new host segments so the film can air at other times outside of Christmas. Eventually, JOURNEY would be sold to the syndicated SFM Holiday Network, where it would have a successful run for seven more years. Of course, the syndicated version was cut down a bit for more commercial time, so some of the Cosby segments were missing from the syndicated edit.  Both TV versions were shown at various times over these next seven years, but the Cosby-hosted version would be shown the most. The last known airing of JOURNEY would be in 1984. It has not aired on U.S. TV since that time. Only the theatrical version would be represented on home video. The rest is sad history…long story short, following Filmation’s folding, the film would go through successive rights holders, one of which did convert the film to PAL High Definition before the elements were junked. What we were left with was a sped-up-by-5% PAL HD transfer of the film, and that has been the one represented on DVD.

As for the TV version…the Cosby segments were represented on the DVD, but as a separate bonus feature. Unfortunately, only the first half of the Cosby segments were presented. This might have come from an incomplete UK video master of the TV cut. I did try and contact the DVD producer, Andy Mangels, on this issue, but he never got back to me. At this point, the video master of the full TV cut is missing, and we don’t know if one of the former rights holders tossed it too. I do know that somewhere in the world that ABC master and/or a submaster of the SFM broadcast is out there, possibly in the hands of a film/TV collector or in a private collection, or maybe in the hands of a network archive, just waiting to be rediscovered. I also contacted Rick Thomas at Obsolete Video Services on the possibility of its existence.

Having said all this, and I say it as a fan of the film, I too made a valiant effort to try and locate an off-the-air recording of the TV cut. After almost a year of searching, I was able to locate a DVD-R of one of the last known airings of the film from SFM. The first three minutes of the recording were missing. However, I also had the official DVD, with the first half of the Cosby segments, thus I was able to attempt a reconstruction of the TV version using everything on hand. Although very few Cosby segments (especially at the end, after he wishes the audience a Merry Christmas, he introduces the cast) remain missing as I could not track down the original 1976 ABC airing, my reconstruction is the most complete, at approx. 101 minutes. So yes, in a way, the TV version does exist in some form.

For the record, whatever is left of the elements of the film is now at the hands of Universal. There is also the possibility that a film print could also be out there at the hands of a private collector or animation fan.

Hope this explains things for you OZ fans.