This blog entry is brought to you by the letter C and the number 4.

 

Did you know that Margaret Hamilton did a guest appearance on Sesame Street? She did in February 10, 1976. She appeared as the Wicked witch of the West her most iconic role she ever played from the movie “The Wizard of Oz. ”

Margaret Hamilton appeared on Sesame Street in season 7 (episode 847) titled “The Wicked Witch of the West Loses her broomstick.”

The episode centers around the wicked witch of the west flying around Sesame Street when she loses her broomstick in mid air and when she tries to get it back. and finds that David (who is played by Northern Calloway) refuses to get her back her broomstick. Only because he is terrified that if he gives the broom back to the Wicked witch she might do some evil or cast a spell. She gets angry and causes havoc among Sesame Street by threatening to turn Big Bird into a feather duster and making a rainstorm in Mr. Hooper’s store.

Everyone on Sesame Street is really scared of the Wicked Witch except one muppet! Can anyone guess who?

Oscar the Grouch actually develops a crush on the Wicked Witch and is not shy about talking to her and is able to get everyone else from Sesame Street on board with him in not being fearful of others. So they ended up giving the Wicked Witch back her broom and flies back out with her broom out of Sesame Street.

The episode aired only once on February 6, 1976 and it only took a couple of days for the Public Broadcasting Service (better known as PBS) to received such a HUGE number of complaints from viewers about it.  Most of the complaints came from parents saying that the episode was too scary or caused a lot of distress to their children from watching it.

It confused the creators and PBS as to why they got these numerous complaints about this particular episode so during the month of March 1976 they had many test screenings of the same episode to see how the kids in those groups reacted to it. They were surprised to see from the multiple test screenings that the kids were not scare at all. Actually they were more curious anything else because of the Wicked Witch’s green color and they seem to be more interested in the segments that Margaret Hamilton was playing her iconic role then the other segments in the show.

However the creators of the show were deeply divided about the complaints they received from viewers and the results they got from the test screenings that they still went ahead and shelved that particular episode and has never been shown ever again.

 

I personally would love to see this episode because the Wizard of Oz and Sesame Street is two of my favorite things.

What is your opinion? Would you like to see this episode? Or is it better left alone on the shelved forever section?

Until next time!!!