The Wizard of Oz has a long history of interesting rumors and stories surrounding it, and these rumors resurface and fade away repeatedly over the years. Since the movie was released in 1939, it has experienced surges of popularity over a wide range of viewers, from young children to old stoners. Whenever the Wizard of Oz is on television, everyone has some sort of weird story or half truth that they feel like they need to share with everybody else. They’ll either talk about how it seems to line up with Dark Side of the Moon, they’ll tell you something about Judy Garland’s personal problems, or they will tell you the morbid rumor about a love stricken dwarf who can supposedly be seen swinging from a rope in the background of one of the scenes.

The scene that they are referring to occurs about 40 minutes into the movie, when the scarecrow, the tin man, and Dorothy have already met, but before they meet the lion. The scarecrow picks up a basket, joins arms with Dorothy and the tin man, and then they all reverse their direction and skip around a bend in the yellow brick road. If you watch just above the scarecrow’s hand whenever he clumsily falls, you will see some movement off in the woods. If you zoom in, or stand close to the television, you will be able to see that the movement is clearly a large bird, and not a hanging little person. Here is a Youtube video that clearly shows what I am talking about — assuming it hasn’t been removed.

Since the Wizard of Oz Hanging is a lame rumor, I recommend exploring the Dark Side of the Moon rumor instead. Pink Floyd apparently had a history of playing soundtracks and musical accompaniment for film viewings, so … yea.