The Wizard of Oz goofs

The actual wizard generates the phoney wizard's voice by speaking directly into the microphone, yet when the phoney wizard declares "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" the actual wizard is drawing the curtain aside, facing away from the microphone and completely silent.

When the group chant "Lions and tigers and bears!" moments before meeting the Cowardly Lion, and it is Dorothy's turn to be the first to cry "Oh my!", her lips do not move.

In at least two shots where the violinists dressed in red and white can be seen as Dorothy departs Munchkinland, the violin parts of the accompanying music are not synchronised with the players' hand movements.

When the Cowardly Lion vocalises "If I Were King of the Forest", he sings the lyric "Monarch of all I survey!" twice. At the first occurrence you can hear him sing "Monarch," yet his lips don't move at all.

By the end of the "Merry Old Land of Oz" number, the cast are all laughing, yet their mouths still move as though they are singing.

When Dorothy reaches a junction in the Yellow Brick Road and the Scarecrow indicates to her which direction to take, his mouth does not move.

Dorothy grins and tries to stifle a laugh after she gives the Lion a smack, and he asks, "Is my nose bleeding?" Judy Garland buries her face in Toto to hide her amusement.

The Coroner sings that he has "thoroughly examined" the Witch and asserts that "she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead." In subsequent scenes the house is shown lying entirely over her with only her feet protruding. It seems impossible that he could have carried out a thorough examination. (He might, however, have checked for a pulse at her ankles.)

The ticking heart that the Wizard bestows upon the Tin Man reads 1:10 initially, and it continues to read 1:10 whilst in the balloon scene.

A Munchkin rushes over to Judy Garland and calls her 'Judy' rather than 'Dorothy'.

As Glinda bids Dorothy farewell with a kiss, she taps the crown atop her head with her wand.

Whilst the Lion chases Toto around the tree, he unmistakably pauses for a few seconds to give Dorothy enough time to pick up Toto.

When Dorothy first meets the Lion, a few seconds afterwards she begins to laugh at one of his remarks. She regains her composure after lifting Toto up to her face to hide her smile, then delivers her next line.

Whilst the Wizard is leaving the Emerald City in his balloon, a man can be seen waving his hat, dropping it, picking it up, glancing around, and then continuing to wave it.

After fleeing Miss Gulch's basket, Toto returns to Dorothy's room by leaping through the rectangular opening where a window pane should be. Shortly afterwards, the tornado blows out a window — one that wasn't there when Toto returned — and renders Dorothy unconscious.

During her initial meeting with the Scarecrow, Dorothy's plaits repeatedly switch from short and curly to long and straight.

After the Tin Man sings "If I Only Had a Heart" and begins to dance along the road, Dorothy's right arm appears bent as though she were carrying her basket, even though the basket isn't on her arm; in the subsequent shot she is shown holding it on her arm.

When the group ask the guard whether they may see the Wizard, his moustache abruptly changes from pointing upwards to pointing downwards between shots. This is the result of a scene having been cut.

The length of Dorothy's hair during the film's running time.

When Glinda is leaving Munchkinland, all three members of the Lollipop Guild, along with a female Munchkin and others, run towards her pink bubble and call out their farewells to her. They are still standing behind Dorothy in the very next shot as she says, "People come and go so quickly here."

When the party confronts the phoney Wizard, the Scarecrow is positioned second from the left up to the line, "And Scarecrow's brain?" In the very next shot, however, when the Wizard replies, "Why, anybody can have a brain," the Scarecrow is suddenly standing first on the right.

During the tornado sequence, as Aunt Em calls out for Dorothy, several background items — including a tree that remains unruffled by the wind — vanish by the time Dorothy arrives and pleads with Aunt Em to let her into the storm shelter.

As the group make their way to retrieve the Witch's broom, the Lion is shown holding an insect sprayer in one shot, but in the very next shot it has disappeared.

When the farmhouse is seen being carried round by the tornado, Dorothy's bedroom windows look shut from the outside, yet from the inside they are plainly open.

When the Scarecrow cuts through the rope supporting the chandelier in the Witch's castle, the candles go out as it falls. In the following shot, two of them are re-lit.

At the end of the "If I Only Had a Heart" number, the oil can bounces out of Dorothy's basket, yet in the subsequent shot she retrieves it and uses it to lubricate the Tinman.

Dorothy's colossal lollipop (presented to her by the guild) vanishes between cuts as the Witch materialises in a cloud of red smoke.

The doors of the Emerald City look very substantial, but when the gatekeeper opens the square "window" in them they seem considerably thinner.

When the Wizard departs Oz, the Tin Man helps to loosen one of the balloon's ropes. As Dorothy pursues Toto, the rope on the balloon's right-hand side comes away from the post. Yet in the subsequent shot, it's shown fastened once more.

When Dorothy first comes across the Scarecrow, his head keeps shifting between jutting above the top of the pole and hanging below it.

Miss Gulch comes onto the Gales' property on two separate occasions.

The Winkie guard who had been standing between the Witch and the Scarecrow vanishes straightaway after the Witch is splashed in the face with water.

When the Witch first traps the group in her castle, Nikko stands beside her behind the balustrade, and in later shots he is seen standing on top of it.

When the Winged Monkeys seize Dorothy, an aerial shot shows her being carried away; just behind her, one of the monkeys is holding Toto. In the subsequent ground-level shot, a monkey then snatches Toto and carries him off.

The position of the Lollipop Guild member who hands Dorothy the lollipop shifts on four separate occasions.

After the Witch hurls the fire from the roof of the Tin Man's cottage, he snuffs it out on the ground and she vanishes in a puff of smoke. The shot of Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man is laterally reversed (and slightly out of focus), making the on-screen direction they appear to be looking incorrect. This was done to match the positions of the Scarecrow and the Tin Man in the following full, unflipped shot.

After the Lion finishes singing "If I Were King of the Forest", he replies, "You can say that again!... Huh?" The close-up immediately before the gatekeeper enters shows the Lion with his right arm lowered; in the next shot, when the gatekeeper says, ("The Wizard says 'go away!'"), the Lion’s right arm is raised.

Whilst Toto escapes from the Witch's castle and Dorothy cries out, "He got away! He got away!", her arm is shown in a different position on the windowsill.

When the Witch dares Dorothy to try to keep out of her path, the tip of her broomstick is pointing towards the ground. In the very next shot the tip is pointing upwards.

When Dorothy and the Scarecrow lubricate the Tin Man, vines are wound around his left arm and left knee. The Scarecrow promptly frees the one on his arm but leaves the vine at the knee untouched. Yet by the time he steps onto the Yellow Brick Road to dance, there are no vines on him.

When the Wicked Witch first appears in Munchkinland, Glinda's wand keeps shifting its position whilst she stands behind Dorothy.

When Dorothy first arrives in Munchkinland, she puts her arm round Toto. In the very next shot, it is already outstretched again.

The footage of the ruby slippers vanishing from the Wicked Witch of the East's feet was originally intended to be projected onto a process screen, with the Wicked Witch of the West kneeling and reaching for the slippers in front of that screen. This accounts for the slippers being placed at the far left of the frame while the Witch kneels before the screen on the right. The image of the disappearing slippers appeared fuzzy and unconvincing when projected in this way, so the scene was discarded. That decision produced a continuity error: in one shot the Witch is only inches from the slippers as she kneels to pick them up, but in the next shot she is no longer visible. In the surviving film there is still footage from the original process-screen set-up: when the Witch turns and says, "They're gone!" the process screen is visible.

The quantity of straw protruding from the Scarecrow's shirt varies from shot to shot. Similarly, when the Witch vanishes from the roof of the Tin Man's cottage, her position switches from the right-hand side to the left and back again.

The Scarecrow's still alight after Dorothy threw the bucket of water. In the first long shot immediately after the close-up of the Witch being splashed in the face, a small flame is visible on him, which vanishes in the next shot a moment later.

Between the moment the Cowardly Lion sings about courage and when he moves onto another platform to talk about it, his crown ends up facing backwards.

The number of rivets running down the Tin Man's chest altered over the course of the film, reflecting differences between the various Tin Man costumes used. Initially he had nine, then eleven, and finally ten.

After Dorothy removes the Scarecrow from the post, the straw protruding from his shirt switches sides on several occasions.

When Dorothy first meets the mayor of Munchkin City, his large watch shows 5.00. When the Wicked Witch departs, it shows 7.15, even though the scene lasts only a few minutes and unfolds in "real time".

The juxtaposition of the adventurers as they stand on the verge of rushing out of the castle.

When the Wicked Witch of the West approaches the ruby slippers, she comes directly up to the house and plainly rests the straw end of her broom against the side, partly obscuring the Wicked Witch of the East's feet. In the subsequent two shots, which show the slippers and feet vanishing and the Witch's reaction to this, her broom is nowhere to be seen and she seems to be several feet away.

After Dorothy permits the Witch to remove the ruby slippers, she moves her legs backwards twice.

As Dorothy desperately offers the ruby slippers to the Witch, the latter's feet are shown dangling over the steps, but in the next shot they're placed further back before they catch fire.

After the Witch places Toto in the lidded basket, Nikko takes hold of its handle with his left hand, moves behind Dorothy and turns so it's to the right of his body. As she approaches him, the shot cuts and it's now on the left of his body, sitting on a stone architectural ledge at table height, having instantly moved several feet.

During the tornado sequence, as Dorothy draws near the fence the tornado can be seen closing in on the farmhouse. Shots featuring Aunt Em, Uncle Henry and the farm labourers, however, show it far off on the horizon. Then when Dorothy steps onto the porch and goes inside the farmhouse it's once more shown as bearing down on the building. Yet when the group is seen making for the storm shelter it still appears distant. Seconds later, as Dorothy attempts to enter the shelter, the tornado is noticeably much closer in the background.

The straw on the Witch's broom is predominantly long and quite limp for most of the film. Yet towards the end, when she lights it to set the Scarecrow alight, it suddenly appears much shorter and noticeably firmer than before. Also, when Dorothy later brings the broom to show the Wizard there are no burnt remains — just very short, stiff straw.

After the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion have saved Dorothy, they hurry down the stairs. As the door slams shut behind them, the order is Scarecrow, Dorothy, Tin Man and Lion. In the next shot Dorothy and the Tin Man have swapped places.

When the Lion menaces the Scarecrow, the straw around the latter's wrists bristles in close-ups, yet that detail vanishes in wider shots.

Footage of Harry Earles (a member of the Blue Lollipop Guild) emerging from the manhole does not appear in the master shot — nor in any other shot — and he is visible walking towards Dorothy in the shot immediately preceding it.

Toto shifts position between shots on numerous occasions in a way that could not be reconciled even if the deleted scenes were restored. This is plainly because a dog cannot reliably be kept perfectly still. Prominent instances include when Dorothy returns holding the Witch's broom, and when she is lying in bed at the end of the film.

Whilst Dorothy lies in bed convalescing from her 'bump on the head', her hair lies behind her on the pillow; when she sits up, it falls to the front.

After the Wizard projects the travellers into the Haunted Forest, each gains new equipment: the Tin Woodsman carries a huge adjustable spanner, the Cowardly Lion has a giant insect sprayer and a butterfly net, and the Scarecrow a revolver. After the next cut, the Lion's gear has disappeared, and after the subsequent cut all the other new items have likewise vanished.

As the group attempts to flee the Witch's castle, the doors shut on them. Just before they do, Dorothy stands to the left of the Tin Man, but once the doors have closed she is suddenly standing to his right.

The quantity of feed in the bucket Zeke pours into the pigs' trough varies between shots.

After the Wizard says, "I said go!", and the Lion dashes out, the other three appear to move to follow him. However, as he's running down the corridor, not only are they not in pursuit, they can't be seen in the background at all.

In the close-up of the Palace Guard weeping, tears can be seen dripping from a device embedded in his prosthetic eyebrow.

When Dorothy first arrives in Munchkinland, you can see the studio lighting reflected on several of the conspicuously artificial flower leaves.

In the opening view of Munchkinland, the camera's shadow can be seen passing across the frame in one of the establishing shots.

As Dorothy walks past the farmhouse, trailed by the group of Munchkins singing "You're off to see the Wizard," one can spot a solitary Munchkin woman standing on the front steps watching the scene. She then turns, climbs the steps and disappears.

Studio lighting is reflected in Dorothy's bedroom window as it is blown from its frame, rendering her unconscious.

From time to time, the studio lighting can be seen reflected in the polished floor of the Emerald City.

Studio lighting is reflected in the crystal balls belonging to Professor Marvel and the Wicked Witch of the West.

When the snowfall foils the Witch and the group carries on along the Yellow Brick Road, every eye is fixed on them and the glinting Emerald City ahead. Yet just before the scene ends, a straight, sharply defined shadow cast by the lighting slowly traverses the Yellow Brick Road and then halts.

Luckily the audience are looking up.

The twister seems to teleport between shots. This becomes evident when it's behind the farmhouse, then suddenly appears miles away in a different position. The same discrepancy occurs as Dorothy is walking through the gate: the twister is roughly 50 metres from the farmhouse, yet when we cut to the adults shutting the storm cellar door it's back where it was when Aunt Em was calling for Dorothy.

The Wizard tells the Scarecrow, "Why, anyone can have a brain. That's a rather mediocre commodity! Every pusillanimous creature that creeps across the land or slinks through slimy seas has a brain!" He is correct about the land-crawlers, but the sea contains many creatures without brains, including jellyfish, corals, the Portuguese man o' war, starfish, clams, oysters, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, sea sponges, sea lilies, sea anemones and sea squirts.

The original film soundtrack for The Wizard of Oz mistakenly describes the twister as a cyclone. While both cyclones and tornadoes involve rotating winds, they primarily differ in scale, origin and where they form. Cyclones are large, long-lived systems that develop over warm ocean waters, whereas tornadoes are far smaller, short-lived phenomena that typically form over land.

When Dorothy visits Professor Marvel, he tucks the photograph of her and Aunt Em beneath his left thigh before peering into his crystal ball. As Dorothy steps out of his wagon to return home, he holds the picture up but does not give it back. Even when he appears again at the film’s end, he still does not return it. Since it never reappears, that makes him a thief rather than merely a fool.

Although the Wizard professes to be "an old Kansas man", his balloon is registered in Omaha, Nebraska. Travelling fairground performers from the American Midwest commonly move between two or three states on a fixed circuit.

Upon the group's entry into the castle disguised as Winkies, the Tin Man is seen carrying a spear. His axe then appears out of thin air and is used to batter the door open to free Dorothy. The Winkie costume was extremely bulky, easily providing space to conceal the axe.

When Dorothy awakens back home in Kansas and all appears well again, no one seems perturbed by the fact that, although the Wicked Witch of the West may be gone, Miss Gulch could still be alive and remains in possession of a valid sheriff's order authorising her to have Toto "destroyed." It is likely that Miss Gulch was killed in the tornado, as the same fate befell her counterpart in Oz.

Glinda warns Dorothy never to remove the ruby slippers, yet the shoes evidently remain fixed to Dorothy's feet after the Witch of the West asserts they cannot be removed as long as Dorothy lives. Clearly, this kind of line is part of Glinda's effervescent character.

When the bell is rung to gain entry to the Emerald City, the gatekeeper asks who gave it a tug, despite a sign declaring it out of order. It is fairly obvious that the party gathered at the door were the ones who pulled it. The guard then observes that the notice is as plain as the nose on his face, glances to his left (the viewer's right) and then to his right, at which point he realises the sign is not hanging on the hook and proceeds to hang it there. If he truly did not want anyone ringing the bell, why would he remove the sign? He could easily have rendered the bell harmless by taking off the bell pull. But that inconsistency is exactly what makes the scene funny — it's not meant to be logical, it's meant to be silly.

Dorothy never actually tells the Scarecrow her name on-screen when they first meet; yet he already knows it by the time they are chastised for taking apples from the trees. Presumably she told him off-screen, since they had been travelling together for quite some distance. Much of his footage was later cut from the finished film.

At the start of the film, when Dorothy is running along the road and stops to speak to Toto, it is established that the nearest dwelling is at least a mile away; yet in the very next shot — a split second later — she is already running into the farmyard. The film advances a few moments through clever editing.

When Dorothy first speaks with her Aunt and Uncle, he seems to be taking eggs out of his hat and sliding them under a chicken in a cage. Such behaviour would be unlikely for any farmer. In reality, he is producing live chicks from his hat and tucking them beneath the bird. The dialogue confirms this: "This old incubator's gone bad and we're likely to lose a lot of our chicks." Throughout the scene the chirping of chicks can be heard.

When Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, they are standing at a junction on the Yellow Brick Road. For no obvious reason they choose to turn 90° from Dorothy's original course. She must decide which way to continue, and the Scarecrow clearly selects the correct path, since they ultimately reach the Emerald City. This could have been intentionally included to imply he had a brain all along.

When the Witch dispatches the flying monkeys, she declares, "I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them." Those so-called "insects" are Jitterbugs. The Jitterbug sequence was filmed but later excised. The line, however, was left intact.

The purple "Horse of a Different Colour" is shown licking off his purple dye, which was made from grape-flavoured gelatine powder.

As the Wicked Witch of the West vanishes from Munchkinland in a plume of smoke and flame, the smoke appears before she actually reaches the spot.

During the "Horse of a Different Color" scene, viewers can tell from the height, build and other physical characteristics (and from the yellow horse's trot) that, although it is presented as a single horse changing colour, three different animals are actually used.

After the scarecrow was restuffed following his body being severed by the monkeys, he rises and slightly stumbles in the hole intended to conceal the lower half of his body.

During the apple tree sequence, Dorothy's slippers briefly vanish (she is wearing black patent-leather shoes). This occurs when the tree flings an apple that knocks the Scarecrow over. The black shoes are visible at the lower right just as the Scarecrow lands on his backside.

Rather than using his mouth, Toto exposes the Wizard by tugging the curtain aside; the curtain is actually fastened to the dog. Dorothy is later shown untying the rope.

The Wicked Witch of the West materialises in Munchkinland amid a burst of smoke and flames, although the Munchkins have already started running and shrieking before she appears.

While the Wicked Witch of the West peers into her scrying glass and speaks to Nikko, the panes behind her appear to show an outdoor scene. As she climbs onto her broomstick she knocks against one of them, revealing it to be merely a sheet painted to resemble a window; it then wobbles.

In the tornado sequence, as Aunt Em dashes out of the house with debris swirling around, the hanging plant pot on the verandah remains motionless.

When the house at last settles, the furniture and floors lie level, suggesting it touched down flat and intact. However, when we later view the exterior after Dorothy has entered Munchkinland, the right-hand end of the house's foundation appears almost split in two over The Wicked Witch of the East, and the siding has sustained considerable damage.

As Dorothy falls into the pigsty and Zeke sets the feed bucket aside to clamber in and help her, Aunt Em can be seen standing still, awaiting her cue to rush onto the scene.

When Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow, the cord propping him up is clearly visible.

Once the Tin Man joins them and the three begin to retrace their steps along the Yellow Brick Road, the film negative is reversed. Note the orientation of the buttons on the Scarecrow's shirt, the rivets on the Tin Man's torso and the position of the Tin Man's funnel cap. This was likely done to compensate for a continuity error in the characters' positions. Corrected in the 2009 remastered Blu-ray edition.

The lion's crown, crafted from a broken flowerpot, sprang back when it struck the floor and remained intact.

After the Tin Man is dropped by the 'spooks', Dorothy and the Scarecrow hurry over to him. As he tries to stand, the top of his costume rides up, briefly exposing Jack Haley's T-shirt.

As Dorothy assists with oiling the Tin Man, she takes hold of his arm to demonstrate just how flexible it is.

As Dorothy turns round and waves whilst departing Munchkinland, the matte painting at the far right and left edges of the screen obscures two or three Munchkins.

A number of scenes show Dorothy and her companions casting multiple shadows.

When Professor Marvel instructs Dorothy to shut her eyes and rummages through her basket, he produces the photograph of her and Aunt Em. There is no frame of him "holding" it; It's simply resting against a dark background.

As Dorothy and her companions are running through the poppies, the apples astonishingly remain in the basket.

Once the ruby slippers vanish from the Wicked Witch of the East's feet, the Wicked Witch of the West, who had stooped to examine them, turns towards Dorothy and Glinda. As she does so, the house transforms into a backcloth.

At the conclusion of "Follow the Yellow Brick Road", Dorothy turns to wave farewell to the Munchkins. In the lower right-hand corner a matte painting of flowers obscures the tops of the heads of several Munchkins who are waving in return.

Although Toto is portrayed as male, when the Witch derisively calls him 'a nice little dog' it is plainly visible that he lacks male genitalia.

Towards the end, with the Professor in the balloon's basket and Dorothy dashing back to fetch Toto as it begins to ascend, the Tin Man can be seen unwinding the rope from the post, thereby allowing the balloon to drift away and leaving Dorothy behind in Oz.

When the Scarecrow topples from his perch, it is obvious that the corn stalks are artificial, as they have a glossy appearance.