"Same thing, The Wizard of Oz — that will always be one of my all-time favorites. The transition from black-and-white into color, you know, that idea of merging the two worlds using cinematic magic, to meld those worlds for the first time ever. I mean, you look back at the movie and obviously you can see now that there were backdrops and cheap sets and all of that kind of stuff, where today we would probably laugh at it and brush it off as a B-movie. But in those days it was magic. And it’s still magic."

"I, on opening day, saw The Wizard of Oz — 1939, in Providence, Rhode Island. I even remember the theater, the Majestic Theater. Our dad [took us] and we slept in the street that night to wait for the first showing of it. And of course, just like everybody else on this planet, it’s made a lifetime impression on me. As a matter of fact, I think that H.R. Pufnstuft, which was our first television show, the whole feeling came from The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t like it, but the story — with a boy instead of a girl, and all the characters and the trees and the witch — but we went in a whole other direction with ours. As a matter of fact, when the first Pufnstuft movie came out a year after we did the series, Time Magazine said it was “the next Wizard of Oz.” That was quite a statement. What else? Margaret Hamilton — as a matter of fact, I think the very last job that she had before she left us was in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. She played the crazy lady next door who kept seeing the little monster and nobody believed her. She did two or three episodes for us. And the reason she wanted to do it? She wanted to meet Billie Hayes, who was Witchiepoo. She said Witchiepoo is the best witch; as a matter of fact, Billie Hayes met her at the airport and they became great friends. And the reason for being of Land of the Lost? In 1940 there was a movie called One Million B.C. Marty was just a couple of years old, and I was eleven. I had never seen a dinosaur moving; no one had. Only in our schoolbooks. I would take him to see One Million B.C. with Victor Mature… wow. That made a huge impression. It scared the hell out of me. Because, like I said, we had never seen a dinosaur moving before! And that idea gave us the idea to do Land of the Lost."

"The Wizard of Oz is really the first movie I ever saw. I remember watching it a lot as a little kid. My mom said I used to watch the VHS tape that I believe we had recorded from TV, and I used to watch it twice a day. I remember in my Power Wheels I used to drive along with the Tin Man and the Lion and Dorothy. I don’t really remember a lot of this, but my mom — your mom is kinda like the history of your life. I also loved the Peter Pan, but with Mary Martin; I remember watching that a lot."

"Finally I’m gonna say The Wizard of Oz, because that movie, again, is not like any other film — it’s a completely original experience and it has stood up against the test of time. Children are still enchanted by it, adults are still enchanted by it, and nobody has ever been able to capture that feeling since; and it’s a musical. Plus, that first introduction to color film, that doorway sequence and going in to Munchkin land — it’s just mind-blowingly beautiful. And her performance, her voice, Judy Garland — you know, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. So, I would say those would be the top five."

"Again, toss up between The Wizard of Oz and Singin’ in the Rain. This one is perfect. Not a frame is off. There’s not a weak character, there’s not a weak moment, it’s just a delight all the way through. There’s Donald O’Connor doing Make ‘Em Laugh. They turned him loose and he just went. [And there’s] that wonderful scene where they’re talking to the voice coach. They make it look so easy and effortless — and if you’ve ever danced on stage, if you’ve ever tried tap dancing and singing at the same time, there is nothing easy about it. It is just astonishing. “Whaddya think, I’m dumb or something?” Oh, Jean Hagen."

"I think you’ve got to go with the classics. You’ve got to go with The Wizard of Oz. That’s the one that I can think of as a kid you always looked forward to, because when I was a kid, they only aired it at Thanksgiving. You had to wait. There was no DVRs, there was no Netflix. Until the network ran it on Thanksgiving, you didn’t see it. You couldn’t record it, nothing. The fact that it still holds up; it’s one of those movies you can’t redo. You can redo it, but it’s not going to be the same. We found that out with Peter Pan, when they tried to do that."