Winkie Convention Countdown: 25 Days to Go

The 1984 and 1985 conventions had a lot of buzz around them, because of the new movie coming out. We got some early publicity and production info on what was then called Oz in 1984. The timing didn't work out well, however, since a lot of it didn't actually arrive on Friday as it should have. (Airline luggage woes, need I say more?) So poor Craig Miller, the Disney publicist, had to whip up some enthusiasm for this thing with almost nothing. He did an admirable job, and fortunately everything arrived the next day, so the Saturday evening program was expanded to accommodate it all. We all got a poster with Fairuza Balk on them and a button (both of which I believe I still have somewhere), and a behind-the-scenes video. A lot of that was focused on Princess Mombi's heads and how they did that scene with them all looking at Dorothy. (It was no big secret, the cabinets were designed to thrust the actresses' heads through.) By the time the convention rolled around the next year, the now-renamed Return to Oz had come out and pretty much already tanked at the box office, but the auction had one of Tik-Tok's hats (which auctioneer Marc Lewis modeled for us), a lunch pail, and two of Tik-Tok's eyes. Lots of spirited bidding around those, I recall.