Showing posts with label Jerry Maren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerry Maren. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2013

Oz in Jeopardy!

Yes, I'm going to keep these coming until I run out — which should be just in time for the new season to start. Here's a surprising clue from the May 30 show, in the first round category "Party" Time (in which each correct response includes the word "party"), we find this $400 clue:

Defending champion Sam rang in first and correctly said, "What is a bachelor party?" He went on to win the game. I did a little digging, and sure enough, I found this account of the party online. As I suspected, it was Jerry Maren. I then confirmed the story in his autobiography. It turns out he wasn't the only one, as Billy Barty was there, too! Since Barty was in Under the Rainbow (alongside Maren), I guess that makes that bachelor party doubly Ozzy.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

The latest Oz reading

I just finished Short and Sweet: The Life and Times of the Lollipop Munchkin, the memoir of Jerry Maren. Yes, he was the middle member of the Lollipop Guild who gave the lollipop to Judy Garland in the famous movie version. And that's probably what he's best known for (all those appearances at Oz festivals and such over the past twenty-some years sure help cement that image), but that was only the beginning. He's had a long, successful career in show business, working with some big stars. He's worked with the "Our Gang" kids, the Marx Brothers, Edgar Bergen (he was a walking, all-action version of both Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd), Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, and Jerry Seinfeld, to name just a few. He played Buster Brown, Little Oscar (for Oscar Mayer), and most of the denizens of McDonaldland. He came back to play Munchkins in Under the Rainbow and The Dreamer of Oz, as well as on stage. This book covers it all. It's a quick read, as Maren himself explains that he's not much of a writer, so it's filled with lots of pictures. This was a fun book, and I'm glad Jerry took the time out of his still busy career to write this. It's got enough Oz content to please the Oz fans, but the rest of it is pretty cool, too.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Jerry Maren on "The Gong Show"

This is really not a very Ozzy clip at all. But there's a fun glimpse of Jerry Maren, the middle Lollipop Kid in the famous movie version of The Wizard of Oz, at the end. Oh, yeah, and the singing juggler is terrific!