The Wiz (1984 Footage)

I just found these online and I am in awe of how beautiful this production was. I know the footage of the revival has been floating around the net for a while, but I haven't seen any with quality like this. You can check out the videos at this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9WiqDQ-o40gLToDqA6_nw/videos

Stephanie Mills is a freak of nature. The runs she does in falsetto at the end of "Be A Lion" would've been worth the ticket itself. I am still trying to figure out how she was able to hit those high notes while jumping around and kicking in the kick line in "Brand New Day". It's just crazy. The Tornado scene was also a highlight for me. I would've loved it if the NBC broadcast would've did something similar with the scene instead of trimming it and having Dorothy fly.

Yes! I saw the video of the whole one that you linked as well, and I prefer the one I found only because the quality seems much better. Maybe it's on my end but the sound is a little too dim on the full one and the lighting is very dark (you can't really see the Tornado scene and some others). But, thanks for the links!

I loved the choreography too! Stephanie Mills really enjoyed getting down on stage as you can tell!

Updated On: 12/19/15 at 02:51 PM

This footage is absolutely stunning. I'm only on "I was born the day before yesterday" and it's already clear The Wiz was a stunning production. The Tornado sequence was probably one of the best and most creative things I have ever seen done onstage. A LITERAL force of nature. Absolutely incredible.

Updated On: 12/19/15 at 03:34 PM

Loving the Emerald City Ballet too!

I love these videos, but why are most all of the tempos crazy fast?

Love the choreography and staging of the flying (Funky) Monkeys!

Also, here is Glinda's entrance, complete with watermelon crescent moon and (as Adaperle says) "Glinda's Theme Song" (A Rested Body Is a Rested Mind), cut from the NBC version. I love the laugh the moon gets. It's supposed to be funny and satirical. I think they really cut not only the ethnicity out of the production, but also the satire. They (up on stage) were all clearly in on the joke, and on the edgy perspective they were presenting. Maybe it's true, you can't get away with that today. By the way, I LOVE the set here and the costumes!

To finally see that tornado--WOW

The actress playing Glinda is Ann Duquesnay who won the Tony for Bring in the Noise Bring in the Funk!

These clips have made me realize The Wiz, in its original broadway and 84 revival production was inventive and funny and fresh and Stephanie Mills was just unbelievable. This is a show that deserved Best Musical that year clearly, but the film adaptation and subsequent productions I think fall incredibly flat and maybe this production was just lightning in a bottle.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the NBC live broadcast but I watched it with a grain of salt feeling like The Wiz as it's written is clunky and sometimes tedious but with fabulous music.

The "Home" video is amazing....what I love about it aside from Stephanie Mills' brilliant delivery are those pit singers accompanying her.....she just acquired a major new fan. I'm in love with her!

best12bars said: "I saw the national tour of the original production, not the revival, and the tempos were definitely not that fast.

I'm realizing now, watching these clips and the show itself, that this would be the equivalent of someone deciding to revive "The Book of Mormon" in 40 years, only to say, "We have to redo the book and concept! It's so dated, and nobody would find that satire funny today!" They're missing the point. It IS satire. The cast is in on the joke. So is the director. So is the concept. The audience laughs at the satirical humor. Is it racist? Prejudiced? No more than a Saturday Night Live sketch is.

By stripping out the "offensive" humor and any of the concept that was seemingly offensive, they have defanged and declawed "The Wiz" for a new generation, presenting it as a straightforward telling of "The Wizard of Oz" with a black cast ... and that's pretty much it.

They really missed the boat on the NBC production. Perhaps it was a bit too SNL for prime-time TV to present it in its original way. Perhaps people aren't "in on the joke today." It's not a question of being PC any more than we should question the political correctness of SNL or Book of Mormon, and decide to creatively change all of that in the name of a "wider" audience.

I think now you can see why I have been saying the NBC production was so "sanitized." They scrubbed the tongue-in-cheek humor and satire right out of it."

This. I was just thinking about this, and I couldn't agree more.

Updated On: 12/20/15 at 11:51 AM

Yes of course there were cuts. They cut a handful of songs and dialogue for the broadcast.

Man, I love everything about these videos. The choreography, especially, is incredible! It's so much more alive, electric, and has so much more personality than anything in the NBC broadcast. The cast perform with a mind-boggling degree of commitment and energy. I can't imagine this not being a success if they were to put this on Broadway today.

Did anyone at NBC even see the original production? What they put out was serviceable and inoffensive, but how could anyone who had seen the Holder production aim so low and tepid mounting their own? Then again, some of the people who worked on the 1978 film must have the original, and still managed to turn it into... the film version of The Wiz.