Once upon a time, there was a real-life Oz (To Tell The Truth, 1971)

I just could not pass this up.

Buzzr (check listings) has its own YouTube channel, from whence we get this magical episode of To Tell The Truth from 1971. The first game recalls a game from the Bud Collyer era of the series, in which Henry Morgan (I've Got a Secret) went undercover and fooled the panel. Here, Garry Moore, the original host of Secret, and panelists Gene Rayburn, Peggy Cass, Tom Poston, & Kitty Carlisle are introduced to a real-life Oz, based on L. Frank Baum's novels and the 1939 feature film, "The Wizard of Oz":



Announcer Johnny Olson would later sit in on the panel on Match Game, and occasionally would get screen time on The Price is Right after it was revived. You might think it was foreshadowing in Nipsey Russell's case, as Russell was cast as the Tin Man in "The Wiz", just a few years later. Dick DeBartolo, also a writer for Mad Magazine, had to have written the Oz material.

Rating: A.