News stories of the

Munchkins and their

Star on the Walk of Fame!

The Munchkins receiving their Star on the Walk of in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater with Judy Garland’s son Joey saying a few words of congratulations from the podium. Hollywood Cinemas led the campaign for the Munchkin’s to receive this honor. We got rid of the red carpet and laid a yellow brick road carpet, added an Emerald City of green balloons, a colorful rainbow arch of helium balloons stretching between the Grauman’s towers and with our little friends conveyed in a carriage drawn by, what else....? A horse of a different color (in this case lavender), proceeded by the Hollywood

High School Marching Band playing, what else .........“We’re off to see the Wizard”!

There was saturation US and International press coverage of the Munchkin’s Walk of Fame ceremony including on CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, WGN, Fox and MSNBC networks and all the entertainment news shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, The Insider, Show Biz Tonight, etc.

Warner Bros., who now owns “The Wizard of Oz”, tracked what they called an “unprecedented” 575 television shows picked up the story across the United States and Canada. Aside from the standard network coverage, there were segments on “Good Morning America”, “The Today Show”, “CBS This Morning”, “CBS Sunday Morning”, “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and much more.

As part of the coverage on the "Today Show", anchors Matt Lauer, Al Roker & Meredith Vieira actually sang a chorus of “We Represent the Lollipop Guild". “Fox & Friends” started their extended nationwide coverage in black & white, transitioning to color as in the films initial Munchkin sequence and had a one on one in studio interview with Jerry Maren, the leader of the Lollipop Guild that ended with a box of Dunkin’ Munchkins!

BBC radio, CBS, Reuters, and National Public Radio networks ran stories that broadcast on their worldwide affiliates as well as countless other radio stories.

The event was also on the MSN search engine home page under “Breaking Entertainment News” and as one of the little cartoons on Google search page; and appeared in literally millions of internet postings, websites and blogs the world over.

There were countless national and international print articles including USA Today, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, People and the “Hot List” of Entertainment Weekly. This was the first star ceremony to ever be covered on the front page of the LA Times. Coverage started on page 2 of the New York Times and page 4 of the Chicago Tribune. The ceremony had international coverage over the news wire services like AP, UPI and Reuters with print stories from Beijing to Thailand, India, Australia, Taiwan, Kuwait, Israel, Thailand, Japan, China and throughout Europe with especially heavy coverage in England. The newspaper coverage in Istanbul, written in Arabic script, does not have certain words in that language and so inserts English for “Munchkins” and “Cinesman Sahib Ted Bulthaup”. The magnitude of worldwide interest testifies to the heartfelt prominence of this film and the appeal of all its characters to the entire world.

70th Anniversary Wizard of OZ DVD Special Feature

"The Munchkins secured their place in history and the hearts of movies fans everywhere"

Hollywood celebrates it's biggest little stars

Steven Spielberg

Jerry Maren was the center

Lollipop Kid was the last of

the survivng Munchkins.

Our friend died May 24, 2018

Munchkins have a local fan to thank

Ted

Ted Turner

Ted

The seven remaining Munchkins attended Hollywood Walk of Fame

Star dedication and ceremony. They were Clarence Swenson, Jerry Maren, (top row) Karl Slover, Margaret Pelligrini (next row), Meinhardt Raabe, Ruth Ducini, (next row) and Mickey Carroll (bottom row). Jerry Maren who played the center Lollipop Kid is now the last remaining Munchkin. These pictures were taken by photographers sent by the Smithsonian Insitute the day before at the famed Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, across the street from Grauman's Chinese Theater and where the ceremony took place. The Roosevelt was the site of the very first Academy Award Ceremony.

"TheThe Wizard of Oz is an important element in our cinema history that merits recognition for the Munchkins. They are an essential and iconoclastic part of what makes this fil truly remarkable "