Curse of the Winged Monkeys

Alright, that does it. I've been cursed twice now in relation to Oz's Winged Monkeys. Consulting the Royal Library of Magic in the heart of the Emerald City, I see that the only way to remove those curses is to set the record straight about the Winged Monkeys of Oz.

They are under a spell, a charm, you see . . . but I get ahead of myself.

There is but one wicked entity in the tale of The Wizard of Oz, and that is the Wicked Witch. Any other wickedness that we may perceive in others is but an extension of the Wicked Witch. She is in control of those Winged Monkeys, as we see here:

In our previous 'blog post,we have already witnessed the wicked attack upon Dorothy's friends, and here we continue the telling of that despicable act:

But our friends survived and the tables were turned. The Wicked Witch was overthrown and Dorothy brought away with her the wonderful Golden Cap encircled with rubies and diamonds that allowed her to control the Winged Monkeys. With these next pages, we learn of the history of the Winged Monkeys and why they must obey the charm of the Golden Cap.

With the recounting of the Winged Monkeys' tale of how they came to be in the wicked service of the Wicked Witch, I now renounce the curses put upon me, and call upon all within sight of this 'blog to, from this day forth, think kindly upon the maligned tribe of the Winged Monkeys. So be it.

Facing Our Fears

The best way to fight a fear is to face it. So let's take a closer look at the flying monkeys of Oz.

The original Wizard of Oz book by L. Frank Baum was illustrated by WW Denslow and it was his drawings that first delineated this icon of fear.

But it was Baum who creeped us out with a vision of a sky darkened with a rumbling and rushing of wings, a great chattering and laughing of monkeys with immense and powerful wings:

And just what these creatures were capable of:

BUT, it was the MGM production of the movie in 1939 that brought the nightmare to life:

Hrrmmm. Bat wings. But see the power cord down there? These wings were mechanisms, the final ones powered by battery packs. It was just movie making. They weren't real!

See? See? We've faced our fears and seen the 'man behind the curtain', so to speak.

There, now don't you feel better having faced your fears?

Hrrmm. Neither do I.