LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - APRIL 25, 2021 by Lynne Belluscio Recently I watched the PBS special about L. Frank Baum who wrote “The Wizard of Oz” and thought I’d go into the Jell-O files and take a closer look at the four Oz booklets that were reprinted by Jell-O in 1932 and 1933. The original book by L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was published in May 1900. A few years later, he wrote six short books known as “The LittleWizard Stories”. They inlcuded“The Cowardly Lion and the Hungary Tiger”, “Little Dorothy and Toto”, “Tiktok and the Nome King”, “Ozma and the Little Wizard”, “Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse”, and “The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman.” Jell-O reprinted four of them. In the early 1930s, Jell-O was in a slump and General Foods hired a new advertising agency, Young and Rubicam, to try to improve Jell-O sales. They decided to try radio advertising. First, they offered an on-the-air cooking school. It was a fifteen minute program that aired at 10:15 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and offered “messages of hope and cheer to the American housewife.” The program did not last very long and then Jell-O decided to sponsor an entertainment radio show, which aired on NBC on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at 5:45 to 6. It featured stories from the Land of Oz and premiered on September 25, 1933. The on-air voices featured twelve-year-old Nancy Kelly as Dorothy. Bill Adams starred as the Scarecrow, Parker Fennelly was the Tinman and Jack Smart was the Cowardly Lion. Listeners could send in a Jell-O box top and 25 cents and receive one of the Little Wizard Story booklets. These booklets were illustrated by John R. Neil, who succeeded W.W. Denslow as Baum’s illustrator. The four Jell-O booklets look pretty much like the original Little Wizard Stories, but on the back cover is an image of the Scarecrow and the Tinman carrying a huge dish of Jell-O, and on the inside covers are promotions and recipes for Jell-O: “Surely a wizard invented Jell-O Dessert!” “Jell-O desserts seem like something right out of Oz!” “Magic Right in Mother’s kitchen!” One of the recipes was for “Emerald Fruit Cup” made with lime Jell-O. The radio show went off the air less than a year later in March 1934, and soon Jell-O became the sponsor for the Jack Benny show. When the Jell-O Gallery opened in 1997, the Historical Society did not have any copies of the Oz booklets. They were very expensive and extremely hard to find. But within a few years, all four books were acquired and there are several copies in the collection now. We hope to install a small exhibit in the Jell-O Gallery about these four little books and the connections to Frank L. Baum and the illustrator, John R. Neil. Additional research is being done and will be featured in an upcoming Historical Society newsletter. The Wizard of Oz and Jell-O