This is the second TV broadcast special of the 1939 film. The first telecast was in 1956. Red Skelton was seen as two characters: Before the film began, he was seen in a studio set of an early 20th-century bookstore, in costume as a Victorian-era storyteller who introduced L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, to a young girl, played by Skelton's real life daughter, and at film's end, he appeared in a studio recreation of a modern living room as himself. The Skelton segments were recorded on video tape prior to the production.