The episode begins with a strong gust of wind blowing through Sesame Street; a broom falls out of the sky in front of Mr. Hooper’s store and David (Northern Calloway) picks it up. Then the Witch peers out from behind the corner. “I know I’m not in Oz anymore,” she says — a joke clearly meant for the parents watching with their kids.
Cue the Witch trying to get the broom back from David and running into the many puppet inhabitants of Sesame Street. She threatens to turn Big Bird into a feather duster and catches the eye of Oscar when she hides behind his trash can home. (Even a Wicked Witch can glow as giddy as a schoolgirl when a strapping young Grouch calls her beautiful.)
Eventually, the Witch disguises herself as a normal-looking sweet old lady (i.e. the real Margaret Hamilton). David, catching onto the deception, makes her say “please” before he gives the broom back.
So yeah, not exactly a terrifying story, Even as the Witch is sometimes left befuddled, though, Hamilton is playing the part like she just stepped off “The Wizard of Oz” set; she even brings out her witchy cackle a few times. That, apparently, was enough to make kids scream and cry, causing their parents to write in complaint letters. If angry parents can bring Optimus Prime back to life, they can overcome the Wicked Witch of the West.
Hamilton, so famous for scaring small kids, was a teacher before she became an actor — which might actually help explain why she was so good at scaring kids. Given her experience in education, it also makes sense that she’d want to guest on “Sesame Street.” She’d previously appeared on an episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” which was all about teaching kids that acting is make-believe and that someone playing a mean character doesn’t make them a mean person. Interviewed by Mr. Rogers, Hamilton recalled playing the Witch in “The Wizard of Oz” and the legacy it had:
“Sometimes, Mr. Rogers, I’m a little unhappy because lots of children are quite scared by [The Wicked Witch], and that makes me feel a little sad because I don’t think any of us thought, you know, that it would be as scary as it sometimes seems to be. But when you understand her and realize it’s just pretend, and that everybody can do it, you can do it.”
To put the message in terms the children can completely grasp, Hamilton mentioned that she used to dress up as a witch for Halloween when she was a child. The pretense of her performance is never dropped during the Witch’s appearance on “Sesame Street,” so children who don’t realize yet that acting is “just pretend” don’t have their terror soothed. Once the episode was pulled from the air, children had to wait to meet Miss Hamilton’s Wicked Witch until they were old enough to watch “The Wizard of Oz.”
