The Jitterbug deleted from The Wizard of Oz

"The Jitterbug" is a song cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
Frank Noonan filmed this arrangement on Feb 18, 2011, singing and double and triple tonguing ala "Flight of the Bumblebee" on "bass trumpet" (Olds Marching Trombone).

The song is a play on words. The Wicked Witch of the West had sent "a little, tiny insect... to take the fight out of them", a line which was left in the film and is perhaps the most obvious continuity error in the film. The insect was supposed to bite each member of the group of four and make them dance the Jitterbug until they were exhausted and could easily be subdued by the witch's army of flying monkeys.

The song was recorded in the studio but was evidently cut from the final release print. It was the most famous of a number of cuts that were made to scenes and musical numbers from the film. The conventional reason for its being cut was fear that it would "date" the film too much and/or that the upbeat number was out of place juxtaposed with the group's harrowing experiences in the haunted forest. A more prosaic reason could have been the same argument that was supposedly once made against "Over the Rainbow", that it was a show-stopper that took too much time, or simply that it made the characters appear too silly by having them suddenly break out into a jitterbug dance after all the fantasy that preceded it.

The only film footage that exists is a grainy home movie shot by Harold Arlen, taken during dress rehearsal, which is included in the DVD special section. It shows Judy Garland and the other characters, in full costume, doing the dance.

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