In mid-May 2021, TikTok user Dani Jo (@danjomagic) posted a video that showed a massive collection of memorabilia for "The Wizard of Oz."
The video was accompanied by "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" which was performed by the artist known as The Shirtless Violinist.
As of this writing, the video that showed the large and amazing collection of "The Wizard of Oz" items had only been played around 27,000 times. It was likely to be viewed many more times in the future.
Packing and Moving
"One of my friends owns one of the United States' probably largest collections of 'Wizard of Oz' [memorabilia]," Dani Jo said in the video.
The TikTok user mentioned that the friend was moving: "And so, he's moving, so today we're going to pack some stuff up."
The video panned around the rooms and showed what appeared to be thousands of pieces of memorabilia in the "Wizard of Oz" collection. "You don't even understand," Dani Jo said.
"I'm going to get him to get a TikTok. Look at these slippers. Look at this. It's amazing. He has put so much time and effort and minutes of his life into this. It's incredible. Oh my God. And it's like being deep packed, so this isn't even, the majority of stuff is in boxes. It's just unbelievable."
In the comments of the video, @danjomagic added: "He's been collecting since he was a little boy."
The Collection
We spotted a number of interesting items for "The Wizard of Oz" in the video, but there really were too many to name.
The collection included at least two pairs of ruby slippers, several busts of the prominent characters, a pinball machine, lamps, a miniature house, shelves of figurines of varying sizes, books, masks, puzzles, banners, and nearly life-size versions of Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Wicked Witch of the West.
A number of framed items lined the walls, including posters, artwork, advertisements, photographs, newspaper articles, and other collectibles.
The collection even appeared to have the on-set chair used by Diana Ross in the 1978 film "The Wiz."
The end of the video showed a piece of memorabilia from the 1990s Halloween-themed family film "Hocus Pocus."
The Collector
Buried deep in the comments for the TikTok video was a link to a YouTube video. TikTok videos don't allow links to be clickable, so once we typed out the link, it took us here:
The devoted collector of all of the memorabilia from the TikTok video was named Walter Krueger.
Krueger is one of several admins with the Facebook Group Wizard of Oz Collectors United!." The YouTube video showed that some of the memorabilia was also from 1985's "Return to Oz."
Near the end of the clip, Krueger even donned a special mask for "The Wizard of Oz" with ruby slipper decorations. The video was posted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We reached out to @danjomagic on TikTok, as well as the Facebook Group, to learn more. We will update this story with additional details if we receive a response.