Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead

"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" is the centerpiece of several individual songs in an extended set-piece performed by the Munchkin characters, Glinda (Billie Burke) and Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) in the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was composed by Harold Arlen, with the lyrics written by E.Y. Harburg.

The group of songs celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch of the East when Dorothy's house is dropped on her by the tornado.

In 2004 "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead" finished at #82 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema.

The sequence starts with Glinda encouraging the fearful Munchkins to "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are" and meet Dorothy, who "fell from a star" named Kansas, so that "a miracle occurred."

Dorothy begins singing, modestly explaining through descriptive phrasing that it "It Really Was No Miracle"; it was the wind that brought the apparent miracle. The Munchkins soon join in and sing joyfully, perhaps not really understanding how she got there, but happy at the result.

Like several of the songs on the film's soundtrack, this one makes extensive use of rhyming wordplay, containing as many Hays Office-approved words rhyming with "witch" as the composers could think of: "itch", "which", "sitch"-uation, "rich", etc.

After a short interval in which two Munchkins present a bouquet to Dorothy, Glinda tells the Munchkins to spread the news that "the wicked old witch at last is dead!"

The Munchkins then sing the march-style number "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead." After its one verse, there is another interruption, as the city officials need to determine if the witch is "undeniably and reliably dead." The coroner (Meinhardt Raabe) avers that she is, and the mayor reiterates Glinda's advice to the Munchkins to spread the news. The Munchkins oblige, and sing "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" again.

As the Munchkin soldiers march, looking vaguely like toys, some trumpeters issue a fanfare very similar to the fanfare at the beginning of the "March of the Toys" from Babes in Toyland. This has a notable though perhaps unintended subtlety. In 1903, the operetta had been written to compete with an early and successful Broadway rendition of The Wizard of Oz. In addition, in 1934, there had been a film version of Babes in Toyland, which was presumably still recent in the memories of the audience.

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