The Jitterbug

"The Jitterbug" was a song sung by Dorothy (with Toto), together with the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, that was cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was both a jazzy development of the plot and a nod to the then-popular bobby-soxer dance craze. As the song begins, the four friends see a jitterbug flitting in the shadows from tree to tree and become frightened. The refrain that they sing is: "Oh, the bats and the bees and the breeze in the trees have a terrible, horrible buzz. ... So, be careful of that rascal/Keep away from The Jitterbug." The Jitterbug puts a magical influence on the characters, forcing them to dance the Jitterbug frenetically. Soon there are many jitterbugs, and eventually, everyone collapses from exhaustion and are subdued by the Witch's army of flying monkeys.

The Wicked Witch of the West makes reference to this number in the finished film, telling the leader of the monkeys that she had sent "a little insect to take the fight out of them", a line that is perhaps the most obvious continuity error in the film. The original Baum novel has no reference to Jitterbugs, but the Wicked Witch sends out a swarm of bees to sting Dorothy and her friends to death in Chapter 12, an attack that is thwarted by the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman.

The song was restored in various stage versions of The Wizard of Oz, including the 1942 Muny production and 1987 RSC version. It does not appear in the 2011 West End version.

The song was used in the 2016 straight-to-DVD Tom and Jerry film Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz.

An instrumental version of the song appears in the 1939 Our Gang short Time Out for Lessons.

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