The Horse of a Different Color appears in the opening Emerald City scenes of the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz. The Cabbie (Frank Morgan) rode the carriage drawn by the horse of a different color.

Four separate horses were used to create the effect of an animal that changes color from moment to moment; the filmmakers found that multiple color changes on a single horse were too time-consuming. The ASPCA refused to allow the horses to be dyed; instead, technicians tinted the animals with lemon, cherry and grape powdered gelatin to create a spectrum of colors, white, yellow, red, and purple. The horses had to be prevented from licking the colored powder off themselves between takes.

In Noel Langley's script for the film, the Horse of a Different Color had purple and green skin and red stripes. And it talked, too. Langley had the Horse and the Wizard join the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion in their rescue of Dorothy from the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys — a plot element that did not survive into the final film.

ReferencesEdit

• John Fricke, Jacy Scarfone, William Stillman. The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History. Warner Books, 1989.