Various Artists
Hanna-Barbera's Snagglepuss and the Wizard of Oz in Story and Song (Columbia Special Products/Inter-Continental Music Corp. 13904)

Conversation:
V.P. Of Marketing: "Boss, I have only one thing to say: Kids love Snagglepuss, and kids love The Wizard of Oz."
President: "Well, what are you waiting for? Make an album already!"

And so it goes, and so thousands of kids get pandered to on a gigantic scale once again. This album has all the charm of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon (that's good, or miserable, depending on your tolerance of professional "funny" voices … I certainly don't appreciate it) with all the soul of a year-end profit report.

The story is told in Snagglepuss's voice, which is best appreciated in very small doses, even. Heavens to mergatroid, it's like extremely annoying, even. On and on and on, beating it into the ground with unrelieved monotony, even.

The voices of all your favorite Oz characters get progressively more irritatingly "comedic," and the incidental music (typical jaunty oboes, xylophones, tubas, etc) and sound effects are completely paint-by-numbers.

Interspersed with the narrative are songs, such as "If I Only Had a Brain," but it's not that "If I Only Had a Brain," it's a new "If I Only Had a Brain," in a style not too far from, like, The Turtles. The whole thing sounds like it's from 1965, though it was apparently released in 1977.

Man, this is an annoying one. I'm not even going to subject myself to Side 2, so pardon me if anything wonderful happens later on. Score: Marketers 1, Kids 0. Vinyl hounds in search of something amusing, -1.

Review by La Fée