In day-to-day life, anywhere outside a military base, there’s probably one piece of clothing that you see more than any other. One that, I would bet, will never slow in popularity because of the combination of style and comfort it provides. I’m talking about the classic graphic T-shirt. At this point, it’s practically its own discipline of clothing production, with plenty of companies producing nothing else. I’m wearing one right now, and odds are good you might be too.
And yet, it didn’t exist until one, minuscule section of the iconic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. It’s such an offhand appearance that it’s unlikely even Oz-heads remember it — especially because it’s hidden in the parade of intoxicating visuals that’s Dorothy and friends’ first visit to the land of Oz. For less than 10 seconds in that sequence, we see the Scarecrow being repaired by a couple of Oz handymen, each wearing a green T-shirt with the word “OZ” screenprinted on the front.
Warner Bros.
This brief cameo seems to be the first ever media appearance of the graphic tee, and even then it was ahead of its time. Graphic tees wouldn’t really become popular until at least the 1950s, before truly taking off in the 1960s.
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The movie’s creators clearly saw the screenprinting on the wall, though. The idea of the easy, expressive graphic tee seemed to enamor them, since their contributions to graphic T-shirts didn’t end on screen. As a bonus, The Wizard of Oz also produced the inaugural promotional graphic tee, a simple “Wizard of Oz” T-shirt that was given away at the film’s premiere.
Lions, and tigers, and graphic tees! Oh, my!
