In "The Wizard of Oz", when the Wicked Witch sends the monkeys to capture Dorothy and beat up the Tinman, Lion, and Scarecrow, she tells one monkey that she has ordered an insect to show them the way. However, nothing more is said or seen of this insect. What's up?

The insect was supposed to be the Jitterbug, and Dorothy and her friends were supposed to do the Jitterbug dance when the insect arrived. However, due difficultiies on the set the dance scene was cut and so were the Jitterbug's appearances, but no one changed the Witch's line.

The studio footage of the Jitterbug Dance was destroyed, but one of the actors made his own movies throughout the making of the film, and some of it can be found on "The Wizard of Oz-Special Edition".

The Jitterbug is a combination of embracing holds and turns from Europe with the solid body posture and breakaways from African dance. The dance evolved coequally with the music it accompanied, jazz. The Jitterbug is based on earlier dances such as the Charleston, Black Bottom, The Big Apple, The Texas Tommy, and other animal dances such as the Turkey Trot, Grizzly bear, and the Bunny Hug.

The Jitterbug began in Harlem, 1926. The aforementioned moves fused at the Savoy Ballroom by George “Shorty George” Snowden. George Snowden called the new dance “The Lindy Hop” because Charles Lindbergh accomplished the first Hop across the Atlantic. The name lost its appeal because of Lindbergh’s more public racist views and outspoken disdain for the swing era as a degeneracy of American culture. In 1938 Lindbergh’s accepted the highest Nazi civilian medal and the Jitterbug began to replace the Lindy Hop namesake. The Jitterbug represented the same dance but some hardcore dancers refuse to use the Jitterbug namesake because they feel it is a misrepresentation of the dance.

There are two styles currently to this dance, the L.A./Hollywood and the Savoy. There is also another called the “Lindy Circle” where the first four counts are the same as the other styles but for the fifth count the lead wraps his arm around the follows waist and leads backwards in a circular motion. The dancers move into position for a side-by-side Charleston on the next first count. Honestly I have no clue how this dance goes but sounds very fun.

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