Headlines have not been especially cheerful for the last few months, so if you’d like a brief respite from the news cycle — and have just over eight minutes to spare — click play, sit back and enjoy. If you’re a connoisseur of college football rivalries, don’t miss the fun reveal at the (4:18) mark, replete with a few sinister-sounding bars from a familiar tune folded under the wicked witch theme:

The dancing scarecrow and the ‘I’m melting!’ sequence are just spectacular. I may be a tad biased as a Big Ten man myself, but I think our conference boasts the best marching bands and fight music in the country (if not the best football these days). As much as it pains me to admit it, Ohio State’s band is probably at the head of the class. Exit question (Allahpundit™): Which was better, the performance above, or the one MKH wrote up two years ago?

UPDATE – Twitter quickly notes that Michigan’s band took on ‘Oz’ back in 2010, and so they did:

So we have an apples-to-apples battle of the bands: Who won?