Week 26.26 - TEXAS SWITCH AGAIN Socials Roundup
22 June - 28 June 2026: Black and White Body Paint, Pratfalls, and Crash Dummies!
Week 26.26 posts include shots from The Wizard of Oz (1939), Doctor No (1962), American Ultra (2015); Angie Tribeca (2016-2018), and How I Met Your Father (2022-2023).
How I Met Your Father
We did a whole breakdown of the longer scene last week in Texas Switching a Stunt, so you can read that . . . or you can just enjoy this deliciously disheveled hairdo juxtaposed with Tien Tran’s ‘play it cool, totally cool, everything is cool’ performance.
Dr. No
This stunt from Dr. No is all done in one take, the better to make it look and feel impressive; but Sean Connery and Ursula Andress (as James Bond and Honey Ryder, respectively) aren’t doing the jumping and punching and riding barefoot on the bow of the boat themselves.
Instead, Sean Connery and Ursula Andress look hot and impressive near the camera, then run up the long dock to where a stack of oil drums conveniently sit. As they duck behind the drums, their stunt doubles emerge and do the stunts, carefully keeping their faces mostly-turned-away from camera, with the smoke and distance doing the rest.
Then to finish the distraction . . . KABOOM!!!! really cool explosion.
That’s one way to do a Texas Switch; meanwhile The Wizard of Oz does something simpler, and much, much more complicated . . .
The Wizard of Oz
It’s an incredibly famous moment in cinematic history, but usually because of the switch from sepia to colour — though The Wizard of Oz is not the first film to use three-strip Technicolor, it’s by far the most famous of that first crop.
The Texas Switch element is less addressed; like many applications of the technique (though not our last one this week), the switch is meant to be invisible, and the shots around it help keep it unobtrusive.
The inside/outside of the set was accomplished by painting the Kansas farmouse in shakes of brown and black. Then Dorothy’s classic, iconic blue gingham dress was made in brown-and-black checks.
But what about Dorothy herself?
Bobbie Koshay was a champion swimmer, performed in short films as a swimmer or boatswoman, and served as Judy Garland’s stunt double, stand-in, and reportedly ‘personal trainer’ on The Wizard of Oz. Here, she’s part of one of the most important shots in all film history, as the first half of the Texas Switch, with makeup and color grading helping to make her skin look beige-brown.
It’s key that we see a closeup of Judy-Garland-as-Dorothy a moment before the cut to her double running into frame, and then we also see her face soon after she enters Oz and color — seeing her face soon on either side of the switch helps sell the entire illusion.
American Ultra
Can you spot it?
This American Ultra oner shows Jesse Eisenberg's face to say: "See, we're not using this wig to hide a stuntman!"
The long pause at 0:34 sets up a human Texas Switch, the stuntie doing the leap at 0:42 before Jesse pops back up and continues the scene.
Angie Tribeca
This parody sitcom gets meta with it, pulling off a Texas Switch between 0:11-0:15 . . . then immediately pointing out how it works by having the stunt performer pop up and run off in the background, and sprinkling in some other stunts around it.
Want more? We’ve got you! Five more Texas Switches, involving Brittany Murphy and a laundrymat, Captain America, and classic cars.