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During the “If I Only had a Brain” sequence, there was originally a spectacular dance that displayed Ray Bolger’s vaudeville dancing history. In the final version, he sang the first and second verses of “If I Only had a Brain”, then fell over. In the original, though, he sang the first and second verses, began to dance, and went into several offshoot routines where a crow takes a large patch of his straw, the scarecrow flies in the air to get it back and succeeds, does some splits (forward and backward), and then a pumpkin rolls down the road and hits the scarecrow from behind, sending him high into the air. He comes down, bounces against the fences, sings a third verse of “If I Only Had a Brain”, then falls down.

The scenes show the character as a weightless and loose man of straw and is a lively upbeat segment, but is obviously wrong for the pacing of the movie and its easy to see why it was cut. Thank goodness the footage survived though, which can’t be said of the fates of several other scenes from Oz.

The original ending for the film was meant to continue from when Randal throws Dante’s “I Assure You, We’re Open” sign to him. After Randal leaves, Dante proceeds to count out the register and does not notice another person entering the store. Upon informing the latecomer that the store is no longer open, the customer shoots Dante, killing him. Afterwards, he makes off with the money from the cash register. The sequence ends with Dante’s dead face looking off past the camera; after the credits roll, a customer (played by Smith, with his beard shaved off) comes into the store, sees no one around (Dante is lying behind the counter) and steals some cigarettes. The depressing ending was criticized by Smith’s mentors Bob Hawk and John Pierson after its first screening at the Independent Feature Film Market, and it was under Pierson’s advice that Smith cut the ending short, deleting Dante’s death and ending the movie with Randal’s departure. Fans have since analyzed the death of Dante as an homage to The Empire Strikes Back, which is discussed earlier in the film as Dante’s favorite Star Wars movie because “it ended on such a down note”. Deleted scenes from the extended cut of the film also implied that the killer would never be caught, as Randal disconnects the security cameras earlier in the day. Smith said it concluded this way because he “didn’t know how to end a film.” Both versions are available in Clerks. X, the tenth anniversary special edition; the lost ending itself was among the extras on the 1995 Laserdisc and the 1999 DVD release; in his commentary on the 1999 DVD, Smith states that had he kept the original ending, there would have likely been no further View Askewniverse films. The culprit in question was played by Smith’s cousin John Willyung, who would go on to appear in later Smith films (most notably as “Cohee Lunden” in Chasing Amy).