"If I Were King of the Forest" is a song from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. The comic number is sung by the Cowardly Lion played by Bert Lahr during the scene at the Emerald City, when the Lion, Dorothy (with Toto), Tin Woodsman and Scarecrow are waiting to learn whether the Wizard will grant them an audience. Lahr employs a spoken interlude during the number, in which the rest of the group ask him how he would deal with other powerful animals if he were king, for example: Supposin’ you met an elephant?I'd wrap him up in cellophant!