Tag: Mary Poppins

Richard Sherman and Alan Menken: The Disney Songbook
This first-ever joint performance by Disney Legends Richard Sherman and Alan Menken was probably the single thing I was most looking forward to at the D23 Expo.

Between the two of them (and their writing partners), they are responsible for so much of the music that is associated with Disney films and theme park attractions.   It was truly a wonderful trip down memory lane.    There’s just no way to capture the magic in words, so I would highly recommend watching the linked videos of each performance.    If you can’t spare the time to do that, then just scanning the list of songs performed by each of them will give you a feel of how much each of these gentlemen has contributed to the Disney songbook

In the first half of the concert, Richard Sherman played and sang (age before beauty …. and the beast, as Alan said after they were introduced and he yielded the stage to Richard).   This first segment was hosted by Tim O’Day, a frequent host at the D23 events, who kept things moving along and kept a nice conversation going with Richard between songs.

Richard Sherman’s Set

Richard opened with the first thing he wrote for Disney, Taul Paul, a song written for Annette Funicello.   The Sherman brothers collaborated on a number of other songs for Annette; the second piece performed was Pineapple Princess, also written for Annette.

The Shermans also wrote for Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap; Let’s Get Together was the next piece on the program.

When Walt decided to be one of the first to start producing television shows in color, he asked the Shermans to write “something about color”.   The resulting Wonderful World of Color was used to open the television show, and still plays in Disney’s California Adventure every evening as the opening number in the World of Color water show.

The Ugly Bug Ball was written for Burl Ives to perform in Summer Magic .. I think this may be the only song Richard performed that I wasn’t previously familiar with.

Next we were treated to a trio of songs from Winnie the Pooh; the title song, Pooh’s exercise song, and The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers.

Then a couple of songs from The Jungle Book .. That’s What Friends are For (the vulture song) and I Wanna Be Like You.     (Trivia note: The Bare Necessities is not a Sherman Brothers tune, it was the only bit of music that survived from an earlier story treatment that predated the Sherman’s involvement).

While introducing the next number, The Aristocats, Richard mentioned that his father was also a composer, and had also written for the theme song’s singer, Maurice Chevalier.

From Bedknobs and Broomsticks, we heard The Age of Not Believing.

We heard some of the best-known Sherman Brothers theme park songs:   The Tiki Room, and from Epcot’s Imagination pavilion, One Little Spark and Magic Journeys.

At this point, Richard was joined on stage by Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak who play Richard and his brother Robert in the upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks.    They performed A Spoonful of Sugar. Richard then continued with other Mary Poppins tunes Chim Chim Cheree and Feed the Birds.

Another theme park favorite, There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, was used to close out the set.    After leaving the stage briefly, Richard returned to serve up an encore of Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious.

Watch Richard Sherman’s full set here.

Alan Menken’s Set

Richard and Tim left the stage, and Alan came out to perform his set.    While Richard performed full songs, for the most part, Alan relied heavily on medleys of songs from each of his Disney productions.   This allowed him to cover just about twice the number of songs in roughly the same amount of time as Richard’s set.

Alan opened with The Little Mermaid, performing Part of Your World, and then a medley of Under the Sea, Poor Unfortunate Souls, Les Poissons, and Kiss the Girl.

Next he did a medley of additional songs that were added to the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid;   If Only, She’s in Love, and Her Voice.

From Beauty and the Beast, we heard a medley of Belle, Gaston, Be Our Guest, and Beauty and the Beast.

From Beauty and the Beast’s Broadway production we heard Human Again (originally written for the movie, but cut) and If I Can’t Love Her.

From Aladdin, a medley of Arabian Nights, One Jump Ahead, and Friend Like Me.

From Newsies, Carrying the Banner, King of New York, and Santa Fe.

Next was Pocahontas, from which we heard In the Middle of the River, If I Never Knew You, and Colors of the Wind.

A medley of Hunchback of Notre Dame songs included The Bells of Notre Dame, God Help the Outcast, and One Day Out There.

The Hercules medley comprised The Gospel Truth, Zero to Hero, and Go the Distance.

From Home on the Range, we heard Little Patch of Heaven, Yodle-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo, and Will the Sun Ever Shine Again.

For Enchanted, Alan shared that before he came on to the project, they were looking for a composer who could parody his musical style.    Turns out, he was just the guy to do that, and with True Love’s Kiss and Happy Working Song we hear songs that are amazingly good reproductions of Menken’s style, by Menken.

We heard four songs from Tangled: When Will My Life Begin, Mother Knows Best, I’ve Got a Dream, and I See the Light.

Alan actually wrote a bit of music for Captain America. Star Spangled Man With a Plan is played during the 1940’s era of the film when Captain America is being used to pitch savings bonds.

He also provided a song for The Neighbors sitcom episode “Sing Like A Larry Bird”, the song The Broadway Allen Song has been nominated for an Emmy and, if it wins, will give Alan the EGOT (Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar, and Tony), as well as a Razzie.

To close out his set, Alan performed Somebody’s Got Your Back, from the under-development Broadway production of Aladdin.

Alan performed a solo encore of How Does She Know (from Enchanted).

Watch Alan Menken’s full set here.

Sherman & Menken Encore

Richard Sherman and Tim O’Day returned to the stage.    Tim asked, in an obvious set up, if either them had written any songs about “worlds”.

Alan responded with A Whole New World (Aladdin).

Richard then took the piano and asked Alan to perform the counterpoint as they led the audience in it’s a small world to close out the evening.

Watch the joint encores here

Related articles
- The Disney Songbook: Richard Sherman and Alan Menken in Concert (mentalfloss.com)
- D23 Expo – A Magical Performance from Richard Sherman and Alan Menken (candoitmom.com)
- Richard M. Sherman & Alan Menken to Perform One-Night-Only Concert in LA Tonight (broadwayworld.com)
August 22, 2013
D23 Expo 2013: Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives
One of the highlights of any D23 Expo is the Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.   D23 curates an exhibition of interesting items (props, costumes, etc.) from the archives and takes over a large area on the second floor of the convention center to display the item.

This year’s exhibition was smaller and more focused than last year’s.   There were three primary themes to this years display.   The first was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Mary Poppins.    The second theme was looking at Disney’s long association with Oz; not just the recent release, but a number of other Oz-related projects (some that never came to completion) Disney has done over the years.   And the final theme was ABC’s Once Upon a Time series.

For this exhibit, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are the pictures.

Exhibit Entry

There was no flash photography allowed in the exhibit, and light levels were frequently low (and I did not think to bring along a tripod or monopod to steady the camera).   So there are a lot of blurry photos here; I apologize for the quality).

From Harrod’s, a set of Disney-inspired dresses interpreted by famous designers.

Costumes from Alice in Wonderland

Costumes and props from Once Upon a Time

Costumes from “Once Upon a Time”

Props from “Once Upon a Time”

“Once Upon a Time” costumes

Some of the Oz-related props from earlier projects

Props from “Return to Oz”

Costumes from “Oz: The Great and Powerful”

Props from “Oz: The Great and Powerful”

Getting into the Mary Poppins section of the exhibition now

Storyboards

Concept art

Mary’s bag from Mary Poppins

One of the costumes worn by Julie Andrews as Mary

Costumes from Mary Poppins

Sherman Brothers costumes from “Saving Mr. Banks”

Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) costumes from Saving Mr. Banks.

The Sherman Brothers with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke

At the conclusion of the exhibition was a display of fan art celebrating Mary Poppins.   A number of these were quite good, I only included a couple of my favorites.

My favorite fan art piece — Mary Poppins done as if from the haunted mansion’s stretching room (with Peter Pan thrown in as well)

Another clever bit of fan art

Related articles
- D23 Expo 2013: Recap of ‘Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives’ (Photos) (examiner.com)
August 15, 2013
Expo Anticipation

This year I’ll be attending my second D23 Expo … for the first expo in 2009, there wasn’t a whole lot of information released ahead of time, and I decided to take a pass.    When I saw updates from the Expo as it was happening, I realized I’d made a bad call … there was some amazing stuff going on, and I was missing out!

So for the 2011 Expo I was there for all 3 days. I absolutely loved what I saw — but what I saw was only a small fraction of what I wanted to see.    Unlike most of the other D23 events, where a ticket guarantees you a seat at every presentation, an Expo ticket only grants you the right to stand in line to get into the presentations.   Many of the most popular presentations filled up well ahead of their starting time, so anyone showing up a few minutes before a presentation was not going to find a seat.    So, if you wanted to see a 2 pm presentation, you pretty much had to forgo any presentations at 1 pm and start lining up between noon and 1 pm for the 2 o’clock.   For the main arena presentations, typically held first thing in the morning, lining up outside the convention center 2 hours ahead of doors opening was pretty much the minimum … for a while on Saturday we actually believed we were going to be the very last people admitted to the Studios presentation (they cut off the line behind us, but later let through about 100 more people).

So, this year I wanted to maximize my chances to see as much as I could … which means Sorcerer.   A very limited number of Sorcerer tickets are sold, and each ticket guarantees a seat at any presentation (it appears we will be asked to register for the presentations we plan to attend just before the expo, so that they’ll have an exact count of how many seats to set aside in each presentation).     It’s a pricey indulgence, but for a once-every-two-years event, with a lot of content that will never be repeated anywhere at any price, I thought it would be worth it.   I hope they prove me right.

So I’m watching the schedule as it fills in on the web site (D23 doesn’t announce everything at once, but trickles out the content in the weeks leading up to the Expo).    Already I see some tough choices … Friday morning at 10 am is the Animation presentation, with John Lassiter, covering all the upcoming Disney and Pixar animated features.    I have to be there for that … but that means I’ll miss Dave Smith (Disney Archivist Emeritus) discussing the making of Mary Poppins, and the Imagineers discussing the Mystic Manor attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland.     If only I had a few clones to send to those other presentations!

Things got a little more real this week when the Expo credentials arrived … it’s very exciting to have my tickets in hand, but seriously … couldn’t they have run this through a spell checker and found the correct spelling of Sorcerer?

I think the things I’m looking forward to most at this point are the evening concerts .. Friday night we get “Broadway and Beyond”, featuring current and previous cast members of Disney Theatrical Group’s Broadway productions.    Then on Saturday, Alan Menken and Richard Sherman take the stage together for the first time … I saw Menken perform at the Destination D: 75 Years of Disney Feature Animation event and it was a highlight.    I’m sure this will be an equally memorable evening.

If you’re at the Expo this year, look for me and say hi … and comment below with what you’re most looking forward to at this year’s Expo.

July 24, 2013
Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives

As chronicled in the last couple of blog posts, I made a recent visit to Southern California to see Disneyland during the Christmas holidays and to visit the Reagan Presidential Library.    The Reagan Library is current hosting (through April 2013) an exhibition entitled Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.

The exhibition is presented by the Disney Archives, and includes many unique items from throughout the history of the Disney organization.    Because of the venue, some of the items selected for the display highlight Disney’s connection to Reagan (his work for Disney included emceeing Disneyland’s opening day broadcast) or to the presidency in general (Hall of Presidents sculptures, for example).   But the exhibition is far broader than just a few tie-ins.   Some of the items have been displayed before (such as at similar exhibitions at the D23 Expo in 2009 and 2011), but some are being displayed to the public for the first time.

In the earlier galleries, we see items such as a movie poster from one of the Alice comedies. (These early films combined live action and animation and were loosely based on Alice in Wonderland).   We also see a pencil sketch of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit — the animated character that Walt developed prior to Mickey Mouse.   And of course we see the early Mickey Mouse, including some of the early merchandising efforts for the character.

Poster from an Alice comedy

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit pencil sketch

Early Mickey Mouse merchandise

There are cels here from some of the most notable early Disney animation shorts, including Academy Award winning Silly Symphonies Flowers and Trees (the first color cartoon) and The Three Little Pigs (famous for the song “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”).

Cel from Silly Symphony “Flowers and Trees”

Cel from Silly Symphony “The Three Little Pigs”

While animation buffs (such as myself) are likely to be familiar with a lot of the short features highlighted here, it was the move into feature length animation that really set Disney apart from what every other studio was doing.   One of the interesting artifacts on display was a partial Snow White costume, worn by Marge Champion when doing live action reference for the animators.

Several of the feature length animated features started in the same fashion — with a shot of a story book.   As the camera zoomed in, the story book would open, and we would dissolve into the animated scene.   Several of these storybooks (from Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) were on display, including some of the interior pages.

Also on display was Herb Ryman’s original Disneyland sketch.   The story of this sketch is that Walt needed something to show to investors, and Herb produced this very detailed sketch over the course of a weekend as Walt described what should be in the various areas of the park.

Another fascinating exhibit was a full-scale re-creation of Walt’s formal office — every detail just as he left it, right down to the ordering of books in the bookcases (including one that is shelved upside down, because that’s the way Walt had left it).

After leaving this area of the exhibit, we start seeing props and costumes from some of Disney’s most well-known live action films from the early days.   This includes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Nautilus submarine model), The Absent-Minded Professor (Model T), and Mary Poppins (Julie Andrew’s costume).

Still more costumes … we get costumes and an office set for Cruella de Vil (from the live-action 101 Dalmatians movie), Belle’s ball gown from the Broadway Production of Beauty and the Beast, several costumes from Annie Leibovitz’ Disney Dreams photo series (Tiny Fey’s Tinkerbell, Scarlett Johansson’s Cinderella, and Rachel Weisz’ Snow White), and Whitney Houston’s fairly godmother costume from a TV production of Cinderella.

Yes, we do have more costumes — here are 3 from Enhanted: Giselle’s wedding dress (Amy Adams), and costumes worn by James Marsden (Edward) and Susan Sarandon (evil stepmother / wicked queen)

We also have some props and costumes from Alice in Wonderland . . .

. . . and also from Tron (both the original and the recent sequel)

We have quite a bit from the Pirates of the Caribbean series:

Last of the movie stuff: props from Marvel movies (Iron Man 2, Captain America, and the Avengers)

We also get to see some interesting items from the theme parks: Malificient in dragon form (from Fantasmic!), hitch hiking ghosts from the Haunted Mansion, a ride vehicle from Mr. Toad, and busts of all the presidents from the Hall of Presidents:

This is far from everything that is on display at the exhibit, but I hope serves to give a good flavor of the kind of items that are on display.    The Reagan Library and the Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives exhibit are both worthwhile, and I really enjoyed the day I spent there.

January 7, 2013