"Mary Poppins": the 40th Anniversary Edition Quiz

Answer: 20 years

Disney's daughter had read the "Mary Poppins" stories and convinced her father to turn them into a movie. However, it took Walt Disney 20 years before Pamela Travers would agree to sell the movie rights. Apparently she did not approve of how some books had been treated when turned into movies. Disney had sent various representatives, over the years, to persuade Travers, yet she turned them all down; that is until Walt himself, came to visit her when he was in England on business.

Answer: Grauman's Chinese Theater

The movie premiered at the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater, in August of 1964. It was a grand and glorious Hollywood extranvaganza, complete with the Seven Dwarves running about, and thousands of balloons being released. There were plenty of Hollywood celebrities on hand for the ocassion, giving interviews for television and radio audiences alike.

As for the other theaters, The Presido and the Sameric, they are historicially great city theatres. The Pantages was my hometown theatre,and I don't believe Disney ever premiered a movie there.

Answer: all of these

All of these actresses were under consideration, at one time, for the part of the inexplicable English nanny. Julie Andrews is so tied to that role it is difficult to think of how anyone else could have played the part of Mary Poppins except her!

Answer: Camelot

Disney saw Julie Andrews in "Camelot" when he was in New York. He went backstage and convinced her that he could do live action movies as well as animated ones. "Mary Poppins" was Julie Andrews' first American film. She was in the play "My Fair Lady", not the movie version.

Answer: because of a quote Van Dyke made in a magazine article

Disney had seen a quote Dick Van Dyke had made in a magazine article. In the article Van Dyke he stated he did not like the way Hollywood was going towards dirty pictures. Remember, this is back in the mid sixties. This was a subject dear to Disney's heart, so he invited Van Dyke over for a visit, later giving him the part as Bert, the happy-go-lucky chimney sweep.

As an interesting note, Dick Van Dyke so badly wanted to play the part of the doddering elder Dawes Sr. that he offered to do it for free. Van Dyke never appeared in "Camelot", but he did appear in "Bye Bye Birdie", the play and movie.

Answer: The Cat that Looked at a King

The cartoon is entitled "The Cat that Looked at a King". It's a fun little parable about the importance of caring about people, which happened to be the main theme of "Mary Poppins". As a bit of a reprisal of when Mary Poppins jumped into a chalk painting with Jane and Michael, Julie Andrews popped into a chalk painting with two children in the live portion of the cartoon.

Answer: Feed the Birds

"Feed the Birds", according to the Sherman brothers was Disney's favorite "Mary Poppins" song. Disney would have the Sherman brothers, the movie's song writers, come to his office and have them play "Feed the Birds". He would then say, "Yup, that's what's all about". Disney believed this song caught the essence of the movie's theme of caring about people.

He loved this song so much that whenever he would just say "play it" to the Sherman brothers they would know which song to play.

Answer: My Fair Lady

Julie Andrews had done an outstanding performance of portraying Eliza Doolittle in the play version of "My Fair Lady", but she was passed over for the movie lead, since it was felt that she was not well known enough yet. Ironically, both of these movies went up for Academy Awards, and it was Julie Andrews who won the Academy Award for best actress. Audrey Hepburn, who played the movie part of Eliza Doolitte, had not even been nominated.

The other choices were movies that Julie Andrews starred in later on in her career.

Answer: The Sherman brothers simply made it up.

In the DVD it explained how the Sherman brothers decided to combine real words to come up with one particular word. It had to be a word that was super and precocious and atrocious, as well as obnoxious, all in one. I think they came up with one. I know I didn't get it right the first time I tried it say it as a kid.

Answer: spit spot

Jane and Michael wanted to stay longer at Uncle Albert's, yet Mary Poppins let them know it was time go with a firm "spit spot". It was a succinct way of saying "don't argue with me about doing as I asked you to do". It worked every time.

If you haven't checked out the "Mary Poppins" anniversay DVD, you surely must, as it has a whole disc dedicated to extras like a special on how the movie was made, interviews of the principal actors, and so much more.