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What is your favorite Sherman Brothers song from the endearing 1964 Walt Disney musical fantasy “Mary Poppins”? Perhaps it’s Robert B. and Richard M’s peppy “Spoonful of Sugar.” Or the Oscar-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and tongue-twisting “”Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” It’s no secret that Disney himself loved the haunting “Feed the Birds.” Disney would often summon Richard M. to his office to play the ballad. “It’s about a lot more than birdseed for birds,” Sherman told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview. “The song is about the simple act of giving. He’d just say, ‘Play it for me.’ And I’d sing and play it for him, and he’d say ‘Yep, that’s what it’s all about.”’

And it seems that even decades after his death in 1966, it was still what it was all about for Disney. Back in 2015, the studio unveiled the restoration of Disney’s office on the Burbank lot.

Dick Van Dyke still hears criticism of his Cockney accent in Mary Poppins, but the British don't poke fun at him. Van Dyke's bad accent in Mary Poppins arguably adds charm, similar to Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Despite his embarrassment, Van Dyke got a second chance in Mary Poppins Returns and did better with his accent.

Its been 60 years since Mary Poppins, and Dick Van Dyke says he still hears criticism of the Cockney accent he used for the role of Bert, the lovable chimney sweep. Van Dyke provided Disneys 1964 classic with some of its most memorable moments, offering charming comic relief, and getting in on great songs like Chim Chim Cher-ee. It all helped Mary Poppins take off to a worldwide box office gross of $107 million, and a place as one of Disneys most beloved movies.

But Van Dykes Mary Poppins performance also featured one of...

Manic, magic, madcap … Julie Andrews is superb in the role of the flying nanny, in a film filled with amazing songs

Brilliant, entrancing, exhausting, and with thermonuclear showtunes from Richard and Robert Sherman, Disney’s hybrid live-action/animation classic from 1964 is now rereleased on home entertainment platforms for its 60th anniversary. And it has a brand-new certificate from the BBFC: upgraded from a U to a PG on account of “discriminatory language” from the eccentric seadog character Admiral Boom, who fires a cannon from his roof shouting “Fight the Hottentots!” (an obsolete term for South Africa’s indigenous Khoekhoe people). However the BBFC is evidently not bothered by the foxhunting scene in which the fox has a cod Irish accent, nor by the cheerful suicide reference made by one of the servants: “Nice spot there by Southwark Bridge, very popular with jumpers!”

In an upmarket part of Edwardian London created...

The age rating for the 1964 “Mary Poppins” has been increased in the U.K. due to “discriminatory language.”

On Friday, the British Board of Film Classification upped the Disney movie’s cinema rating from U, meaning it contained “no material likely to offend or harm,” to PG for “discriminatory language.”

In a statement to Variety, a BBFC spokesperson said that the film “includes two uses of the discriminatory term ‘hottentots’. While ‘Mary Poppins’ has a historical context, the use of discriminatory language is not condemned, and ultimately exceeds our guidelines for acceptable language at U. We therefore classified the film PG for discriminatory language.”

The word is a racially insensitive term for the Khoekhoe, an indigenous group in South Africa. The BBFC further explained that the word is used in the film by Admiral Boom (Reginald Owen), including when referring to the chimney sweeps whose faces are covered in soot.

"Mary Poppins" has been a beloved children's film since its release in 1964. The musical comedy was a veritable hit among British and American audiences alike and launched the career of the incomparable Julie Andrews, who became one of the brightest stars of the late 20th century.

The Disney classic swept the 1965 Oscars, earning Andrews an Academy Award for her performance and snagging additional awards for visual effects, editing, and music. The film was a great triumph for the studio as well as the stars. It was immediately recognized as the masterpiece that it is and has only retained and strengthened its legendary status with age.

Sadly, as the picture ages, so too do the actors that made it such an unforgettable romp. Very few members of the main cast are still alive today and the ones that haven't made it might surprise you. Glynis Johns, who played suffragette and mother...

Glynis Johns, most known for playing the high-spirited Mrs. Winifred Banks in Disney’s Mary Poppins, has died. She was 100 years old. Johns’ publicist, Mitch Clem, told ABC Eyewitness News that the legendary actor died of natural causes on Thursday, January 4. She was living in an assisted living facility. Before she played the suffragette in the 1964 Julie Andrews classic, Johns starred in another Disney film called The Sword and the Rose. She was named a Disney Legend in 1998 alongside Mary Poppins co-star Dick Van Dyke. Andrews was named one in 1991, with David Tomlinson (Mr. George Banks) being added in 2002 and Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber (Jane and Michael Banks) being added in 2004. With the death of Betty White in 2021, Johns became the oldest living Disney Legend. With the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, she became the oldest living Oscar nominee for acting. Karen Dotrice, Glynis Johns, Matthew Garber, David...

Image Source: Everett Collection

Warning: light spoilers for Mary Poppins Returns ahead.

Mary Poppins Returns is full of hidden references to the original film, but some of the sweetest nods to Mary Poppins are appearances from the original cast. While Dick Van Dyke makes a memorable cameo as Mr. Dawes Jr., the son of bank director Mr. Dawes from the original film, there is also a very quick cameo from the original Jane Banks, played by actress Karen Dotrice.

On set with the original Jane Banks, Karen Dotrice, watch for her surprise cameo...#MaryPoppinsDay pic.twitter.com/1CP5GuiYhw

- Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 19, 2018

The cameo happens about halfway through the film, when Jane (Emily Mortimer) and Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) are chatting outside the Banks home. As they awkwardly flirt with each other, a woman (Dotrice) approaches them and asks for directions to 19 Cherry Tree Lane. When they simultaneously...

Dick Van Dyke isn’t the only star of the classic 1964 Walt Disney musical fantasy “Mary Poppins” who appears in the current sequel “Mary Poppins Returns,” which stars Emily Blunt taking over from Julie Andrews as the practically perfect nanny. Karen Dotrice, who played Jane Banks in the original film, has a cameo as a woman walking down Cherry Tree Lane and asks grown-up Jane (Emily Mortimer) for directions.

Dotrice, 63 and the mother of three, is the daughter of the late British acting couple, Kay and Roy Dotrice. She made her acting debut on the London stage as a four-year-old in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” which starred her godfather, the legendary Charles Laughton. And it just so happened a casting director looking for a little girl to star in Disney’s 1964 “The Three Lives of Thomasina” caught her performance. And soon she was making the movie with Matthew Garber, who...

It's been 54 years since Mary Poppins was released, and now Karen Dotrice has returned for a cameo in the film's sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. Dotrice starred as Jane Banks in the 1964 movie, alongside Julie Andrews. In Mary Poppins Returns, Emily Blunt stars as the title character, and fans will be delighted when they see Dotrice pop up in the new film. So what was it like returning to the world of Mary Poppins after all of these years? "Now that she's back it feels like she was here all along. She was in our hearts all along, that's for sure," Dotrice tells E! News. "I think her timing is immaculate, the world has never needed her more and so she's done it...

Although we've done well with waiting for the release of Mary Poppins Returns without going crazy, our patience is beginning to wear thin after seeing the cast's recent red carpet appearance. On Thursday, Emily Blunt, Dick Van Dyke, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the rest of the cast attended the La premiere of the film, and they looked like they had a total blast. They flashed bright smiles at the cameras and laughed together all while looking fabulous (just Behold the sleeves on Emily's dress).

Emily and husband John Krasinski looked absolutely beautiful together, and it seems John was able to hold back his tears while he was there supporting his wife. Dick - who played Bert in the 1964 version of the film and makes a cameo in the upcoming remake - also looked like he took a spoonful of sugar as he playfully posed and shared a kiss with his wife,...

Everyone who left the Samuel Goldwyn Theater Wednesday night was humming. It might have been “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Winnie the Pooh,” “It’s a Small World” or any of a dozen other tunes written over the past 50 years by Richard M. Sherman and his late brother Robert B. Sherman, but they were humming something.

The Motion Picture Academy’s two-and-a-half-hour salute to the songwriters, billed as “The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook,” may have been the most joyous celebration in that theater in recent memory. Multiple standing ovations and a warm, infectious feeling of Disney-fueled happiness were the order of the evening.

The Shermans — Dick, who just turned 90, and his brother Bob, who died in 2012 — penned some of the most memorable movie songs in history, many of them for Walt Disney. As Dick Van Dyke, reminiscing about being on the set of “Mary Poppins,” put it, “there was...

Dame Julie Andrews is 80 today. But the musical legend and national treasure is more than just a spoonful of sugar - she's built a career on being both no nonsense and as tough as old boots.

Here's the evidence:

1. Julie on privacy

2. Julie on her 'Iron Butterfly' nickname

3. Julie on her good-girl reputation

4. Julie on anger

5. Christopher Plummer on his Sound of Music co-star

6. Julie on fame

7. Karen Dotrice (the little girl from Mary Poppins) on Julie's vocabulary

8. Julie on good behaviour

9. Julie on gossip columnist Joyce Haber

10. Rex Harrison on playing opposite Julie on stage in My Fair Lady

11. Charmian 'Liesl von Trapp' Carr on cosying up with Julie

12. Julie on Mary

13. Julie on keeping on why you might want to keep her good side

Watch Julie Andrews's Princess Diaries co-star Anne Hathaway (and Robert De Niro!) wish her a happy birthday exclusively for Digital...

Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...

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Chicago – The Hollywood Show is back, and all your favorite TV and movie stars are available to meet, take pictures with and get autographs. The 2015 Chicago edition is May 1 through 3, with Saturday the 2nd and Sunday the 3rd the celebrity appearance days. HollywoodChicago.com was there for the 2014 Show, and captured some Exclusive Portraits of the type of celebrities the Hollywood Show brings directly to the fans.

Scheduled to appear at the 2014 Hollywood Show include the dynamic duo from the 1966 Batman TV show, Adam West and Burt Ward (Saturday only); Henry “Fonzie” Winkler (Saturday), “Chips” stars Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada; Louise Fletcher from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; Linda Blair from “The Exorcist”; secondary cast members from the popular film “A League of Their Own”; and for the first time some legendary sports celebrities like Bobby Hull (Chicago Black...

If you've ever wondered what Mary Poppins sounds like when she sings death metal, now is your chance to hear it.

YouTube user Andy Rehfeldt made the Disney classic animated tune "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" into a death metal song by synching the voices of Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) and Dick Van Dyke (Bert) with vocals from artists Sera Hatchett and Thomas Hinds.

Watch: Lady Gaga Slayed Tribute To Julia Andrews

The beautiful and upbeat song about something to say when you have nothing to say now sounds a lot angrier and raspier.

For comparison's sake, let's revisit the original!

News: This 'Mary Poppins' Theory Will Blow Your Mind

While the death metal version may better fit the lyrics, "Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious," this viral video is getting a lot of attention with many YouTube users finding it incredibly funny."This is my jam" and "One to bring smiles" are just a...

Based on P.L. Travers' series of books, Mary Poppins follows the adventures of a magical nanny Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) as she helps her wards Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber) and their parents George (David Tomlinson) and Winifred (Glynis Johns) learn how to be a happy family again. When Mary Poppins arrives, George is too wrapped up in his work at the bank to be a father to his children. He also believes that as the head of his household, society expects him to keep his children at arm's length, patting them on the head and sending them off to bed. Winifred is similarly distracted from her family by her activism for women's suffrage. She leaves her children with the nanny to go to rallies and throw eggs at the Prime Minister, and when it comes to parenting, she usually defers to her husband's judgment. Mary Poppins sweeps in,...

‘Gilda,’ ‘Pulp Fiction’: 2013 National Film Registry movies (photo: Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’) See previous post: “‘Mary Poppins’ in National Film Registry: Good Timing for Disney’s ‘Saving Mr. Banks.’” Billy Woodberry’s UCLA thesis film Bless Their Little Hearts (1984). Stanton Kaye’s Brandy in the Wilderness (1969). The Film Group’s Cicero March (1966), about a Civil Rights march in an all-white Chicago suburb. Norbert A. Myles’ Daughter of Dawn (1920), with Hunting Horse, Oscar Yellow Wolf, Esther Labarre. Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002), featuring decomposing archival footage. Alfred E. Green’s Ella Cinders (1926), with Colleen Moore, Lloyd Hughes, Vera Lewis. Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956), with Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Robby the Robot. Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. John and Faith Hubley’s Oscar-winning animated short The Hole (1962). Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), with Best Actor Oscar winner Maximilian Schell,...

By Todd Garbarini

Mary Poppins (1964) was a first for me in two ways: one of the earliest movies I can remember seeing in a theater (I was five years old when it was reissued in 1973 and the Rialto Cinema in Westfield, New Jersey, the theater where I saw it, is actually one of the few remaining theaters from that era that is still in business) and one of the first movies I saw played back on a Vcr (in 1980). I could hardly believe my eyes at age 5 and wondered just how in the world Mary Poppins (she is never, ever to be called just “Mary”), the chimney sweeper, and her two young charges managed to make their way into the sidewalk paintings with all of the colorful characters. 40 years later, I could pretty much figure it out for myself having seen many behind-the-scenes documentaries. And yet even though the man...

Iconic movie musical Mary Poppins has just been released on Blu-ray in a special fiftieth anniversary edition and one of the stars on the film, Karen Dotrice, who portrayed young Jane Banks, reflects on the lasting legacy of the film, her onset rapport with Julie Andrews and the new Poppins-centric feature film Saving Mr. Banks as part of a new interview.

It may be hard to believe, but it has been nearly 50 years since Julie Andrews flew in to a house in London and taught us all the joys of a spoonful of sugar and the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (Technically, it has been 49 and a half years since the original release, but Disney wanted to get a jump on celebrating.)

Disney is honoring the anniversary by releasing Mary Poppins from the Disney vault with a new digitally restored Blu-ray version. Their timing is practically perfect in every way; with the release of Saving Mr. Banks in a few weeks more people than...

In my opinion, kid’s movies are among the best ever made but are often over-looked because they usually lack tragic drama or passionate physical romances, but that’s what makes them great. They are a fantasy escape into a world we’ve never seen but we all wish we had. And that’s what Mary Poppins did so brilliantly in 1964 and I don’t think that anyone anywhere can honestly say that they didn’t yearn for Mary to fly to their doorstep and teach them magic when they were little.

With expert flair, Walt Disney made a spirited, visually captivating and touching adaptation from the P.L. Travers books and it was the first film from his studio to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Featuring a knockout, Oscar-winning performance of prim, proper British beauty and intelligence by Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins, Disney studios most expensive film up to that time,...

The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere. Just leave a tab open for us, will ya? “How We Made Mary Poppins” — Karen Dotrice (Jane Banks) recounts the story behind the story — including some shock at Julie Andrews smoking a practically perfect cigarette. “The Strange Case of RoboCop 2” — Sam Strange at Badass Digest puzzles out a giant mess with a silly nougat center. “Behold the Passion…the Spectacle…the Splendor of ‘Trailers From Hell’: An Interview with Joe Dante” — With a title that long and expository, I’m not sure I have to write anything here.

Bankers are dicks. This is a truth more or less universally acknowledged, and while there's been ample real-world evidence, the real reason we all know this to be the case is because Mary Poppins taught us in childhood. Robert Stevenson's beloved wish fulfillment classic isn't actually about the magical nanny of the title – played with sharp vim by Julie Andrews – nor even about the neglected children whose lives she whips into shape.

It's all about David Tomlinson's emotionally shut-down Mr Banks, an oblivious cold fish who gradually learns how to love his family under the shrewd influence of Poppins. And what's the turning point in his redemptive journey? He stops being a banker. We're just saying.

"You should have seen the look on his face. He doesn't like us at all," says little Michael (Matthew Garber), lip wobbling, after a dressing down from Banks. Watching him proved wrong...