10 Things You Didn't Know About Mary Poppins

It just keeps getting better and better.

Liezel

• Published in Film & TV
• April 3, 2022

You know how there's that one movie that you'll just never get tired of watching even if you've already memorized every line and action from it? Well, Mary Poppins (the one with Julie Andrews) is definitely one of those movies for a lot of people.

We love what Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda did with the remake. They definitely succeeded in giving justice to the characters, the songs, and the story and we had a lot of fun watching them.

Still, the original film holds a special place in our hearts. Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke were just so iconic in that film and we find them so hard to replace.

Even now, when we think of Mary Poppins, we think of Julie Andrews' reflection singing back to her, Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep dance, and of course, Julie Andrews' descent from the clouds. And no matter how many times we watch them, we never really get tired of the cheek, the songs, and the general fun of that movie.

There is much love for that film. That's why we're always so delighted when we find out amazing things about the behind-the-scenes of it that wasn't revealed when the film was released.

Here are some of those very facts that you might not know about.

They were one very lucky cast indeed

Walt Disney made sure to spoil the cast of Mary Poppins with perks like free admission to the Disneyland theme parks.

We think they rightly deserved all those perks. Just take a look at all the joy they helped spread plus all the money they raked in for Disney.

The biggest kid on set

Dick Van Dyke was one of the most delightful actors in the film and behind the scenes, he was also a kid at heart. His co-star Karen Dotrice said it herself, "He's just very, very silly. He'd stick things up his nose and do whatever it took to get us to laugh."

It really raked in the awards

Mary Poppins was a huge hit for everybody. This earned the film five of the 13 Academy Awards it was nominated for in 1965.

Julie Andrews also won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy. The Sherman brothers won the Grammys for Best Recording for Children and Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television.

The love song

The Sherman brothers really wanted Julie Andrews for the role and in order to woo her, they were tasked with writing a song that she would love. They struggled but thankfully, Robert Sherman's kids gave him some inspiration following their pain-free polio shots.

The polio medicine was placed on a sugar cube so the kids could eat it like candy. That's where spoonful of sugar came from.

Fighting for rights

The author of the Mary Poppins books, P.L. Travers really didn't want to sell the movie rights to her book but gave in after 20 years primarily for financial reasons.

Disney favorite

Disney's all-time favorite song in the movie was "Feed the Birds." He'd even request Richard Sherman to perform it for him from time to time.

Not really a fan

When Travers first saw the animated sequence for the script, she didn't immediately love it. "I cried when I saw it," she reportedly said. "I said, 'Oh, God, what have they done?'"

Double roles

David Tomlinson portrayed Mr. Banks in the movie. In addition to that though, he was also the voice of the talking parrot on Mary Poppins' umbrella.

Worth the cut

The Sherman brothers originally wrote more than 30 songs for the film but only 17 made the final cut.

Disney Imagineering was born

Because of the success of Mary Poppins, Disney was able to expand the W.E.D Enterprises which focused on animatronics. W.E.D Enterprises is now more popularly known as Walt Disney Imagineering.

Mary Poppins was truly a delight to watch and true fans of the film will never say no to know more about it. In fact, a lot of these facts made us love the film more.

Getting us behind the scenes makes us see how far one of our most beloved films reached and how successful it really was and that warms our hearts because Mary Poppins really deserved all those.

Do you know any other Mary Poppins facts?

Liezel