Mary Poppins was released in 1964 and became an instant classic, sweeping the Academy Awards and capturing the hearts of audiences around the world. Starring Julie Andrews in her film debut alongside Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns, the film blended live action, animation and unforgettable songs from the Sherman Brothers into something very special. The budget and production were enormous, the behind the scenes stories are fascinating, and the battle to get the film made at all is a tale in itself. We’re telling that story now with 45 huge facts about Mary Poppins.

You can hear us discuss Mary Poppins in full on the All The Right Movies podcast, available now on Spotify.

1. Disney spent over 20 years trying to get the rights

Walt Disney first became aware of Mary Poppins in 1938, when his daughters Diane and Sharon told him about the books by Australian-British author P.L. Travers. Two books had been published at the time, and Disney wrote to Travers to enquire about acquiring the film rights. She wasn’t keen on giving creative control away, and turned him down.

Then, in 1944, Travers moved from London to New York to escape the Blitz. Walt’s brother and co-founder of the studio, Roy Disney, went to meet her, but she told him flatly that “Mary Poppins is not a cartoon.” That exchange apparently inspired a line in Saving Mr Banks (2013), the biographical drama about the making of Mary Poppins, where the character of Travers (Emma Thompson) says to Tom Hanks’s Disney: “I won’t have her turned into one of your silly cartoons.”

2. A TV adaptation got Hollywood interested again

In 1949, the American anthology series Studio One aired a television adaptation of Mary Poppins, with actress Mary Wickes in the title role (Wickes would later become well known for playing Sister Mary Lazarus in 1992’s Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, 1993). That TV episode reignited Hollywood’s interest in the property. Legendary producer Sam Goldwyn bought the Poppins movie rights and reportedly considered casting Katharine Hepburn as Mary Poppins. Production stalled, however, and the rights expired.

3. Disney got his deal over afternoon tea

The rights were available again in 1959 and Disney travelled to Travers’ home in London for tea. By this point, book sales were on the decline. When the pair had discussed a deal in the 1940s, Travers had asked for $10,000. Now she wanted $750,000 plus a share of the profits, and Disney agreed. Travers also insisted on one condition: she would have final script approval. That clause would prove to be a significant source of tension throughout the entire production.

4. The songwriters’ break came through a Disney connection

Richard and Robert Sherman were the sons of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman, so music was in their blood. Their big break came when they wrote a hit song called “Tall Paul” for Annette Funicello, one of the original Mouseketeers from The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. That brought them to the attention of Disney, and they wrote music for the studio before being given Mary Poppins.

The Shermans were one of the first people to start work on the film, and it took two and a half years to write all the songs. Because there was no final script in place, they had to write songs and hope they fit in somewhere. Richard Sherman said they wrote 34 songs, and almost half of them didn’t make it into the film.

5. The creative team had deep Disney roots

Director Robert Stevenson had already worked on several Disney films before Mary Poppins, but he also had a background in Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge University, which likely helped him wrap his head around the more technical aspects of the production. The screenwriters who adapted Travers’ books were Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi. Walsh was one of Walt’s go-to writers, having penned five Disney films including family comedy The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). DaGradi had been with the studio since the 1940s and had writing credits on classic animations Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Sleeping Beauty (1959).

6. Several big names were considered to play Mary

It’s almost impossible to imagine anybody else in the role now, but Disney considered a number of famous names before Julie Andrews came along. Broadway star Mary Martin was in talks at one point. Hollywood legends Bette Davis and Elizabeth Taylor were discussed. And, perhaps most surprisingly, Angela Lansbury (of Murder, She Wrote fame)  was also considered for the part.

7. A TV appearance sealed the deal for Andrews

Julie Andrews had been performing on stage since she was 13 and by the mid-60s was a major name on Broadway. At the time, she was appearing alongside Richard Burton in the musical Camelot, and the pair performed some of the show’s songs on The Ed Sullivan Show, one of the most-watched variety programmes on American television. Mary Poppins songwriter Richard Sherman saw the performance and immediately called his brother Robert, saying “Are you watching The Ed Sullivan Show?” Robert replied: “Yes, she’s perfect.”

Apparently, Walt Disney’s assistant Tommie Wilck advised the Shermans: “If you go in there saying this Julie Andrews is perfect, he won’t like her. That’s how he is. You need to make him think it’s his idea.” So they arranged for Disney to see Camelot in person. He met Andrews backstage and essentially offered her the part there and then. Remarkably, Andrews had never appeared in a film before. Mary Poppins was her big-screen debut, and she turned up fully formed as if she’d been doing it for years.

8. Andrews almost turned the role down

The songstress wasn’t keen on accepting the part at first. She was pregnant at the time, but Disney told her “we’ll wait.” Andrews also knew that Warner Bros. were in pre-production on My Fair Lady (1964). She had won a Tony Award for playing Eliza Doolittle on Broadway and wanted to reprise the role on film. However, studio head Jack Warner decided Andrews wasn’t a big enough star and cast Audrey Hepburn instead. As such, Andrews accepted Disney’s offer, and when she later won a Golden Globe for Mary Poppins, she pointedly thanked Jack Warner in her acceptance speech.

To sweeten the deal further, Disney hired Andrews’ husband, Tony Walton, as the film’s costume and set designer. Walton designed all of Mary’s costumes, the striped jacket that Bert wears in the animated sequence, and the set for Cherry Tree Lane. Disney also gave Andrews and Walton a personal tour of Disneyland, and even told the animators working on 101 Dalmatians (1961), which was in production at the time, to base their designs for the character of Anita on Julie Andrews. There is a definite resemblance.

9. Travers gave Andrews a backhanded compliment

There was one more person the team had to convince. After Andrews gave birth to her daughter, Emma, she took a phone call in her hospital bed from P.L. Travers. Exhausted, Andrews listened as Travers said: “Come on girl, talk to me.” They spoke, and Travers ended the call by saying: “You’re far too pretty of course, but you do have the nose for it.”

10. Some huge names were considered for the role of Bert

Before Dick Van Dyke was cast as chimney sweep and jack-of-all-trades Bert, Walt Disney considered Danny Kaye, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant for the part. P.L. Travers, who wanted an all-British cast, suggested Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole and Peter Sellers.

11. Van Dyke got the part because of something he said in an interview

Dick Van Dyke has said many times that he has no idea why he got the part of Bert, and felt that British actors Jim Dale or Ron Moody would have been better cast. But apparently Disney had read an interview Van Dyke gave in the early 1960s where he said his dream job was to work on a Disney film, and that planted the idea. Van Dyke had started out as a mime artist. His film career at the time was limited to musicals Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and What a Way to Go! (1964), but he was well known from television through The Dick Van Dyke Show and had experience on Broadway. A safe bet for a song-and-dance man, if not necessarily for accents.

12. Bert’s accent has become cinema folklore

Van Dyke’s Cockney accent in the film is one of the most discussed accents in film history. In 2003, Empire magazine voted it the second-worst movie accent ever, behind only Sean Connery’s Irish accent in The Untouchables (1987). Van Dyke has apologised for it over the years, but said his vocal coach on the film, an Irish-born actor called J. Pat O’Malley, did an even worse Cockney. O’Malley also provided some of the voices in the animated sequence, including the Master of Hounds and one of the Pearly Band members.

13. Van Dyke paid big bucks to play a second role

After being cast as Bert, Van Dyke became interested in also playing the elderly Mr Dawes Sr., the stern head of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank where Mr Banks works. Disney wasn’t keen on the idea, so Van Dyke offered to do it for free. Disney still said no, and told Van Dyke that if he made a $4,000 donation to CalArts, Disney’s art school (roughly $30,000 in today’s money), he could have the part. The actor agreed, and in the end credits, the role of Mr Dawes Sr. is credited to “Navckid Keyd”, which then unscrambles to reveal “Dick Van Dyke”.

14. One actor was nervous about singing on screen

Mr Banks, the children’s stern and regimented father, is played by British actor David Tomlinson. His film career had begun in the 1940s and by the time of Mary Poppins he’d appeared in over 50 films, almost all British productions. One of the writers, Bill Walsh, screened some of Tomlinson’s work for Disney, who then went to see him at the Savoy Theatre in London in a play called Ring of Truth and offered him the part. Tomlinson was initially nervous, as he had never sung in a film before. James Mason and Richard Harris were apparently also considered for the role. The character of Mr Banks was largely based on P.L. Travers’ own father, Travers Robert Goff, who is a prominent character in Saving Mr Banks, played by Colin Farrell.

15. The opening scene contains hidden book references

When we first meet Bert, he’s performing as a one-man band in front of an audience on Cherry Tree Lane. The scene includes some subtle nods to Travers’ source material. The woman watching with the two tall daughters is called Mrs Corry, a character who runs the local sweet shop in the books.

16. The child actors had previous with Disney

Jane Banks is played by Karen Dotrice, who had appeared in the Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), a fantasy about a magical cat. Matthew Garber played a role in that film too, and Disney thought he had strong chemistry with Dotrice, so he was cast as her on-screen brother, Michael.

17. The female cast members came from big backgrounds

Glynis Johns plays Mrs Banks, and Walt Disney wanted her from the start. Composer Richard Sherman said Johns initially thought she was being considered for the title role. When she found out it was Mrs Banks, she agreed to take the part but asked for a song. Disney told her one was being written, and after she left the room, he turned to Sherman and said he had to write her one. The Shermans had already written a song called “Practically Perfect”, which they reworked into “Sister Suffragette”.

Katie Nanna, the nanny who storms out at the very start of the film, was played by Elsa Lanchester, a two-time Oscar nominee whose most famous role was the title character in Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

And the Bird Woman, the elderly lady who sits on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral throwing breadcrumbs, was played by Jane Darwell, who had won an Oscar for The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Disney visited Darwell at her home to personally persuade her out of semi-retirement for the part.

18. The entire film was shot indoors

The whole of Mary Poppins was filmed on soundstages at the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank, California. Cherry Tree Lane and the park filled an entire soundstage, surrounded by a 360-degree cyclorama so the camera could be turned in any direction without breaking the illusion. Art Directors Carroll Clark and William Tuntke built the houses on Cherry Tree Lane in diminishing scale, a technique known as forced perspective, which makes the street appear much longer than it actually was.

19. Andrews let fly with some choice language on set

To achieve the effect of Mary floating into Cherry Tree Lane, Julie Andrews was attached to wires that had been darkened so the studio lights wouldn’t reflect off them. On one occasion, the stagehands lowered her too quickly, and she came crashing to the stage floor. Andrews later admitted: “I plummeted to the stage and let fly with a few Anglo-Saxon four letter words, I have to admit.” A number of the other nannies seen being blown away in the opening were actually men dressed as women, which is fairly easy to spot when they’re all standing in a group.

20. “A Spoonful of Sugar” was inspired by a trip to the doctor

The Sherman Brothers originally wrote a song called “Through the Eyes of Love” to be Mary’s signature number, but Julie Andrews didn’t think it was good enough, so it was dropped. Then Richard Sherman’s son came home from school one day having been given the polio vaccine. He said they gave it to him on a sugar cube to make it easier to swallow. That comment sparked the idea, and “A Spoonful of Sugar” was born. Richard Sherman later said his favourite moment during the entire production was the first time he heard Julie Andrews sing the finished song. He said he started to cry.

21. A tuneful bird was an early animatronic

The robin that whistles along as Mary sings “A Spoonful of Sugar” was an animatronic creation. Julie Andrews had wires running up her sleeve, and a team of puppeteers operated the bird with a stick to make it move. The robin’s whistling was all performed by Andrews.

Director Robert Stevenson also wanted to get genuine reactions from the children, so he didn’t always tell Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber what was going to happen. When Mary gives the children medicine and it pours from the bottle in two different colours, Jane’s scream was Dotrice’s real reaction. Similarly, the children weren’t told that Mary would pull item after item from her carpet bag, including a full hat stand. Their wide-eyed reactions are authentic.

22. One scene was considered too scary for children

Originally, there was going to be a sequence where Mary makes the children’s toys come to life to teach them a lesson about playing nicely together. It was inspired by a chapter in the books but was removed from the film when the filmmakers decided it would be too frightening for young audiences. That scene was later reinstated for the Broadway musical version of Mary Poppins. The toys that do move in the finished film, jumping neatly into the toy box, were animated using stop motion.

23. An entire musical sequence was cut

At one point, there was a planned musical sequence early in the film called “The Magic Compass”, in which Mary would take the children on a trip around the world, singing four different songs along the way. The Sherman Brothers worked on it for months, but it was eventually removed as it detracted from the main plot and the film was already two hours and 23 minutes long. Those songs weren’t wasted, though. One of them became “The Beautiful Briny” in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and another became “Trust in Me”, the song sung by the snake Kaa to Mowgli in The Jungle Book (1967).

24. Andrews’ performance attracted the attention of another legendary director

During production, the cast and crew were so impressed by Julie Andrews that stories about her work started circulating around Hollywood. Director Robert Wise visited the set to see her, and after watching just a few minutes of footage, he offered her the lead role in the film he was preparing: The Sound of Music (1965). Andrews took both roles back to back, cementing herself as one of the biggest stars in the world.

25. Andrews was practically a perfectionist

The actress later said she was meticulous on Mary Poppins. When she recorded the lullaby “Stay Awake”, she did nearly 50 takes before she was happy with it. She later admitted: “It was too many. Dick did some of his songs in one take.”

26. P.L. Travers stormed off the set

The author hated the idea of animation being used in the film and left the set when she discovered it was going ahead. She demanded that Disney remove all of the animated sequences, but he refused. She never fully came round to the idea, but eventually accepted it when Disney assured her it would be limited to a single sequence, with the actors remaining in live action.

Five of the legendary “Nine Old Men”, Disney’s core team of master animators responsible for classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940) and Bambi (1942), worked on the animated sequence in Mary Poppins.

27. The word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” has a surprising history

When the Sherman Brothers were children, they used to attend summer camp where they had a made-up word that none of the adults could understand. They wanted the Banks children to have a similar word, and that’s where “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” originated.

The word wasn’t entirely new, however. In 1949, musical duo Gloria Parker and Barney Young had released a song called “Supercalafajalistickespialadojus”. When Mary Poppins came out, they sued Disney for plagiarism. Although the melody and lyrics of their song were completely different, they took Disney to court over the word itself. The case was dismissed when Disney’s lawyers found a 1931 article in the Syracuse University college newspaper, written by a student called Helen Herman, that used the word “Supercaliflawjalisticexpialadoshus”. Herman said it meant grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, and wonderful.

28. The Pearly Band was voiced by cast and crew

During the animated “Jolly Holiday” sequence, we see a five-piece Pearly Band performing. All five members were voiced by people involved in the production: Julie Andrews, Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman, David Tomlinson and Dick Van Dyke’s vocal coach J. Pat O’Malley. (The sarky little parrot on Mary’s umbrella handle was also voiced by Tomlinson).

During the animated musical sequence, the Banks children are seen eating toffee apples. Karen Dotrice later said they did so many retakes across two weeks of filming that she and Matthew Garber were physically sick from eating them.

29. They used cutting-edge visual effects technology

Disney wanted the blend of live action and animation to be done to a standard never seen before. To achieve this, they brought in visual effects specialist Petros Vlahos, who had been the Special Effects Supervisor on another Disney classic The Parent Trap (1961). For that film, in which Hayley Mills played twins who had to appear on screen together, Vlahos had developed the Sodium Vapor Process, an early form of compositing similar to what we now know as blue screen. He used the same technology on Mary Poppins.

Vlahos worked closely with Ub Iwerks, one of Disney’s go-to visual effects specialists since the 1940s, and another effects technician called Wadsworth Pohl. The three of them won an Oscar for their work on Mary Poppins. It was one of five Oscars that Vlahos won across his career.

30. Karen Dotrice thought the sequence was going to be really bad

The actors shot their scenes for the animated sequence against a white background, known as yellowscreen. Dotrice later recalled that the set was full of unfit men chewing cigars and running around with cardboard cutouts of penguins. She remembered thinking it was going to be “rubbish”. Animator Frank Thomas, one of the Nine Old Men who also animated the dwarfs in Snow White, was responsible for the penguins.

31. Uncle Albert was an old Disney collaborator

Ed Wynn, a veteran stage and radio comedian, was the only person Walt Disney ever considered for the role of Uncle Albert, Mary’s jovial uncle who floats to the ceiling whenever he laughs. Wynn already had a connection with the studio, having voiced The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and played the Toymaker in Babes in Toyland (1961). Director Robert Stevenson gave Wynn free rein to improvise. Uncle Albert appears in the first Mary Poppins book, so this sequence was taken fairly directly from the source material. The character was written in the script as having a Viennese accent, but when Wynn turned up on set he didn’t even attempt it, and nobody ever mentioned it.

32. Four separate sets were built for Uncle Albert’s house

To achieve the floating effect in Uncle Albert’s scene, where Mary, Bert and the children rise to the ceiling in fits of laughter, the production built four different versions of the set. There was the normal room, a replica turned on its side, another that was completely upside down, and a truncated version where the floor was closer to the ceiling. Tony Walton oversaw the construction. The wide shots, where the cast are suspended on wires, always cut to close-ups around the table, which were filmed on the ground using a gimbal to move the table. This meant the effects work was never visible for too long.

Young Matthew Garber had a fear of heights, so he wasn’t a fan of the wire work. A crew member paid him 10 cents for every take where he was suspended from the ceiling.

33. “Feed the Birds” was Walt Disney’s favourite

“Feed the Birds” was apparently Disney’s favourite song of all. Robert Sherman said that on a Friday afternoon, he’d often get a call from Disney asking him to come to his office and play the song. And when he was finished, Disney would always say: “That’ll do.” Sometimes he’d cry. In 2001, on what would have been Walt Disney’s 100th birthday, Robert Sherman played “Feed the Birds” in front of Disney’s statue at Disneyland.

34. A lost prop was rescued from the rubbish

The snow globe that Mary holds when she sings “Feed the Birds” was thought lost after filming. Then, in 1970, Disney archivist Dave Smith found it in a janitor’s closet at the studio. He asked the head janitor, Roy Geysor, where he’d got it, and Geysor said he found it in the rubbish but liked it and didn’t want to throw it away. Quite the find.

35. A Van Dyke improv routine made it into the film

When we see the elderly Mr Dawes Sr. struggling to get down from a step at the bank, that moment wasn’t in the script. During a make-up test, Van Dyke had been entertaining the crew by performing some of his old mime routines, one of which involved struggling to get down from a step. Disney saw the footage and asked him to include it in the film. The children weren’t told it was Dick Van Dyke under the heavy make-up, and Karen Dotrice later said she thought he was just some horrible old man who had turned up on set.

36. There were differences between book and film

Quite a few changes were made in the move from page to screen. In the books, Bert plays a much smaller role than he does in the film. The Banks family has four children: Jane and Michael, plus twins called John and Barbara, who were removed for the film. Mrs Banks is only ever known as “Mrs Banks” in the books and isn’t a suffragette. That detail was added to the film to explain why she’s somewhat neglectful of the children.

The books are set in the 1930s, when they were originally written, but the setting was changed to the 1910s for the film. That was suggested by the Sherman Brothers, who felt the vaudevillian music of the Edwardian era would suit the songs. Also, P.L. Travers owned the rights to her books but not to the original illustrations. By changing the time period, the production reduced the risk of any legal issues, as it moved the visual world further away from the published artwork.

37. The story drew from P.L. Travers’ own life

Several elements of Mary Poppins were rooted in Travers’ personal history. Her own mother was neglectful and attempted suicide when Travers was a child. Her father worked as a bank manager, and when he died, she went to live with her Aunt Morehead. The aunt was stern and would tell her off by making up rhymes and songs, and she always carried a large carpet bag (which sounds familiar). Travers also said she had a book as a child in which somebody had written “M. Poppins” on one of the flyleaves. That name always stuck with her, and eventually became the title character.

38. Travers didn’t like the writing (or much else)

Beyond her issues with the animation, P.L. Travers had deep problems with the script itself. She said Mary was too kind, where in the books the character is stern and vain. She didn’t like how Mr Banks was painted as a bad father, partly because she had based the character on her own father. She objected to the time period being changed to the 1910s, said the Banks’ home should have been a humble abode rather than a mansion, and thought the servants were too vulgar. She hated Van Dyke as Bert. After the film came out, she vowed she would never work with Disney again.

39. Travers wanted the music to be period pieces

P.L. Travers wanted the only music in the film to be traditional songs like “Greensleeves”. After the songs were finished, Disney had Travers flown to the studio so the Sherman Brothers could play them for her. She didn’t like them (surprise surpise), and let the brothers know in no uncertain terms. Richard Sherman later said: “She didn’t care about our feelings. She chopped us apart.”

The audio from those sessions was recorded, and formed the basis of Saving Mr Banks. The recordings are largely Travers criticising the Shermans for using words like “nightie” instead of “nightgown”. There is, however, one nice moment where they play “Feed the Birds” and Travers starts singing along.

40. “Chim-Chim-Cheree” was inspired by a sketch

Once the script was finished, co-writer Don DaGradi sat in on sessions with the Sherman Brothers. DaGradi had started at Disney as an illustrator, and he drew a sketch of an Edwardian chimney sweep as inspiration for the composers. Based on that sketch, they wrote “Chim-Chim-Cheree”, which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

This meant Director of Photography Edward Colman had to work closely with matte painter Peter Ellenshaw and Tony Walton on the production design to ensure everything looked as realistic as possible. On the matte painting of London used in the opening, Ellenshaw poked tiny holes in the artwork and lit it from behind so it would look like the city’s lights were coming on one by one. Mary Poppins was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and won for Best Visual Effects, which was a special category at the time.

41. Two of the musical classics had real-life inspirations

The Sherman Brothers had originally planned for “Chim-Chim-Cheree” to soundtrack the rooftop chimney sweep sequence. Then Special Effects Supervisor Peter Ellenshaw introduced them to “Knees Up Mother Brown”, a traditional Cockney party song, and that inspired them to write “Step in Time” instead. The whole sequence had to be filmed twice because there was a scratch on the film from the first take. It was originally planned to be two minutes long but ended up running to 14 minutes.

“Let’s Go Fly a Kite”, the song that powers the film’s emotional climax, came from the Shermans’ own childhood. Their father, Al, used to make kites and they’d fly them together as a family. When they knew the story ended with the Banks family reuniting, they came up with the title immediately. In the scene, Mr Banks tapes the four pieces of the kite back together, symbolically reuniting the four members of his family, and Mrs Banks gives up her suffragette ribbon to serve as the tail.

42. It could have ended differently

The finale of the film is different to how things play out in the books. In the books, Mary leaves suddenly when the wind changes direction and flies away, with the children watching her go in tears. In the film, they don’t see her leave at all.

43. Opening night ended in tears

At the premiere, held at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles (the first premiere Walt Disney had attended since Snow White in 1937), P.L. Travers reportedly cried all the way through the screening. At the end, she said to Disney: “The first thing that has to go is that animated sequence.” Disney replied: “Pamela, that ship has sailed.”

44. Despite that, it did okay for itself

From a final production budget of around $5–6 million, Mary Poppins grossed $103 million worldwide, making it a huge commercial success. At the Oscars, it was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won five: Best Actress for Julie Andrews, Best Editing for Cotton Warburton, Best Visual Effects for Peter Ellenshaw, Eustace Lycett and Hamilton Luske, and both Best Score and Best Original Song for Richard and Robert Sherman. It remains the most successful Disney film at the Academy Awards, and was the only one of Walt Disney’s films he saw nominated for Best Picture.

Today, on Rotten Tomatoes, Mary Poppins holds a 97% critics score and an 86% audience approval rating, with a 7.8 out of 10 on IMDb.

45. Despite that, it did okay for itself

Disney had wanted to make sequels after the first film was a huge success, but P.L. Travers refused to allow it. In the 1990s, producer Cameron Mackintosh approached Travers about making a stage musical, and she agreed on the condition that none of the Sherman Brothers’ songs were used. Travers passed away in 1996, and when the musical debuted in 2004, it included every one of the Disney songs.

And you’ve reached the end: 45 practically perfect facts about Mary Poppins. Please share on your social media channels, and listen to our full episode on Spotify.