Disneyland Celebrates Walt's 100th
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Richard Sherman shares stories and songs from his days working with Walt Disney.
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Walt gave us a book one day, back in early 1960. He handed us the book and he said read it and tell me what you think. My daughters like it a lot they think it is fun. And tell me what you think. And he had a little twinkle in his eye. My brother Bob and I weren’t working for the Studio at that time we were just freelance writers. But we’d done a number of songs for him so we felt we’d gotten his confidence. And he handed us this book by a lady named Pamela Travers called Mary Poppins. And we said thank you and took the book. And we started reading it. And wow, the stories, the characters, the fun, the imagination in that book was just special. We knew this was something knocking on the door. This is fate. If we could come up with something, not just saying hey, its good we think it’s nice but come up with some ideas. So we came back, we studied the book. We read it aloud to each other. I remember that. Twice. I read it once. He read once, out loud so we could both hear it and read it. And we selected six chapters that we felt were appropriate to weave into storyline, which didn’t quite exist at the time. And we came back with a semblance of a storyline, not really a good one but those six chapters and a series of songs. The first song being a song I’m going to play for you in a minute. But the bottom line to this whole thing was after we told him about our ideas and how wonderful we thought this whole project would be he smiled and took book out of his bookcase. Turned around and took the book out and it was Mary Poppins. He opened it and pointed to the six chapters, he had underlined the very same chapters that we had underlined and at that moment he said to us you guys would to work and we said yeah we sure do Walt. He said, “how’d ya like to work for me?” And of course we said (enthusiastically) yes! Yes! And that was when we became members of the family and he brought us on staff.

Richard Sherman shares the story behind Walt's favorite melody, Feed the Birds.
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Now the song I mentioned before was a song, a story rather, in the book, about a lady who sold breadcrumbs at St. Paul Cathedral. It was a little old lady and she used to say,”Feed the birds. tuppence a bag! Feed the birds!” And we said, “My goodness that could be theme of this whole movie, it doesn’t take very much to do a kind deed.” That’s what the children needed; they need the family. They needed the feeling that the father was interested in them not just in going off making money and their mother interested in them not just going off and doing her cause. I mean they were all sort of going in separate directions. And that is what Mary Poppins teaches them. And so we found that this was a metaphor for what the whole picture would be. And the first inspiration that we had was to write this song. And when we were first meeting with Walt we played this song for him. And it was the last thing we played. We had two or three other ideas we had an idea for Uncle Albert flying through the air, the Jolly Holiday idea, and all that. But this one he heard and he said play that one again. So I played it again. He said, “Yep, yep that’s what it is all about.” And we said, “Yeah, that’s right Walt! That’s the theme of the whole movie.” He understood. He read our minds and we read his to a degree, I hope. But the basic thing was it became his favorite song.

Actually over the years he’d call us in on a Friday afternoon and ask us what we were working on and we’d tell him and then he’d say, Play it. Richard (chuckles). Like Play it again, Sam, you know. Just “play it.” And so we’d play this song for him. And he’d always look out the north window of his office and then he’d say, “Have a good weekend boys” and he’d send us home. And that was our relationship. And after Walt left us (sighs, chokes up) I used to go there on Friday afternoons and play it for him. And this time I’m playing it for you again, Walt.

Heartfelt rendition of Feed the Birds
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After concluding the song, Richard turned the Partners statue and with a voice choking back tears said, “Happy Birthday, Walt” and blew a loving kiss.