Mary Poppins ~ Lost in Adaptation 

In Dick Van Dyke’s defense, his “dialog coach” was an Irishman. So we have an Irishman trying to teach an American how to do a Cockney accent.

“Mary Poppins and Pennywise are the same species, she just feeds on joy instead of fear.” - Skeletor.

So Travers wanted a loyal adaptation with all the talking animals and mythical locations but put her foot down at animation? How were those parts supposed to be adapted? Animatronics and puppets? Even today we still struggle to effectively produce a lifelike animal animatronic, what chance did they have in 1963.

I have incredibly strong feelings about the Feed the Birds song, especially since I learned that city pigeons are the descendants of birds that were deliberately domesticated by humans and then just kind of.... abandoned. The parallels between the discarded humans and the discarded pigeons, coupled with Julie's singing just... gets to me.

I love the idea that book Poppins is a faery in the traditional English sense - so her vanity, gaslighting etc lines up. It also tallies with the playful Shakespearean fairies and the Feywild setup in modern D&D.

Dick Van Dyke asked the British crew if he got the accent right. Everybody, including real working class Londoners, told him he was fine. Blame them, not Van Dyke. They lied to him.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s several failed attempts in doing various American accents has more then evened things up, so we can cancel the war

"You can have a well decorated house, or four children. Not both." "Well, what if we cut out two or three kids?" "Fine."

Just an FYI but Julie Andrews herself passed on a cameo because she didn't want to overshadow Emily Blunt's turn as Mary. That's why she's not in the film.

The fact that mary poppins appears in alan moores legue of extraordinary gentleman and it turns out she is capital G God Will never not be funny to me

Fun fact: The same filmmakers followed up Mary Poppins with the 70's film Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which starred Angela Lansbury. One of the songs, The Beautiful Briny Sea, was actually written for Mary Poppins, but didn't make the final cut when they excluded adding an undersea bit, but they reused that concept for Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Honestly, the idea of a nanny making herself irreplaceable and invaluable to a rich family so she can leave anytime she wants but still have the security of a job is one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard. In the right hands, it could be a horrific story about the difference between addiction and genuine human connection.

I now want to see Mary Poppins solving murders in small New England towns.

My favorite version of Mary Poppins is a surreal reference from Neil Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan", where the protagonist (all but stated to be a grown up Susan Pevensie) has a dream in which she reads a posthumous published Mary Poppins story titled "Mary Poppins Brings in the Dawn", in which she takes the children on a trip to Heaven to, meet God, Jesus, and the angels. It's revealed that she was Jesus's nanny, and one of the children asks something along the lines of, "But how could she have been around before the universe was created. Didn't [God] create everything?", to which God responds, "Oh, not her. I didn't create her. She's Mary Poppins."

I know the subconcious isn't linear, but I will argue that Mr Bates isn't her dad....Mary Poppins is. Wildly different personalities when alone or in front of others, Gaslights and threatens the kids to stay quiet about what happens behind closed doors. Routinely abandons the kids, leaving them devastated but doesn't appear to care. Has no emotional availability and blames others for her faults. Prefers superficial gains over long-term connections (vanity) Enjoys punishment and doles it out often, even for telling the truth and other 'good' things kids should be doing. So MP was her wish fulfillment and way of sugarcoating her childhood? Remember that time MP snuck into my room and stole my gold (wrappers)? She wasn't stealing! She was putting them back in the sky! Remember how she always runs away leaving us traumatised? It's fine, she always comes back! No wonder she fought so hard with Disney. The book series was just her trauma diaries with illustrations.

Listening to you talk about how Mary Poppins acts in the books made me think and if she is a fairy pretending to be human but because she is a magical creature she cannot escape the magic that accompanies her wherever she goes, the best she can do is deny the existence of any magic even if it is right in front of her.

Fun Fact: Many of the nannies in the large queue of applicants for the job at the start of the movie were actually men in drag.

The thing about Mary Poppins gaslighting the children into thinking none of it happened speaks to the experience of being a child -- when the adults can't quite explain what's going on in the world or in your surroundings they tend to just shut down your questions.

According to Richard Sherman, they made Mrs. Banks a suffragette and wrote “Sister Suffragette” at Walt’s request in an effort to get Glynis Johns to take the role.

Its also worth mentioning that thanks to Travis being so unbearable at the start we got Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a movie I absolutely ADORE and will always remember fondly of it as my first experience of Angela Lansbury’s acting.

I love the behind the scenes story of how Dick Van Dyke was dressed up in his old man makeup had gone out onto the Disney studio lot and pretended to be an old man crossing the street. In front of these tourists on these trolleys. They would have to wait until he finish crossing and then when they took off after he crossed he would run alongside the trolley like a young man and freak out all the tourists lol😂😂😂.

Added a like just because of the intro! Hearing Mary Poppins say "Mutha f***ah" just MADE MY DAY!!

I have an enormous fondness for the movie because it gave me one of my last good memories of my grandmother. Dementia hit her hard and drained the life out of her, but in the last few weeks before we finally had to check her into an assisted living facility, Mom had the movie playing on Disney+. And both of us were floored to hear her actually managing to sing along to "Feed the Birds" - not well, not at that point, but she clearly remembered the movie and the words. The realization that she remembered the movie and all the times we'd watched it in the past was very special to me. None of this is relevant to the video, but it did remind me of that so take the Algorithm Engagement anyway.

Cuddling Sir Terry when asking for algorythm-supporting actions is shameless. It 100% worked. 😆

I’ve also read all the Mary Poppins books, and I can confidently co-sign your assessment that the “Mary Poppins is saving her father” trope can’t be found anywhere in Travers’s work! 💯

Must be a British Empire thing to make something very whimsical but be an absolute stick in the mud grouch in real life....or a sociopath in Roald Dahl's case.

I live near PL Travers' birthplace and the town is basically all Mary Poppins themed, they even have crossing lights shaped like her and of course a Mary Poppins festival every year. It's pretty cool.

In my home country, Hungary, Mary Poppins is still a book first. I didn't even know that it had a movie version until I was an adult. Our mother read it to us as a bedtime story, and a famous children's singer of our childhood wrote a song about the books that I still know by heart.

I wonder if that whole "Mary Poppins is here for the dad, not the children" thing is Travers ironically mixing up her own story with the Disney film she loathed because, while not in the book, it's basically the whole arc of the film. Also, personally, I always liked the fan theory that Bert is the other son of the bank director, Mr. Dobbs, and that Mary was once his nanny too, just that she didn't manage to sway him back then, which is why she's only considered "practically perfect" in every way.

No word of lie, when I was a kid I didn't realized that Bert and the old banker were played by dick van dyke. I didn't see him in the old banker at all and my mom told me and I was convince she was lying to me. Its the first time I ever watched the credits in a movie cause I wanted to prove her wrong. Turns out I had to eat some humble pie that night but it was one of those first moments an actor surprised me in a role.

I have read a claimed-to-be-true story about parents who doted on one of their twin daughters and pretty much ignored the other. The parents had tried to give up the one twin for adoption, but the couple couldn't bring themselves to separate twin sisters. The ignored twin, now adult, wishes that the couple HAD adopted her because then she could have been reared by parents who cherished her rather than parents who thought of every dollar spent on her being a dollar stolen from her twin. That said, Travers forbidding the twins from seeing each other was disgusting.

Being Russian I watched soviet version of Mary Poppins mary times since childhood and absolutely love it! It even has a very nice message about how adults often forget what it's like to be children and that this connection with your inner child is very important to maintain. Also the songs are fire and you can't deny that the lead actress looks like Rachel McAdams haha

About picturing book characters in one's head, while I don't default to picturing everyone as a cartoon, I notice that sometimes I end up picturing certain characters in a more "cartoonish" way if the author's description of their appearance goes out of its way to exaggerate a certain aspect, like them having enormous ears or an ice-cold, piercing stare. Also, props for bringing up the Soviet movie! It's the only version of the story I've actually experienced, and while I don't really remember many specifics of its plot most of its songs still live rent-free in my head.

From what I remember, Julie Andrews turned down the cameo because she didn't want to overshadow Emily Blunt's performance. That being said, I can see Lansbury KINDA working for that "passing the torch" moment if you factor in a connection to Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Both Mary Poppins and Ms. Price were magical women in early 20th century England, tasked with looking after some children and travel to a world inhabited by cartoons with said children. Obviously the balloon lady couldn't be Ms. Price but spiritually, I can kinda see it.

apparently the reason juile andrews didn't cameo in the movie was because she knew people would be looking for her and talking about it. she wanted emily to have her time to shine, and imo she did a wonderful job. i loved the movie and mary poppins is one of my favorite disney films :'3 when i watched the opening i was hit by the nostalgia and cried :'3 i actually see it as underrated because no one ever talks about it Dx

Poor David Tomlinson had such a heartbreaking personal life. I hope he's flying a kite in heaven with his loved ones.

I find it weird how in Saving Mr. Banks, Travers picked up a Winnie the Pooh doll and said “Poor A. A. Milne,” when Disney had only just gotten the rights to adapt Pooh the year the movie was set. It would have been better if it was a doll of a character from a British book that Disney had already adapted, like Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan, and she said “Poor Lewis Carroll,” or “Poor J. M. Barrie.”

Mrs Cory snapping off her fingers and giving them to the children to eat creeped me out as a kid. I don't care they were gingerbread. A woman snaps her fingers off and fed them to children

Dom:"I mean..whats next is Mary Poppins going to move to a seaside town and solve crimes?" some disney exc.: "YOU FOOL! We now know what to do for mary poppins 3!! she'll go to a sea side town and solve crimes!!" Amazing work, Dom!!!

Omgg, as someone growing up in the soviet dominated cultural space of late 90s Eastern Europe, I'm so glad you mentioned the 1986 adaptation. It was the only one I was familiar with during childhood. Watching it felt like a fever dream and it still feels like a fever dream remembering it today. I can only see the Disney version through its lens till this day

That intro was gold. That scream and then the "Mutha F***kah" gave me a much needed smile.

I wonder if the King Edward line was a subtle indicator that Mr Bank's comfortable world would be disrupted and changed.

A friend of mine looked after PL Travers in her final years. Apparently she was not very nice.

Animated characters in the style of Rankin/Bass is just what my imagination looks like.

Nice Granny Weatherwax reference with the "'I ATE'NT DEAD'"

Most of the time, when I read a book for the first time, the characters are animated in my head, regardless of whether or not they have an animated adaptation or any adaptation at all. Creating realistic features from scratch is a lot more difficult, for whatever reason. They don't necessarily look like cartoons, but they don't exactly look fully like a real person, either. I never realized that this was odd.

Disney and writers were right to shed those chapters. Sticking to the book would have rendered it incomprehensible.

Baby marry popping is just the best ‘spit mother fucking spot!’😂😂

It sounds like book MP knew a little thing about job security Can’t be a nanny to a family who doesn’t need one and she made sure they ALWAYS needed one

Soooo fun fact: I actually met and knew one of the twins that got separated. He was one of the professors we had in my study abroad program 12 years ago. Eccentric guy. He wrote spy novels

Literally making money? He’s not a banker as you said, but, nor is he working for the Mint - he’s a counterfeiter! That would be way more interesting!

The reason Angela Lansbury is such a genius addition to the sequel is because she adds a whole nother dimension to the theme of "Gaslighting" that the sequel does so well... You see, Angela Lansbury was IN THE MOVIE "GASLIGHT!"

Dom as Mary Poppins is something I never thought I needed, until now.

Oh my god, that Star Wars meme was PERFECTLY placed 😂😂😂

Fun fact: Mrs. Correy and her two daughters (Fannie and Annie) from the first Mary Poppins book have a cameo appearance in the film as well! Fannie and Annie are the two tall women in pink and blue that stand behind the old woman (Mrs. Correy) Burt compliments when he’s performing as a one-man band in the beginning. Mrs. Persimmon, another character in the series, appears as well.

"Feed the Birds", the song by the bird woman selling seeds, is worth everything it took to make that movie. It turns out that was Disney's favorite song, too. So occasionally the man had good taste. It's definitely my favorite moment in the entire thing, always has been since I was tiny, and it's such a haunting song. I just love it.

The first movie is untouchable levels of gold in my mind because I saw it LONG before I read any of the books. That and the fact that anything Julie Andrews touches turns to gold, duh. I have a soft spot for the second one, though, the 2018 one, because I was fresh out of a VERY long hospital stay, and I was so tired and so skinny and so not-myself that "Lovely London Sky' actually made me cry like, "Oh my God, I can come back to life again." I lost FOURTEEN POUNDS in just over a month, and since I'm tiny anyway, it wasn't pleasant. That was one of my worse hospital stays, I have to admit. So coming out of there and doing something pleasant and normal felt really good, though, yes, it has the same story beats as the first one with a poorer execution. I do get that.

I never got the vibe that the whole Votes for Women thing was mainly played for laughs in the movie. The song at the beginning wasn't particularly comedic (but still pretty catchy) and it was honestly quite nice to see all those sweeps shout "votes for women" and march with her in the step-in-time song. She didn't feel like a characture of the movement since that wasn't all her character was about. Sure it didn't go into the darker parts of the movement but it's Disney. For little me it was actually an introduction to it and felt quite empowering

I agree to all your conclusive final thoughts despite of one: The fact that Angela Lansbury appears in _Mary Poppins Returns_ is not as weird as you put it. There was another British children‘s book (or rather: a two book series) by Mary Norton, titled _The Magic Bedknob_ and _Bonfires and Broomsticks._ When Disney first couldn‘t acquire the rights to _Poppins,_ Disney opted for Norton‘s books instead - but halted production when he got _Poppins_ licensed. However, the adaptation of the two books, titled _Bedknobs and Broomsticks,_ was still made and released in 1971, starring Angela Lansbury in the leading role of Eglantine Price. Granted, Ms. Price is not a nanny but the temporary carer for three orphans evacuated from London during the Blitz. Also, she is not as mystical and inexplicable as Mary Poppins - on the contrary, she openly admits that she tries to learn witchcraft through a correspondence school in order to magically help the British war efforts. It is a wild premise. So, given that both characters are caring for children using magical means, it seems not as outlandish to have Dame Angela provide a cameo in the Poppins sequel - one might even see it as a crossover between the two movies/universes (though an unofficial one). I also agree that a cameo by Dame Julie would have been more appropriate and definitely in character, but I just had to mention this as a small side note…

I remember reading ages ago that the reason Travers was so difficult to work with was that she was friends with and associated with some of the greater English writers of her time and Disney and his crew all acted like they were creative storytelling geniuses because they took children's stories and made moving pictures dance around them while sanitising the story and gutting the messages. They acted like they were doing her a favour turning her book into their movie and she resented it because she would never have let it happen if she wasn't broke and desperate.

That intro was glorious, thank you for making my day.

I'm a die hard animation fan, so yeah, I tend to imagine characters as animated in my head when reading books for the first time. The style is an interesting blend of Disney, Ralph Bakshi, and Don Bluth, usually shifting from one to the other depending on the context and how silly, mature, or surreal the author describes the scene/characcters. I find it helps make the image in my head more unique than imagining the character as a real person or actor.

For the record, I usually imagine animated characters whenever I’m reading a book with animals as the protagonist. They’re just more expressive that way.

Mary Poppins is my favorite film. Full stop. The special effects, the animation, the cast, the songs, everything adding up to the most whimsical movie that makes me grin the entire run time. The soundtrack tells the story on its own, and the pacing is great. Mary Poppins is strict and stern, makes sure the children learn real lessons, ettiquette, etc, but still facilitates those fun situations that make all the strictness worth it. And Julie Andrews portrays her perfectly, prim and proper while knowing how to express the subtle brand of whimsy that the character exudes, especially in her singing voice. Its crazy to think this was her first big screen role, with THE SOUND OF MUSIC being her second. The main lesson being primarily for the father (played fantastically by David Tomlison) makes the message age better and better. Ultimately, I think its the lesson that really speaks to me. The world is tough, being an adult is hard, and that's why its so important to hold on to that child-like wonder...ESPECIALLY when you have children of your own. I think that lesson will always be important, and its delivered in such a fun and wonderful way. This is also one of my Dad's favorite movies, and, upon growing up, it makes perfect sense why. Its meaningful to both of us. Also interesting to note: Feed the Birds was Walt's favorite song, and he would often ask the Sherman brothers to play it; a beautiful simple song about being kind was his favorite song, and that too, has always stuck with me. I think its another situation like the Shining: being an unfaithful adaptation can be worth it if you make one hell of a film. I love thinking about this movie, can you tell? ;)

Now Dom, atleast Julie Andrews got to play a giant psychic squid monster in Aquaman. A movie that came out the same week as Mary Poppins returns

I don’t know, I’m also British and I bloomin’ love Dick Van Dyke’s accent in this picture. It just charms me.

The reason Travers wrote this book is heartbreaking. Her mother was suicidal, and there was nothing she could to to help her distraught and frightened siblings other than try to distract them with stories, and this is the character she created. A handwritten note of hers was discovered in a book she bequeathed. In her life, she was silent on the inspiration, but she left the truth in a note. And it’s just sad. :(

"Has anyone ever imagined animated characters when reading a book for the first time?" The Outsiders is one of my favorite books that I read back in middle school. The first time I read it, I imagined the characters to look just like my favorite anime characters at the time. As though the anime characters were playing as actors for the story in my head. I actually did that with a lot of the books I was forced to read in school that I ended up liking. Around the world in 80 days was played by the cast of Pokemon and the various Yu GI Oh series in my imagination. Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' was portrayed by the characters from Chobbits and Shaman King. I thought that imagining a book in animation as you experience the story for the first time was normal, but now as I'm describing my experiences? Yeah, it does sound really weird.

How the hell am I am Australian and never learned until literally right now that the author was Australian and only moved to the UK at 25?? Edit: unfortunately, the author's casual racism is a pretty unsurprising trait of white Queenslanders of her class and time period...

My English Grandmother loved Mary Poppins a lot and was so happy when my sister did the play in high school, I miss her and wish I could've shown her this video before her passing in November. Thanks Dom for giving me a bit of her back today.

Russian here! That fragment you couldn’t make out is “Вы!” = “vy” = “you” in polite form, like “Sie” in German. Mr. Banks is asking who’s in charge of the house, and the worker agrees that it’s Mr. Banks. Also, that dude with the guitar is Robertson A. (Possibly meant to be Robertson I., but it’s pronounced as “ey”). In this version, he’s kinda Mary Poppins’ love interest, and I think he’s Mrs. Banks’ brother. Anyway, very glad to see the Soviet version being mentioned :)

Fun fact: I only ever imagine animated characters in my mind whenever I read anything. I have a really hard time visualising realistic things even if I’ve seen them before 😂

I love that the movie Saving Mr. Banks was of course made by Disney and portrayed Travers as (eventually) being a huge fan of the film adaptation when in actuality she hated it

If you thought Mary Poppins (the book) was weird you _absolutely_ need to do an episode on Charles Kingsley's horrifying allegorical Christian fever dream, _The Water Babies._ It was adapted rather loosely in 1978 into a animated/live action musical, and then adapted right back again into a book by Michael Robson. Fun fact: Charles Kingsley invented the word 'cuddly'.

I will die on the hill that Julie Andrews should have had a cameo in the reflection of the balloon Mary Poppins gets given at the end. That the reflection goes from Emily Blunt to Julie Andrews, she winks and Blunt winks back

to be fair, mary was pretty gaslighting also in the movie. “a horse race? how dare you i’m a LADY!!!”

Having grown up in the animated age, i imagined all the fantasy parts of "last of the very great wangdoodle" as real life characters in an animated world backdrop

Three years ago I read a fantasy YA series called Throne of Glass, and in my head, it all WAS animated. No realistic humans, it was similar to the art style in the Castlevania Netflix series. Honestly, it's a lot of fun. I did half of the same for the later A Song Of Ice And Fire books.

Angela Lansbury starred in Bedknobs and Broomsticks with David Tomlinson - so there's a strong link there

If Emily Blunt started solving mysteries in a small New England town, I'd watch. Dammit Dom, you just unintentionally pitched a hit show I know will never get made but now I need.

My dad was an animator. There are two kinds of people in animation who knew Walt Disney, those who admitted they despised the man (my dad included), and those afraid to admit they despised him. He was a truly despicable person.

Personally I'm glad they made all those changes in the movie. The book Mary Poppins sounds awful and traumatising, and I can't imagine why would anyone want to see her come back unless they suffer Stockholm Syndrome.

I do actually often picture characters as animated or in a cartoony/illustrated style when I'm reading. Sometimes it'll shift into being more realistic; it really depends on the specific story and what style suits it.

The Mary Poppins books were favorites of mine when I was a child, and I was outraged at all the changes that were made in the film. Eight-year-old me knew what the REAL Mary Poppins was like, and this wasn’t it. PLT was also something of an occultist, and I reread the books during my neopagan phase in my twenties, and appreciated them from that angle.

the person you need is Nanny McPhee!

So Angela Lansbury thing makes sense if you realize that if the creators of My Fair Lady had cast Juile Andrews who was the lead in the stage musical then Mary Poppins would have been played by Angela Lansbury. Another fun fact is that if they couldn't make Mary Poppins they would have done Bedknobs and Broom Sticks during that time.

I often find myself picturing an animated story in my head when I read a book. I think there needs to be more animated adaptations of books and not just of children's books either.

I think Angela Lansbury makes sense as the next best option to Julie Andrews, when you consider that she had the Mary Poppins-es que role in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, which was something of an alternative for Mary Poppins as far as Disney was concerned. They played with it when it looked like they couldn’t to Mary Poppins, and so had it in reserve. It’s not a coincidence they made such a similar film.

Wonder if he will do an episode on Bedknobs and Broomsticks considering that it was the second choice for Disney in case they couldn’t get the rights to Poppins and probably the reason why they had the role in Mary Poppins Returns given to Angela Lansbury when it was obviously made for Julia Andrews. Probably didn’t help that Aquaman was out the same time as the film.

I picture animated events in books quite a lot, but part of that is probably because I am a lifelong cartoonist and spend an incredible amount of time in that headspace as a result.

was once running a tabletop game and had a seriously shitty week (therefore having NO time/energy to prep for that week's session) and basically just wrapped Mary Poppins up in set dressing and vampirism,,,, obviously my players had a great time

Regarding the question at the end of what was changed, Dom- Yes, absolutely. Depending on the book, it is not uncommon in the least for me to picture scenes from books as animated in my head. It often depends on the genre and the cover art. If a work has a particularly cool cover style, I will find myself matching it in my mental images, and those can have a painted aesthetic or a cartoony one or whatever. Sometimes, if a character matches the physical description of another character I know from a cartoon or comic or whatever, I mentally “cast” the character in that role. When I read Mistborn, it was Cassandra Cain from Batman in a mistcloak “playing” Vin the whole time. I’m a big animation sucker, I picture a lot of stuff as animation. Just putting it out there.

I picture animated things when reading because its prettier then real life. and things like talking animals looks natural in such a world while in live action it is scary

I imagine most characters in books as cartoons. I have pretty bad face blindness and mostly watch animated media so it's easier to put characters together in my head if i pick a style for it.

The thing with Angela Lansbury is that, while we know she was meant to be "passing the torch" to Emily Blunt, what they inadvertently did was get ONE magical character from a Disney adaptation to appear in ANOTHER for a sequel. Because in 1971, Angela Lansbury played Ms. Eglantine Price, a "Witch In Training" in the diamond in the rough that was BEDKNOBS & BROOMSTICKS, itself an adaptation of two books titled The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires And Broomsticks by Mary Norton (who is most famous for creating THE BORROWERS). And as an added bonus, David Tomlinson also appears in B&B as Professor Emelius Browne, a Huckster who accidentally created a by-mail program that taught real magic.

24:17 “spit mother-effing SPOT” got me 😂

I’ve got a suggestion for a lost in adaptation episode; the Berlin novels / cabaret. Feel like you’d do a great job with this one. This Mary popping video is a 10/10, love this channel

With Angela Lansbury, it makes sense because he was in the Mary Poppins attempted successor movie bedknobs and broomsticks, which I would love to see a video on if you haven't done it already

omg, I'm so happy you mentioned Soviet version! that's the version (along with the books) that I grew up on and it still holds a soft spot in my heart :D

From what I've heard, Bad Tuesday and Full Moon were originally going to be adapted to the movie, but were left out, even after the Sherman brothers wrote songs for them.