Disney Facts! Volume 2

Facts 811 - 840: Mary Poppins Returns Themed Page

In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP! The job's a game!  

Welcome everyone! It's been a HOT MINUTE since I last updated this. I'm talking like July of last year. Yikes ^^" 

But this year I'm gonna make it an effort to update this and all my other books more often (while not losing my mind with school) and who better to help me not hurt myself in the process than Mary Poppins herself! 

Enjoy these facts about the critically acclaimed sequel~

Fact #811
When the original Mary Poppins was being written, the lead role was offered to Julie Andrews by Walt Disney himself. Andrews told Disney that she was pregnant and couldn't do the movie. Disney wanted Andrews so much that he postponed the production in order to accommodate Andrews' pregnancy. When this movie was announced, the history repeated as Emily Blunt was also pregnant and the movie was postponed to accommodate her pregnancy.

Fact #812
Julie Andrews turned down a proposed cameo appearance as the balloon lady, fearing that it would be too distracting. Julie said, "this is Emily's show, and I really want it to be Emily's show."

Fact #813
Adding on to the previous fact, Quite poetically, the balloon lady part went to Angela Lansbury, who had been considered for the role of 'Mary Poppins' in the original film before Julie Andrews was cast. 

Fact #814
Dick Van Dyke was offered four options for his dance scene, each with a varying degree of difficulty. He insisted on performing the hardest dance routine and refused any help from fellow cast members while filming the scene.

Fact #815
At the age of 93 at the time of the movie's release, Angela Lansbury is the oldest female actor ever to appear in a Disney film. She is just two months older than the oldest male actor in a Disney film, Dick Van Dyke.

Fact #816
Emily Blunt said it was "lovely" to receive Andrews' stamp of approval when she got the role, and actually cried tears of joy when she found out about Andrews' reaction.

Fact #817
It was director Rob Marshall's intention, right from the beginning, to use hand-drawn animation for the film's animation sequences. This was due to his love for hand-drawn animation and also to pay homage to the first film. The Disney executives, on the other hand, initially wanted the film to have computer animation for its animated sequences, which infuriated Marshall. He then fought hard to convince the Disney executives to let him use hand-drawn animation, and he also argued why it would be the right choice to use for the film. Ultimately, the Disney executives gave in and allowed Marshall to use hand-drawn animation for the film.

Fact #818
Mary Poppins Returns was released 54 years after Mary Poppins in 1964, setting a new record as the longest gap between a live-action film and its sequel in history.

Fact #819
 In the scene where Michael Banks is in the attic, there is a box of toy blocks with letters on them. This is both a clear nod to the first Mary Poppins movie in which they feature, and the blocks also subtly spell out 'Poppins'.  

Fact #820
Mr. Dawes begins to tell the Banks children the joke about a "man with a wooden leg named Smith." He stops himself before actually telling it though, and with good reason: in the original film, his father died laughing at the punchline.

Fact #821
At the very end of the film, when Jack rides away on his bike - blink and you will miss it - the original chalk painting from the first movie that Mary Poppins, Michael, and Jane jumped into is on the ground behind Jack's bike.

Fact #822
If you listen carefully much of the background music contains melodies from the original film, including Let's Go Fly A Kite, Fidelity Fiduciary Bank and Spoonful of Sugar.

Fact #823
Emily Blunt dove into P.L. Travers' books, and found out that the character is remarkably different from Walt Disney's vision and Julie Andrews' characterization in the first movie, so Blunt's interpretation will be closer to the books.

Fact #824
Joel Dawson's front baby teeth had fallen out just prior to filming and were growing back in at different rates. He had to wear fake teeth to hide this during a large portion of filming.

Fact #825
This is the very first time since Winnie the Pooh in 2011 that the studio used hand-drawn animation. 

Fact #826
The construction of Topsy's shop lasted 7 months, it is the most complex decoration of the film. Set designer Gordon Sim and his team scoured antique shops and flea markets in England to find objects to incorporate into the decor. A total of 538 were harvested, along with other items designed by the team or otherwise acquired. All these elements were then bolted and fastened to the ceiling of a true reversed decor, which was then returned. 

Fact #827
It took 26 weeks to create the scenery of the abandoned park that houses the biggest number of the film and 18 weeks for the Alley Cherry.

Fact #828
A total of 8 film sets from the Shepperton studios were used.

Fact #829
Although the original setting of the first three Mary Poppins novels was the 1930s, Walt Disney changed this to the turn of the century for Mary Poppins. This film, set roughly twenty-five years after the the first, restores the 1930s setting.

Fact #830
Development on a sequel to Mary Poppins had long been gestating in development hell since the release of the 1964 film. Walt Disney attempted to produce a sequel a year subsequent to the film's release, but was rejected by author P. L. Travers, who had openly dismissed Disney's film adaptation. In the late 1980s, then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg and vice-president of live-action production Martin Kaplan approached Travers with the idea of a sequel set years after the first film, with the Banks children now as adults and an older Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews reprising the role. Travers again rejected the proposed concept with the exception of Andrews' return. The studio shortly abandoned the effort. 

Fact #831
The film's biggest singing and dancing number, "Trip a Little Light Fantastic," took two weeks to film, sometimes with up to 50 dancers on screen at the same time. The exteriors of this eight-minute sequence were filmed at Middle Temple in London to enjoy its cobbled streets, arcades, and famous passages. The stage set consisted of five different levels, including a three-story fountain, a bridge, a greenhouse, and 25 hybrid electric and gas streetlights.

Fact #832
The final title card during the opening sequence is a chalk painting which shows the opening scene from the original Mary Poppins film. 

Fact #833
A fan petition was made to get Michael Rooker to cameo in the movie, after his role as Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2  had him imitating Mary Poppins.

Fact #834
The working title, "Mary Poppins Returns," is also the reference to the title of the second Mary Poppins book, "Mary Poppins Comes Back," released in 1935. 

Fact #835
In the Banks children's nursery, there are pictures of people and dandelions just above the fireplace. This is likely an homage to the fourth book in the Mary Poppins series called Mary Poppins in the Park, where the flying nanny and the Banks children have a tea party with people who live beneath the dandelions. 

Fact #836
This is Disney's first live-action/traditional animated hybrid film since 2007.  

Fact #837
Cate Blanchett was rumored to play Mary Poppins before Emily Blunt was cast.

Fact #838
Of the 448 original costumes made for the film, Topsy, Mary Poppins' capricious cousin, took the most time out of the costume department: eight people spent five weeks printing and hand painting the design on the front fabric to make six identical versions.

Fact #839
In homage to Dick Van Dyke's notoriously bad cockney accent, Lin Manuel speaks in a ridiculously bad Cockney accent.

Fact #840
The majority of the cockney rhyming slang used was entirely invented for the movie and not real slang.  

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Hope you guys enjoyed these facts as much as I did! Have a magical day!