I had a Mary Poppins meets the Beatles moment last week when I woke up, fell out of bed and heard a ridiculous song in my head.
I mixed the melody and a couple of lyrics from the “Mary Poppins” song “Chim Chim Cher-ee” with an “I Am The Walrus” line from the Beatles album “Magical Mystery Tour.”
Chim chimney
Chim chimney
Chim chim cher-oo!
I Am The Walrus
Coo coo ca choo, I figured this goofy story, in which the lead defers to the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” would make me known as the first person to associate the Julie Andrews-Dick Van Dyke film with John, Paul, George and Ringo.
But after a Google search, I learned many other people have their own Mary Poppins meets the Beatles moments. My favorites among those moments.
A 2014 post from Beatleness.com celebrates the 50th anniversaries of both “Mary Poppins” and the Beatles’ first film, “A Hard Day’s Night.”
The piece has the headline “At The Movies With The Beatles & Mary Poppins: Summer ’64,” and its best paragraph describes the times.
“Because the Beatles had infected young America with a raging case of Anglophilia, the Victorian England depicted in ‘Mary Poppins’ seemed somehow connected to the Fab Four. Mr. Banks almost looked like an older Paul McCartney! Not to mention Rob Petrie, putting on an English accent, just like young Beatle fans.”
McSweeney’s satirized the movies with this line in a 2009 post: “During the band’s performance of ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ a silhouette of Mary Poppins can be seen briefly on Ringo’s drum kit; the Disney movie opened the same month as the Beatles’ film.”
A Beatles fan on Pinterest also references Poppins.
What’s the deal with umbrellas?
Poppins flies across London rooftops with her magical umbrella. The Beatles’ umbrellas weren’t magical. They were props for a photo shoot for the “Beatles ’65” album cover.
A “Mary Poppins” remake starring Emily Blunt is scheduled for a Christmas 2018 release, perhaps a supercalifragilistic time for Mary to meet the Beatles again with a new mashup: “Your Mother Should Know A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down.”
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