Museum Home
Main Collection
Special Exhibits
Film Theater


Family & Friends

Interview with Richard and Robert Sherman

Any fan of Walt Disney's later television shows, films and attractions at Disneyland is familiar with the music of the songwriting team, Richard and Robert Sherman. Actually, any human being who hasn't been hiding under their bed for the last forty years is probably familiar with a reasonable number of their songs.

Their body of work created during Walt's lifetime, includes the scores for Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, The Sword in the Stone, the theme song from the Wonderful World of Color, It's a Small World, There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow from the Carousel of Progress and far more. And, in the years after Walt's death, these remarkable musical craftsmen continued to churn out a series and seemingly impossible quantity of memorable songs for the Disney Studio and others.

The brother's incredible talent is matched by their gentle, fun-loving, caring personalities. Both were interviewed for the upcoming documentary "Walt, the Man Behind the Myth." Their abiding affection for Walt was supremely evident every moment they were on the set. In fact, they conveyed a rather extraordinary feeling that they particularly enjoyed talking about Walt, as that was a way to keep his spirit and memory alive and with them.

Following are brief excerpts from both interviews. Elsewhere on the Walt Disney Family Museum this month is an excerpt from a book about their work called "Walt's Time." You can purchase a copy of this book either by clicking on the appropriate place at the end of that excerpt or by visiting the Museum Gift Shop.


Q. How did you first meet Walt Disney?

A. "Well, we'd been given this assignment to do a song for Annette Funicello to sing in 'The Horse Masters.' We wrote a little song called, the 'Strumming Song' and we brought it up to the Studio. We played the song for Jimmy Johnson who ran the music department over there, the music company.

He said, "That's great. Now we gotta play it for Walt." And we said, "Walt who?" Because we couldn't believe that we'd actually be playing it for Walt Disney. He says, "Oh Walt, he hears everything." And so we were rather upset about that and a little nervous.

Jimmy said, "Don't ever call him Mr. Disney, he doesn't like it. Call him Walt." So we said, "We can't call him Walt, I mean he's Walt Disney, I mean he's the man we see on Sunday nights on the television shows." He says, "He likes to be called Walt." So we got up there and the first thing we said when we met him was, "How do you do Mr. Disney?"

And he said, "Are you guys really brothers?" And we said, "Well yes we are." He said, "You know, in vaudeville, a lot of them aren't brothers. We did brother acts and we just called ourselves brothers but we weren't." And he started telling us about his vaudeville days. And we felt very sort of comfortable. He sort of made us at ease. He says, "Well now, let me tell you about this movie."

And he started launching into a big description of a picture that became 'The Parent Trap.' He talked about these two sisters that meet in a summer camp. And we were dying. We actually were terrified. We said, "Here is this icon." We'd never met this man before, this wonderful man, and he's telling us about the wrong movie. So my brother, who is extremely brave, said, "Mr. Disney," again, Mr. Disney, "we came with a song for Annette Funicello to sing in The Horse Masters." He says, "Well what are you letting me go on like this for?" And he got sort of peeved. I think he was peeved at himself. And so we followed him into another room, there was a second room where a piano was and this piano was facing the wall. If you're a musician, you don't like to sing to a wall when the person who is listening to the song is behind you. That's what I had to do. So I arched my neck to sing to him. It was terrible. I sang 'Strumming Song,' for the first time, for the great man. He didn't look at me when it was through. He just looked at Jimmy Johnson who was there turning purple the whole time because he didn't know what to make of it. Then Walt said, "Yeah that'll work. And since I wasted all this time on this other picture, why don't you give them a script and see if they can come up with a title for it. I don't like the title."

It was called 'We Belong Together,' that was their working title. We left the room saying, "Goodbye Mr. Disney." Again, thinking that it was kind of a disaster and Jimmy Johnson said, "That was great, you guys, you don't realize he accepted the song."

We say, "What?" Jimmy said, "Well he said, 'That'll work.' That's a big compliment." We didn't realize that was the best compliment Walt ever paid anybody. If he said, "That'll work." But at the time it was kind of like weird, after all this dreaming and hoping and scheming to eventually write something for a movie, all he said was 'That'll work.'"

Back to top

Q. If Walt liked something, he'd say, 'That'll work.' But what if he didn't like it?

A. "He'd always say, "My song is" and he'd go off into another tangent. He would give you a direction. He wouldn't just say, "I don't like it" or something like that. It was always guidance, particularly when we came on staff."

Back to top

Q. Can you tell me about being on the same wavelength with Walt?

A. "He'd just say a few words to us and we knew what he was saying. It was like he didn't have to go into great detail with us. It sounds egocentric to say this but I think we were kindred spirits. I think we felt the same way about life. He was a super genius. But he still felt about people and about life the way Bob and I feel about them. And we felt the answers were simple. I think we had a same spiritual wavelength. I can't explain it more than that. I don't want to call it magic. It was a spiritual wavelength. I have a great feeling that sort of destiny brought us together, like it was meant to be that we worked for Walt Disney."

Back to top

Q. When you say the same attitude about life, what would that be?

A. "People. About people. We like people, we think most people, most of them are wonderful. And very good, kind, thoughtful and are aiming in the right directions. A few of them are kind of discontents, malcontents. Walt used to say, 'Eighty five or ninety per cent of the people I know are from families and the rest I don't know.'"

Back to top

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like being in story meetings with Walt?

A. "Oh they were great. First of all, story meetings were kind of a culmination of weeks and weeks, sometimes months of work, to get all the storyboards together and the music together and the lyrics and everything. And then you're waiting for the boss to come. You usually would hear him coming because he'd be coughing while coming down the hall. And you'd say, "Here he comes now." And everybody would be braced for him. He'd come in but the minute he'd sit down he'd say, "Well what you got?" He was one of the guys. He just was one of the people. He would sit there looking at things and intensely listening to it. And then he would "plus" things. Every once in a while, Walt would get up and he'd go into a story board. He'd turn the picture down and he'd say, "No this doesn't work, but if you put this one over here," and he'd switch things around and make it work better and he'd "plus" it and "plus" it, inspiring everybody. I mean it was really an amazing thing and there was always somebody in the back taking notes because he'd talk very fast. You'd have to really listen to what he was saying. But Walt's sense of showmanship, his sense of keeping the interest going and the storyline going, were incredible.

He was an inspiration to everyone. When he walked out everyone was exhausted. He'd always walk out and people were going "Aaaah!" But by the same token, they were all inspired; itching to get to work and making changes and making it better.

Back to top


Q. Let's talk about Mary Poppins. Walt had given you a copy of the book to look over and then what happened?

A. "Dick and I chose six chapters in the book and after two weeks, we came in with our ideas. We said to him, "There's six chapters that might work." And he smiled and he leaned back and he got his copy. We showed him our copy with the chapters circled and he had the same six chapters. It was just amazing. It was a wonderful feeling."

Back to top

Q. You and your brother have talked about how Walt would always make ideas better. Can you give me an example from Mary Poppins?

A. "Well, for instance, in the Jolly Holiday sequence, he had waiters coming out with the tea and cakes. Walt said, "Wait a minute. I always thought that waiters looked like penguins. Why don't we have a whole bunch of penguins being the waiters?" And we said, "Yeah but how do you train penguins?" "We'll animate it." It was just a whole new way of thinking. And he did. He had them animated and it was amazing."

Back to top

Q. After you wrote "It's a Small World," you and your brother were inclined to donate the proceeds to UNICEF. Is that correct?

A. "We were going back to the Studio from WED. I said, "Look Walt, since this is for UNICEF, why don't Dick and I donate all our royalties on this song to UNICEF?" He stopped his car in the middle of the freeway. He turned around and he said, "I don't want to hear about any more of this. The song is going to send your kids through college. They are getting enough money. We're giving them a good rate and free records and everything. Don't ever let me hear you say that again." And 'It's A Small World' was one of our biggest copyrights."

Back to top

Q. Was Walt very musical himself?

A. "Oh yeah. He was not a musician. He couldn't write it. He couldn't sing very well but he knew what he wanted. Once, they were doing a picture called Bon Voyage and Walt was on a trip somewhere. Dick and I wrote a lilting French love song for the picture and everybody said "this is a great song." Walt got back, he called us up and he said, "I hear you wrote a great song for me." That was the kiss of death. Anyway, we went into his office and we played it for him and when Walt didn't like something, he had a habit of banging on the arm of his chair very arrhythmically, or taking his glasses and clicking them together. When Dick was through singing he said, "Yeah, well my song is 'California, here I come!' only French." And we knew what he meant."

Back to top

Q. Please tell the story about the song "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins.

A. "He thought that would kind of be the greatest thing since Brahm's Lullaby. And he loved it. Fridays and Saturdays after work, we would come down to Walt's office and we'd talk a while. He'd look through the north window and he'd say, "Play it." And we knew what he meant. After Dick sang it and played it, he'd say, "Yeah, that's a great song, great song." And that was all he'd say."

Back to top

 


Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.
© Disney. All rights reserved.