This is a Mary Poppins reunion of sorts. It comes from 2004 when Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and composer, Richard Sherman got together to reminisce about the film and sing some of the songs. There's even a small snippet of a song not used in the movie. One quibble. Richard Sherman tells a story about how he and his lyricist brother Robert came up with the word of “Super-cali-fragjil-istic-expial-idocioius.” And it's not true. It may be something that after 50 years he thinks is true. But it's not true. And I know it's not true because I not only recall hearing a near-identical word several years before the movie was released in 1964, but the story became part of family lore. And making it more fun, it tangentially relates to the oft-mentioned here Nell Minow. Not directly, though. It actually involves Nell's husband -- attorney and art historian David Apatoff, who among his many talents is also the art critic of the Saturday Evening Post.. David and I grew up together, just a couple of blocks from one another in Glencoe, Illinois, about 40 minutes north of Chicago. (I note this to make clear we were nowhere near Hollywood, where the Sherman Brothers lived and worked.) In fact, I not only knew David before I met Nell (though I met her at a fairly young age because our parents were friends, and my dad was even her father's doctor)...but I'm pretty certain that I met David before Nell did, since I think David and I knew each other from when were were about five years old and went to grade school together. I believe that Nell and David met in junior high -- and have been together pretty much since. Now, that's a love story. Anyway, one year when young -- still a few years from Mary Poppins hitting the theaters -- David taught me a funny word he'd learned, as kids tend to do. The word was "super-cadge-a-fradge-ilistic-expia-lodge-idocious." (Not exactly the same as the word used in Mary Poppins, but clearly almost identical.) It was a fun word that I'd toss into conversation around the house every once in a while. And when two or three years later when the movie of Mary Poppins was released, with its wonderful score -- I thought it was pretty cool to hear "that" word as the song, “Super-cali-fragjil-istic-expial-idocioius” which became wildly popular. And my older brother John would always refer to it as "David Apatoff's word." And did so for decades after. So, whatever Richard Sherman's memory of coming up with the word was -- it's just not conceivable that he thought of it two or three years earlier to use in a song that wouldn't be released for several years and it somehow made its way to Glencoe, Illinois. More likely, it was just one of those "kid's words," not unlike slang, that got passed around the country as part of the zeitgeist, and Sherman or his brother heard it from their children. But I just wanted to clarify a story that, if anyone deserves credit for the word, it's not the Sherman Brothers but David Apatoff. And even since he never claimed coming up with it himself and heard it from someone else, possession is nine-tenths of the law, so I'm giving him squatter's rights... By the way, I don't know how carefully he used it word, or if, in fact, it changed his life. But I suspect once he said it to his girl, and now Nell is his wife. Photo credit: Mike Morgan All that one story aside, the rest of it is a very fun video.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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