Mary Poppins and the Sports press: Supercalifragilisticoexpialidoso

Jesús Castañón Rodríguez

Dedicated to Julie Andrews

Forty years have passed since the release of Mary Poppins, the magic story lead by Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke that won five Academy Oscars ( Best Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Son, Best Musical Original Score and Best Visual Effects), and was nominated for other eight (Best art direction, Best photography, Best Picture, Best directing, Best writing, Best cinematography, Best sound and Best scoring, adaptation or treatment of music).

It tells the story of Jane and Michael Banks, two brats who constantly switch nannies while their father is too busy with his Bank job and their mother only has time to promote the "Vote to women" campaign. The children write an advertisement asking for a new nanny who has a cheery disposition and is friendly, but their father don´t pay attention to the note, tears up what they had written, and tosses the pieces into the fireplace.

The little pieces are magically bonded together and float- up through the chimney all the way up to the London sky, where Mary Poppins is sitting on a cloud. She reads the advertisement and descends floating down via her opened umbrella, to be hired for the position.

Supercalifragilisticoexpialidoso is the racetrack
From then on, the magic starts, followed by an extraordinary sequence of events filled with emotion and tenderness. The sequence that makes history for the Sports Journalism is the one with the animated characters.

It starts in a park, when the character played by Dick van Dyke makes some sidewalk chalk drawings so the children can pick a story to make it real. Jane chooses to live up a countryside scene, which shows a long road with a bridge leading to unique adventures.

After thinking, winking and double- blinking, they jump into a scene where a strange chimney sweep dances claque with several penguins who are the waiters of an elegant café. Then, they go to a carousel where the horses ride round in circles until the guard changes the control to the opposite direction, as if he were turning around the railroad´s tracks.

The carousel horses break free and get on to a leisurely ride through the countryside until they reach a race course where a Derby is on its way. Mary wins the race after asking two jockeys to leave the way clear for her at the final stage.

Her prize is a bouquet of flowers, and at the award ceremony she states to the press how flattered it is to be the most beautiful winner of that famous race... When interviewed about how such an accomplishment makes her feel, she responds with the magical word that she uses when she does not know what to say. "Supercalifragilisticoexpialidoso".

The animated scene is over and the real characters come back to reality at the park, where a downpour has erased the chalk paving pictures.

From Sports to the Streets
Four decades have passed since that statement to the press at the racetrack, since that magical word emerged from an sporting situation. A word that has never stop expressing the joyful illusion and pleading that go straight to the heart of several children´s generations.

Credits Original title: "Mary Poppins" Country an year: United States of America, 1964. Type: musical. Length: 140 minutes. Director: Robert Stevenson. Script: Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi and P.L. Travers (book). Production: Walt Disney. Original music: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. Photography: Edward Colman. Montage: Cotton Warburton. Artistic management: Carroll Clark and William H. Tuntke. Scenery: Hal Gausman y Emile Kuri. Fashion design: Tony Walton. Sound: Robert O. Cook. Visual effects: Peter Ellenshaw, Hamilton Luske, Eustace Lycett.