Treguna Mekoides...

Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee Utterly charming but one of the less celebrated Disney films is Bedknobs and Broomsticks starring Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson. Begun before it's closest resembling Disney picture, it was completed and released seven years after Mary Poppins.

Also directed by Robert Stevenson, Bedknobs and Broomsticks began as a benchwarmer for Mary Poppins. Some time in 1963, negotiations to acquire Mary Poppins was apparently going sour with author P.L. Travers. Anticipating that the deal might fall through on Mary Poppins, Walt Disney retained rights to "The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks" by Mary Morton as a contingency project.

Work on Bedknobs actually began before Mary Poppins but was nudged aside when rights were acquired for Mary Poppins. Sharing much of the same production team, there is no shortage of resemblance between the two films, including music.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks was given the same pomp and promotion when it debuted in in England October of 1971 that Mary Poppins got in 1964. Much of the 139 minute film was cut in order to meet running time requirements of Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks won an Oscar in 1972 for best special effects but was also nominated for best art direction, best costume design, best score and best original song. The Sherman brothers, who wrote the music for both Mary Poppins and Bedknobs, are responsible for penning some of Disney's most familiar and memorable songs. Bet you know every word to "It's a Small World" and while you may not remember all the lyrics, you can hum "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Winnie the Pooh", can't cha?

Why then, is Bedknobs and Broomsticks not as beloved as Mary Poppins? While the story, performances, and production values equal or exceed Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks falls short with the music. Music is obviously a foundation of any animated musical. Miss the mark on the music and the film suffers. There's nothing wrong the songs and score of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They were, after all, nominated for Academy Awards. It's just that the audiences had already heard it all before.

"Bottom of the Beautiful Briney Sea" was actually a song that never made it into Mary Poppins, so the Sherman brothers resurrected it for Bedknobs when, after they'd already left Disney, they got the call to come back and finish work on Bedknobs and Broomsticks. "The Age of Not Believing" was the Sherman brothers song nominated for an Academy Award for best original song, but other Bedknobs songs bear striking resemblance to songs that the Shermans wrote for Mary Poppins.

"Substitutiary Locomotion" sounds suspiciously like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Portabello Road" feels like a pepped up version of "Feed the Birds". "A Step in the Right Direction" (which was one of the songs cut to shorten the film) is very much like "A Spoon Full of Sugar". Good stuff. But, kids didn't walk around singing "Substitutiary Locomotion" the way they did "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", "The Bare Necessities", and "Hakuna Matata". It just wasn't unique enough.

Since composition of the Bedknobs and Broomsticks music began before Mary Poppins, only the Sherman brothers know how many of the ideas for Bedknobs made it into Mary Poppins and how many of the songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks are spinoffs. Maybe the Shermans were having an off year. But, it doesn't matter. The music didn't really hit it off with audiences. Shame, too, because the picture is charming and despite the unimaginative music, it is one of my favorites.

So what is Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee? It's a spell recited in the film to make objects take on a life of their own. The irony here is that while Bednobs and Broomsticks recites that spell over and over in the film, it failed to do what all great films do... take on a life of its own.