The Sherman Brothers
Richard Sherman performs at the 2005 SCL Holiday Dinner.
The SHERMAN BROTHERS currently boast the most successful show ever produced at the London Palladium, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Stage Musical with the show’s New York, Broadway Premiere scheduled for 2004. For the new stage productions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, they wrote all the original songs plus six new songs composed especially for the new production. Recently they were responsible for Disney’s blockbuster film: The Tigger Movie (2000). They wrote what is perhaps their most well loved song: It’s A Small World (After All) for the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Since then, “Small World” has become the most translated and performed song on earth.
The Sherman Brothers won 2 Academy Awards for Mary Poppins, which includes the songs Feed The Birds, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and the Oscar winner, Chim Chim Cher-Ee. The new Cameron Mackintosh production of Mary Poppins: The Stage Musical will make its world premier in 2004 and will feature the Sherman Brothers classic songs as well. Since Mary Poppins’ motion picture premier the Sherman Brothers have subsequently earned 9 Academy Award nominations, 2 Grammy Awards, 4 Grammy Award nominations and an incredible 23 gold and platinum albums.
In 1973, the Sherman Brothers made history by becoming the only Americans ever to win 1st Prize at the Moscow Film Festival for The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer for which they also authored the screenplay. This award is the Russian equivalent to the Oscar.
Their numerous other Disney and Non-Disney top box office film credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, The Parent Trap, Charlotte’s Web, The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, Snoopy Come Home, The Slipper And The Rose, Bedknobs And Broomsticks and Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland. Though produced and distributed by a varied group of film companies, each of these motion pictures shares the luminary status of having made the top ten list in videocassette sales at some point since 1993. Since fall of 1999, five of their films or “Sing Along” videos have achieved Top Ten status in VHS sales alone.
Outside of the motion picture realm, their 1974, Tony nominated smash hit, Over Here! was the biggest grossing original Broadway Musical of that year. They have also written numerous top selling songs including Ringo Starr’s You’re Sixteen and top-ten hits including Annette Funicello’s Tall Paul and Pineapple Princess.
In 2003 four of the Sherman Brothers’ musicals ranked in the Top 10 Favorite Children’s Films of All Time in a (British) nationwide poll reported by the BBC. The Jungle Book ranked at #7, Mary Poppins ranked at #8, The Aristocats ranked at #9 and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang topped the list at #1.