Sherman, Richard M., and Robert B. (1928-2024 & 1925-2012) Songwriters; known primarily for their Disney work, they first wrote pop songs for Annette Funicello, starting with “Tall Paul.” The record sold 700,000 singles. Later they wrote songs for Disney films, such as The Parent Trap, Summer Magic, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, That Darn Cat!, The Jungle Book ,The Aristocats, Mary Poppins, The Happiest Millionaire, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and The Tigger Movie, as well as for numerous TV shows. Their songs for Mary Poppins earned them two Academy Awards, for Best Score and Best Song, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” In all, they wrote over 200 songs featured in 27 films and two dozen TV productions and received nine Academy Award nominations. Some of their most popular songs include "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "I Wan'na Be Like You," and "Winnie the Pooh." Probably their best-known song was not for a film at all, but for a Disney attraction at the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair: "it's a small world." Also for the fair, they wrote "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" for the G.E. Carousel of Progress. They came back to write songs for EPCOT Center in 1982 and Tomorrowland at Disneyland in 1998. They were named Disney Legends in 1990. In 1992, Disney Records released a special retrospective collection on CD entitled The Sherman Brothers: Walt Disney’s Supercalifragilistic Songwriting Team, followed by The Sherman Brothers Songbook in 2009. They received the National Medal of Arts—the highest award bestowed upon artists by the U.S. government— from President George W. Bush in 2008. A documentary, The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, was released in 2009. They were portrayed in Saving Mr. Banks, for which Richard served as consultant. In 2015, a special about Richard’s life, Richard M. Sherman: Songs of a Lifetime, aired on PBS SoCal. He contributed the song “A Kiss Goodnight” for the Disneyland 60th anniversary celebration, also writing a 2017 book from Disney Editions of the same title. He wrote new lyrics for The Jungle Book (2016) and songs for Christopher Robin, also making a cameo in the film’s end credits. The Sherman brothers’ father, Al Sherman, was a Tin Pan Alley songwriter who penned such Depression-era songs as “You Gotta Be a Football Hero” and “Potatoes Are Cheaper, Tomatoes Are Cheaper, Now’s the Time to Fall in Love” (a song the brothers later referenced in one of their compositions for the featurette A Symposium on Popular Songs).
