The Sherman Brothers documentary "The Boys" from 2009

Walt Disney1955

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Forgive me for never seeing this until now. But I just saw it and thought it was well done. This is done 3 years before Robert died. Richard as we know is still kicking around to this day. Robert looked very old in this documentary, but I still enjoyed his perspective. These guys have their fingerprints all over people's childhood memories with Disney parks/movies music. Stuff some people don't even realize they wrote. I often wondered how it worked with two brothers doing all of that work and you got a good viewpoint from their lens.

The brothers weren't particularly close outside of work. Their children never really saw each other, they didn't get together for family events but just rather business events. It does seem to elude to the reason being that the wives may have butted heads. They don't delve into it as much as I thought they would, I guess they had their reasons for not being close to one another and seemed to keep a lot of that private.

You could still see - 43 years later - the love they had for Walt. They still talked about his death like it was yesterday. Anyway, great documentary, what are your thoughts on it, or just the Sherman Bros. personally?
 

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
The brothers were very creative and were probably one of the few components of Disney that Walt gave mostly free rein. Walt rarely interfered in what they did and had negative criticism over what was turned out. Their songs were masterpieces that helped build the Disney brand. He knew they were best left to their work and consistently put out quality compositions. Their connection to Walt was positive and that’s why you never hear any negative Walt comments from them. They were like Walt and Roy, a perfect working team that functioned well together. Neither one was as good alone and a powerhouse together that couldn’t be beat. Walt was fortunate to have found them and held onto them.
 

Heppenheimer

Well-Known Member
I saw it a few years ago. Very well done.

You can see what kind of relationship they had with Walt that Richard still can't suppress the tears nearly 50 years later when he talks about the day Walt died.
 

ppete1975

Well-Known Member
Forget all of the movies and just focusing on the theme parks (which is ignoring a ton of things that when you think Disney is actually their music).
They have the same impact on the parks as Bob Gurr, Mary Blair, Rolly Cromp, among others. Someone else could have done their job, but the feeling you get at the Disney parks and what we call nostalgia is mostly their touches that feel timeless and full of love.

Remove the sherman bros music, and what you think of as Disney for movies and theme parks, changes drastically.
 

Eric Graham

Well-Known Member
I have really enjoyed a lot of their music. It was funny to me in the movie Saving Mr. Banks how close the Sherman brothers' relationships were in the development of Mary Poppins. One of my favorite Disney movies BTW. Then, only to find how far apart the brothers were in real life. I also really enjoyed watching the PBS documentary about Walt Disney a number of years ago. It was really good.
 

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