from 2007
RICHARD SHERMAN
talks about his work on Disney park attractions
including "It's a Small World" & "Meet the World"

by Scott Wolf

From the time I was a kid I was a fan of the Sherman brothers. Their names appeared as the songwriters on my "Carousel of Progress" and "Enchanted Tiki Room" 45rpm records. Then I saw their name on my "Winnie the Pooh" record, and on and on.

If you think Richard is a great songwriter, he's just as great an entertainer. He's a natural onstage, he has a knack at captivating an audience, me included, with his charm, anecdotes, and singing.

As I kid I never thought I'd have the chance to know Richard M. & Robert B. Sherman. I cherish my days sitting in Bob's living room, hearing stories and I'm forever grateful for the opportunities to actually interview Richard. It delights me to share our conversations with you.

Scott Wolf: How did you get involved in writing for the attractions?

Richard M. Sherman: Well, Bob and I were the staff writers and Walt always felt that songs and music would enhance and improve and explain a lot of things.

Our very first job was we were asked to come and see this new thing they had called Audio Animatronics. We saw a little jungle room all put together and there were tiki torches chanting and there were flowers opening up and singing and birds were singing. It was the most amazing thing but nobody knew what it was, so Walt said to us, “Write me a song that explains what this is all about.” So we wrote “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” which explains “all the birds sing words and the flowers croon, in the Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Tiki Room” with all the verses explaining what they were. That was our first Audio Animatronics assignment.

After that we did "Carousel of Progress." They needed a song that could be transformed from early ragtime into swing, in different eras so when the “carousel” theatre moved from one time period to another the music, although the same song, would change in style. That was a challenge for us but we did it and it became “(There’s a) Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” the theme song.

SW: And it was written for the 1964-65 World’s Fair…

RS: It was originally written for the World’s Fair and then it stayed at Disneyland for a long time (before being moved to Walt Disney World). In the early '70s the personnel at GE changed and somebody said they didn’t want to talk about tomorrow, they wanted to talk about today, so we wrote a song “Now is the best time of your life…” That was the theme song for about ten years for "Carousel of Progress" but now they reverted back to the original, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” which was Walt’s idea. He wanted to write about the fact that man is always coming up with new things and tomorrow is going to be even better than today. That was what his philosophy was.

SW: And what about “It’s a Small World?”

RS: That again was one of those things where we were troubleshooters. They had a concept, each one of those groups of Audio Animatronic dolls would be singing the national anthems of their various countries. That was the concept. On paper it’s brilliant, but in actuality it was horrendous. You couldn’t understand a word of anybody because it all blended together. So we were called down and heard this mess, and Walt said, “You’re going to write me a simple song about the small children of the world and they’re the hope for the future. That’s the story… that’s the idea.

So we came up with, “It’s a Small World After All” and that became our most famous song actually. It’s sung in every language in the world now, I’m told.

SW: I know how to sing it in Japanese so I’m proud of that. (I laugh)

RS: Sing it for me… (I do) How did you learn that?

SW: I wanted to learn it and my friend who is Japanese wrote it out for me phonetically so I could learn it.

RS: That’s great, that’s interesting.

SW: In fact when I was visiting him in Japan, I got to see “Meet the World” which I wanted to ask you about.

(“Meet the World” was a carousel-type theatre where the center stage rotated rather than the audience rotating around it. It told the story of Japan and between each scene would be the Sherman’s “Meet the World” song.)

RS: It was an assignment, it was in the 80s I think. They wanted to have a theme song, much like the feeling that we had in “Small World” but a Japanese flavored song that would tell the story of how Japan mythically arose out of the sea… that’s the legend that they have, but to tell the story was a great study in history for us. We had to really bone up on what it was all about, and then we set it to music and it became that song “Meet the World.” “Born of the great mother sea, the outside world was a dark mystery…”

The trick was we said, “We meet the world with love.” It was just the idea that they went forth and they made friends, and we left World War II out of it.

SW: That’s true, isn't it?

RS: You’re supposed to laugh uproariously at that but you’re too young to realize how ironic that line is. They blew up our entire fleet in Pearl Harbor. We left it out. A long time, we thought, “How do you handle the war?” We said we’re just going to go into a black and then we’d just come up after the war. We never mentioned it.

SW: That is truly amazing.

RS: You have to use a little finesse at times.

SW: I guess so.

NOTE FROM SCOTT:
Here are some of the English lyrics. The song was written in English and then translated into Japanese.

Born of the great mother sea
The outside world was a dark mystery.
We lived on our islands alone,
‘til our first great sailors explored the unknown.

CHORUS:
Reaching out, friendly hands,
To meet the world around us
Friendly people of Japan,
We meet the world with love.
We meet the world with love,
We meet the world with love,
Reaching out, friendly hands,
We meet the world with love.

These are the original English lyrics which were never heard in the show, as they had been translated to Japanese.)

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.