Warner’s Safe Cure: Mary Poppins?!

The thing I like most about doing this blog is that you find out things you would never have discovered on your own. Point in fact, did you know that when Julie Andrews was cavorting about the set as Mary Poppins singing about “a spoonful of sugar,” the medicine she was talking about was Warner’s Safe Cure. That’s right. The credit for this one goes to Kevin Taft whose eagle eyes picked out the fact that Mary was pouring medicine out of a Safe Cure bottle. Kevin was watching the movie with his kids and says he sprung out of his chair when he saw the bottle.

When Kevin first raised this, I immediately tried to find a clip on You Tube, but unfortunately, the clips all start when Mary begins her song rather than a few seconds earlier when she is dispensing the medicine. Not to be deterred, Kevin took a screen shot and, while the picture is a bit hard to see, I think he nailed it. Here it is:

I’m with Kevin, although Mary’s hand obscures much of the bottle, the shape, right down to the lip, is unmistakeable. And, since Mary Poppins is set in London, we are left to wonder if this was a London bottle, but the lip is right.

I think the more interesting question is how did a Warner’s Safe Cure end up on the set of a Walt Disney movie made in 1964. The movie is set in London in 1910, so it is well within the existence of the London Office, which survived into the 1930’s. So the use of the prop is time appropriate. It’s anyone’s guess how it ended up on the set, but it was a great selection. Given the ingredients of Warner’s Safe Cure, it probably helped the cast dance with the animated characters.

In case, you can’t recall how the song goes, he it is [Warning: there is a distinct probability that this song will get stuck in your head]: