The following contains minor spoilers for Disney's Christopher Robin.
Christopher Robin is the latest movie to bring a Disney classic into the world of live-action. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and all the rest come to life in a film that acts as a sort of sequel to the animated Disney version that many of us remember as children. The new movie also honors those films by including a very special moment during the credits where one of the men who helped bring the animated Winnie the Pooh to life, Richard M. Sherman, makes an appearance.
Christopher Robin ends with the titular character, played by Ewan McGregor, saving his job, and those of many others, by convincing his bosses at the luggage company that average working people should be given paid vacations, so they'll have a need to purchase luggage. The scene that plays out during the credits shows various characters from the movie enjoying just such a holiday at the beach, but what's important is less what you see, and more what you hear. An uptempo tune is playing that's all about the joy one can find in doing nothing. It's called "Busy Doing Nothing" and the serious Disney fans may recognize the voice singing the song. It gets even better near the end of the song when we see the man singing it. He's an older gentleman dressed in period swimwear and playing a piano on the beach. His name is Richard M. Sherman and if you love classic Disney music you owe him -- and his brother Robert -- pretty much everything.
The Sherman Brothers are responsible for the vast majority of music that you think of when you think of the mere concept of Disney music. The Richard Sherman appearance in Christopher Robin makes sense because the Sherman Brothers scored the old Winnie the Pooh cartoons and wrote the "Winnie the Pooh" theme that gets added into the score of the new film at a few points. They also wrote "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers" which Tigger does take a moment to sing in the movie as well.
But they did so much more than that. If you saw Saving Mr. Banks then you saw the brothers (portrayed by B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman) wrote all the music for Mary Poppins, for which they won Oscars. However, they also wrote music for The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Sword in the Stone as well as other live-action Disney movies like The Parent Trap and Bednobs and Broomsticks. They were also responsible for a lot of the music you still hear in the Disney theme parks today like the songs in The Enchanted Tiki Room and the theme to World of Color at Disneyland (originally written for the Disney TV show of the same name). They're also responsible for writing "It's a Small World" so now you know who to blame when that one gets stuck in your head.
Unfortunately, Richard Sherman had to make his Christopher Robin appearance alone, as his brother Robert passed away in 2012.
If you continue to sit through the credits of the film, you'll hear Richard M. Sherman sing again, this time a song simply titled "Christopher Robin" sung from the perspective of Winnie the Pooh.
It was a real treat to see Richard M. Sherman make an appearance in this final scene of Christopher Robin. The Sherman Brothers were as much a part of the creation of that classic Disney magic as was Walt Disney himself. It's great to see them get another great moment in the sun after all these years.
