That same year, the brothers formed an alliance with two educational film producers, Ira Englander and Barry Taper. The score they wrote is classic Sherman Brothers, filled with their trademark hummable tunes and wordplay.

Happily they’d made a demo of their song score, orchestrated by Don Ralke, sung by the Don Ralke singers and guest singer Fred Darian. They wrote a delightful score, but then Warners was purchased by the Kinney conglomerate and the project was cancelled. hired producer Mervyn LeRoy to make a film of it, and the Sherman Brothers were to write the score, having just come off their first film away from Disney, Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. In 1950, the great cartoonist/humorist James Thurber published his fantasy story, The 13 Clocks, a tale about a prince who must perform a seemingly impossible task, to rescue a maiden from an evil duke. But now Kritzerland is proud to bring these three song scores to you for the very first time! And these projects were heartbreakers for “the boys” (as Walt Disney called them), three that got away.

So, it’s hard to imagine that starting in 1969 three exciting new Sherman Brothers projects were all cancelled, one after another. Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere release of three never-before-heard Sherman Brothers song scores:īy the late 1960s, the songwriting team known as the Sherman Brothers was already legendary thanks to Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and any number of other Disney classics, not to mention their Disneyland anthem, “It’s a Small World.” And, of course, there was Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, with its fantastical song score. The 13 Clocks may not be to every modern child's taste, but for those who enjoy a bit of clever humor and verbal playfulness, it will be a treat.UNSUNG SHERMAN BROTHERS (Song scores from Three that Got Away) But whatever it is, it has enabled them to stand the test of time. Perhaps it's their combination of verbal sophistication and quirky humor, perhaps just the oddly skewed view of the world that working at Ross' magazine might entail. White wrote children's books that are just different from anything else in the field.

Thurber, and his New Yorker contemporary E.B. The high level of vocabulary and clever use of language make this work better as a read-aloud than a read-alone for elementary-age kids, an experience adults will enjoy as much as their children. The New York Review of Books, as part of the estimable 'Children's Collection' of reprints of forgotten classics, brings a treasure back to life with their hardcover reproduction of the original edition of THE 13 CLOCKS, with illustrations by Marc Simont and a new foreword by Neil Gaiman. This tongue-in-cheek fairy tale is simply loaded with wit and wordplay, sophisticated enough to keep adults engaged while children enjoy the story.

The 13 clocks