The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, contrary to what its advertising campaign would have you believe, is significantly more than an paean to the Magic of Disney—it’s an instructive example of how art can be created under tumultuous circumstances. And the multi-decade collaboration between two personable but behaviorally incompatible brothers, Robert B. (a romantic) and Richard M. Sherman (a sentimentalist), saw its fair share of tumult. Immensely popular in their day, the Shermans were the only fulltime songwriters at Disney throughout the ‘60s, scoring such cherishables as Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Jungle Book, The Sword in the Stone, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Though the issue isn’t pressed as far as you’d like, various divergent tensions led to the brothers disbanding and leading separate lives for a number of years, even keeping their respective families secreted from each other.

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