Mary Poppins (character) Mary Poppins (character) Mary Poppins is a fictional character and the eponymous protagonist of P. L. Travers's "Mary Poppins" books and all of their adaptations. A magical English nanny, she blows in on the East Wind and arrives at the Banks home at Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, London, where she is given charge of the Banks children and teaches them valuable lessons with a magical touch. Travers gives Poppins the accent and vocabulary of a real London nanny: cockney base notes overlaid with a strangled gentility. Julie Andrews, who played the character in the 1964 film adaptation, won the
Think of the children According to Kathryn Laity, early use of the phrase may have stemmed from its appearance in the 1964 Walt Disney Pictures film "Mary Poppins". In an opening scene, the character of Mrs. Banks pleads with her nanny not to quit by begging her to "think of the children!". Laity wrote that the popular use of the phrase evokes strong feelings in those who object to a nanny state, pointing out the conflict in the United States between the country's conservatism (derived from the Puritans) and its desire to use sex in advertising. It was also used in John Huston's 1982