Mary Poppins (character) of the stage musical, the Mary Poppins character is more deliberately mysterious than in the movie version. She is slightly stricter with the children (who are also naughtier than their book and movie counterparts) but only because she wants them to become the best they can be. Mary in the stage version is also more aware of Bert's feelings towards her. Mary Poppins first appeared in the short story "Mary Poppins and the Match Man" in 1926, and in several early bits and pieces of the first novel. P.L. Travers later changed the story of the character's origins, stating that
Mary Poppins (character) the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, a group of over thirty Mary Poppins with umbrellas descended en masse to fight and defeat the nightmares (which consisted of the villains Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, Cruella de Vil, and Lord Voldemort) that were haunting children's dreams. The sequence is called "." Terry Pratchett's Susan Sto Helit character satirizes Mary Poppins in various ways, most explicitly in the novel "Hogfather". In "The Simpsons" season 8 episode "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", Marge hires a new housekeeper for the family, named Shary Bobbins (voiced by Maggie Roswell), who attempts to help them become