Whimsidelic Movies (60s/70s Fantasy Musicals)
You know how people call movies like Return to Oz and The Black Cauldron '80s Dark Fantasy'? Because children's fantasy movie-musicals from the mid-60s to the mid-70s have enough of a shared vibe to get their own genre name too. I propose 'Whimsidelic' but am open to other suggestions.
Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are definitely the two most famous examples, but there's also have Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the notorious 60s Dr Dolittle, The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, Chuck Jones' Phantom Tollbooth, and later on Richard Williams' Raggedy Ann.
Y'know, the sorts of films The Simpsons made fun of with The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel. The 50s Alice in Wonderland is also a bit of a precursor to these types of movies, especially since the 60s was when it got really popular.
Each film may not check every point, but here are some common features to look out for:
Inspired by Disney's Mary Poppins, if not outright called a clone of it
Blend of live-action and animation. If fully live-action, it'll still have a cartoon-like vibe
Based on British storybook source material, and/or made in Britain itself (Phantom Tollbooth's an outlier here)
Probably not very accurate to said source material
Rarely set in the then-modern day
Eccentric and mysterious authority figure (Mary Poppins, Wonka, arguably Potts, etc.)
Songs by the Sherman Brothers
'Episodic storytelling' or loose plotting, depends how charitable you are
Lots of padding, but usually fun and entertaining padding
Roald Dahl, Dick van Dyke, or David Tomlinson involved
Get surprisingly dark at one point (e.g. Mr. Banks' night walk, the Child-Catcher, Wonka's tunnel-boat ride)
