Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Prop Culture’ On Disney+, A Docuseries Where A Film Historian Searches For Famous Disney Movie Props

When you watch an unscripted show on Disney+, you have to do so with the knowledge that you’ll be hammered over the head with the “magic” of studio’s long and impressive history. Luckily, that history is fascinating enough to cut through what can sometimes feel like a Disney infomercial. In Prop Culture, film historian Dan Lanigan enthusiastically searches for props that have been used on Disney films over the past six decades.

PROP CULTURE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a film reel start, then a shot of a man opening a drawer with a small box marked Mary Poppins on it. “When I was a kid,” says film historian Dan Lanigan, “my dad brought home an 8mm reel of Mary Poppins. Just a 22-minute segment that they used to sell at drug stores, back in the days before home video. And what my dad showed me made a profound impact.”

The Gist: Lanigan is fascinated with props from throughout movie history, from all studios. It’s been his mission to seek out those props and either help collectors acquire them, put them in his own collection, or lead studios to acquire them for their archives. What he’s learned over his years as an historian is that studios weren’t as precious with their film props as they are now, and they often disappeared into the ether. In Prop Culture, Lanigan seeks out props from various Disney films and brings them together with people who worked on those films.

First up: Mary Poppins, the 1964 classic that stared Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Props from that film are especially hard to find now, as most were either brought home by people from the studio or generally just lost to time (the Walt Disney studio Archive wasn’t established until 1970). One of the things that Lanigan was looking for was the magical nanny’s umbrella, which had a parrot head as a handle. He went to a designer who worked for the studio, and while he didn’t find the original umbrella, he did find a cast of the handle. He also found a replica of the snow globe that was shown during the song “Feed the Birds.”

That led him to Walt Disney’s preserved office and a visit with Jason Schwartzman, who played songwriter Richard Sherman in Saving Mr. Banks, and the actual Richard Sherman, who wrote the songs for the film along with his brother Robert. Sherman is the only one allowed to play the piano in that office.

Lanigan also visits with choreographer Dee Dee Wood, who has cutouts of the penguin waiters she used to help Andrews and Van Dyke rehearse the dancing scene with the animated versions of those penguins, and shows her a broom from the chimney sweep dance she choreographed. He then visits costumer Tony Walton (also Andrews’ husband at the time) to show him Van Dyke’s striped jacket from that scene, as well as Andrews’ traveling coat, scarf and hat, which we see when she flies into London at the beginning of the film.

More visits: At the Disney Archive, Lanigan takes Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews (no relation to Julie), an avowed Poppins fan, to see two of the carousel horses used in the fantasy garden sequence and Mary’s magic carpetbag. Finally, at the carousel that inspired Disney to write that scene, he shows little Jane Banks’ jacket and hat to Karen Dotrice, who played Jane in the movie when she was 8 years old.

Our Take: Prop Culture is one of those Disney+ shows that’s a complete and total advertisement for the company’s history and the magic they’ve created over the last 100 years. But Lanigan’s enthusiasm for the props he discovers, along with just how significant many of them are to American film history, makes the fact that you’re essentially watching a 35-minute Disney ad irrelevant.

Where we think the show really did something right was to connect the props to the people who either starred in or worked on the film. In some cases, like in the episode about Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, we’ll see actual stars of the film, like Christopher Lloyd or Kathleen Turner. In other cases, like in the Mary Poppins episode, it will be significant behind-the-scenes names, which sometimes yield even better stories.

It’s interesting that Disney starts with the oldest film profiled in Season 1. It’s likely because those props are the hardest ones to find, and it just shows how dogged Lanigan and people in his field are at finding these props in order to preserve movie history. The story of where the snow globe from “Feed The Birds” was found, sitting in a janitor’s closet, is not only fascinating but indicative of how props were treated a half-century-plus ago.

Other films in this series are Tron, Roger Rabbit, The Muppet Movie, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s quite the eclectic group, which not only shows the breadth of films that is currently in the Disney library, but it also provides an entry point for fans of all ages.

What Age Group Is This For?: Pretty much anyone fascinated with movie history, at any age.

Parting Shot: Lanigan watches the 8mm Poppins reel with his own daughter. “I realize that my dad may have enjoyed the experience even more than I did,” he says.

Sleeper Star: We wanted to hear all of Dee Dee Wood’s stories from the set, especially how hard the chimney sweep dance was to get right. Also, while we’re not huge Erin Andrews fans, seeing her tear up at the sight of the carousel horses was great to see.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing we could see. Maybe some of the celebrities they use are a bit of a stretch, but that’s a quibble.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’d love to see Lanigan search for props from films that aren’t in the vast Disney library, but Prop Culture is on Disney+, so we have to live with the show we get. And his enthusiasm and knowledge of these props shows through in every scene of the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Prop Culture On Disney+