Written by | Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman |
Date | 1964 |
Source | It's a Small World ride |
Publisher | Wonderland Music Company Inc. |
"It's a Small World" is the theme song from the Disney attraction of the same name that premiered at the Pepsi pavilion at the 1964/1965 World's Fair in New York. The attraction, which celebrates international harmony, was moved to Disneyland in 1966 and has since been duplicated at the Magic Kingdom theme parks in Walt Disney World, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Performances[]
- Spike Milligan and the Muppets sing "It's a Small World" as the closing number of the internationally themed episode 317 of The Muppet Show, paying tribute to the Muppets' favorite country, Disneyland. The set mimics the Mary Blair-designed buildings of the ride, and characters bob up and down in the manner of the Disneyland animatronics.
- The song was performed by the cast of Rechov Sumsum in Hebrew and Arabic in an episode of the series. The scene was featured in the Shalom Sesame episode "The People of Israel," where Bonnie Franklin sets up the clip by singing a snatch of the English version.
- Pepe and the Swedish Chef briefly appeared as part of the 50th Anniversary Global Singalong of the song presented on ABC's Good Morning America on April 10th, 2014.
- Constantine sang a variation of the song in a 2014 interview with Disney Parks. (YouTube)
- Animal and Floyd Pepper performed a spoken word version of the song in a YouTube video for Oh My Disney posted on August 19th, 2015.
Theme park attraction[]
- During the failed sale of the Muppets to Disney in 1990, a proposed take-over of Disneyland by the Muppets was put into pre-production. With Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the other Disney characters on a year-long vacation after Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration, many of the park's attractions would feature Muppet touches. Among those was the Small World ride, with Miss Piggy taking the place of the winking Cleopatra.[1]
References[]
- Muppets inspired by the Audio-Animatronic children from the attraction appear in The Muppets at Walt Disney World during the song "Rockin' All Around the World", where they sang a line from their signature song. Similar characters also appear in the "Salute to All Nations (But Mostly America)" finale of Muppet*Vision 3D.
- In the 2006 book Before You Leap, Kermit the Frog says that his bank, Bank of Amphibia, uses the song as hold music, which irritates him. Bank of America also sponsored the attraction at Disneyland from 1966 to 1993.
- In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, Pepe (as Toto) says after arriving in Oz and seeing the tiny houses in Munchkinland, "It's a small world after all."