"SCOTLAND!"

Dick Van Dyke referenced at 0:57.



Thanks, Fred!

DVD Chided for NOT Doing an Accent

Poor guy gets criticized for doing a bad cockney accent even when he isn't doing one.

The Daily Journal (New Jersey), December 8, 2010, "'Disney's A Christmas Carol' now out on DVD" by Joanne Thornborough.

Perhaps the worst musical ever committed to celluloid, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (now on Blu-ray; previously available on DVD) is an abomination in so many ways the only question to be asked is what drug was the studio exec on who greenlit this.

The basic plot -- if you can call it that -- has a widowed eccentric inventor (Dick Van Dyke, who avoids an English accent, but introduces a few unaddressed questions in the process) raising his two kids with an assist from his equally eccentric father (Lionel Jeffries) all while slowly developing a romantic attachment to the daughter (Sally Ann Howes) of a mildly cantankerous confectioner.

"They Just Tease Me to Death"

I didn't want this blog to turn into a fan page for Dick Van Dyke, but I can't help it. He knows the accent was crap. He laughs along with anyone who teases him about it. How could you not love this guy?

Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2010, "A step in time with Dick Van Dyke" by Susan King.

But Van Dyke is quick to point out that the "British people have never left me off the hook" about his less-than-picture-perfect Cockney accent. "They just tease me to death," he says, laughing.

"Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing."

An Appalling Matriarch

I know his accent slid around a lot, but apparently now he sounds like an appalling English matriarch.

The Independent on Sunday, December 5, 2010, "Audio books for Christmas: I've heard so much about you -- Old (and new) favourites excel in their aural exam" by Sue Gaisford.

Like them, the Litvinoffs have Jewish roots and have risen high in left-leaning American society. If every Berglund demands individual liberty, all of the Litvinoffs, known in Zoë Heller's novel as The Believers (Whole Story, unabridged, £24.99), have passionately held principles which, inevitably, clash ferociously. It is funny, polemical and fairly well read by Tara Ward – though the appalling English matriarch's accent owes more to Dick Van Dyke than Deptford.

Bloody 'Ell!

Steady on, I don't remember DVD saying "Bloody 'ell" in Mary Poppins!

Indie Movies Online Com, November 25, 2010, Top five terrible movie accents by Paul Martin

Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins (1964)

Awight, guv'nor, 'ow the bloody 'ell are ya? Yes, if there's one accent that the majority of folks seem to labour under the collective delusion that they are capable of brilliantly imitating then it is the stereotypical cockney twang of old Lahndan taaawn. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of experiments in this sphere come off sounding as cluelessly inaccurate as the voice employed by Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Although in defence of the faltering efforts of every cockney imitator who isn't Van Dyke, they are most often simply trying to score a cheap laugh from their mates. They are not anchoring a Disney blockbuster in the pivotal role of a lovable chimney-sweep. Were they doing that then you would perhaps expect them to indulge in some exhaustive research. Listening to genuine Londoners speaking and analysing the nuances that shape those distinctive tones. Not roll out a theoretical East End patter which suggests cockneys are not real, live breathing human beings, but rather creatures of antediluvian myth, with uninformed speculation being the sole recourse as to recreating how they might possibly have sounded.

It Would Be Tacky...

It would be tacky to make a passing reference, but not tacky to make a passing reference to making a passing reference.

heyuguys.com, November 25, 2010, "London Boulevard Review" by Emily Breen.

You will doubtless hear numerous accounts and re-enactments of Colin’s comedy cockney accent this week. It would be cruel of me to dwell on it further here and tacky to make even passing reference to Dick Van Dyke. So I shan’t. I will, however, point out that Ben Chaplin’s accent is equally preposterous and just as worthy of the world’s derision. And as for Mr Winstone…

Football Player Can't Do a London Accent

The Independent, November 22, 2010, "Ancelotti 'just a technician' as Bowyer adds to Chelsea's woes" by Phil Shaw.

Johnson, a £5m snip from Cardiff, believes he merits a chance. "He says 'What've I gotta do, gaffer?'," McLeish said in the worst London accent since Dick van Dyke went cockney in Mary Poppins.