It was the kind of movie event that Hollywood loves. Down Hollywood Boulevard came a score of Walt Disney cartoon characters and four dancing penguins accompanying a train from which 10,000 balloons were released in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Multi-colored spotlights waved back and forth, an English-type "pearly" band blared lively tunes, and two emcees and four tv cameras covered the arrival of Hollywood's most glittering names at the theater for a Disney-sponsored KTTV telecast. Gushed the local press the next day: ". . . so gigantic and complicated that it rivaled the Democratic Convention." The occasion was the premiere, in late August, of Walt Disney's newest movie success, "Mary Poppins." But it was no ordinary movie hoopla. Among the invited guests at the premiere, and at another preview a week later in San Francisco, were a number of advertisers and agencymen who — as tv viewers and radio listeners are now learning — had almost as much riding on the success of "Mary Poppins" as did its producer. […]
