Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a 1976 British-American made-for-television musical film adaptation of J.M. Barrie's 1904 play and 1911 novel Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up starring Mia Farrow as Peter Pan and Danny Kaye as Captain Hook, and with Sir John Gielgud narrating. Julie Andrews sang one of the songs, "Once Upon a Bedtime", off-camera over the opening credits.[1] It was first shown in the UK on Sunday, 29 February 1976 on ITV. It then aired as a presentation of Hallmark Hall of Fame on NBC at 7:30pm on Sunday, December 12, 1976, capping off the program's 25th year on the air.[1]

The program did not use the score written for the highly successful Mary Martin version which had previously been televised many times on NBC. Instead, it featured 14 new and now forgotten songs, written for the production by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. The story was adapted by Andrew Birkin (who would subsequently become a leading Barrie scholar) and Jack Burns. Although part-funded by NBC with two American stars, most of the cast was British and it was shot at ATV's Elstree Studios, near London.

This version of Peter Pan won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming for Jenn de Joux's and Elizabeth Savel's visual effects, and was nominated for Outstanding Children's Special, however it was not rebroadcast. But it was featured in 2011 at the Paley Center in New York City as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.[2]

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In 1976, this was the second of two TV musical adaptations of a children's classic which starred Danny Kaye opposite a woman playing the part of a young boy. On March 27, 1976, CBS telecast Pinocchio with Kaye as Gepetto and Sandy Duncan in the title role.