I won't

I won't grow up.
About three.

'Cause growing up is awfuller
than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up!
No sir,
Not I,
Not me.
So there!

And Never Land will always be
the home of youth and joy and liberty.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up.
Not me.
Not I.
Not me.
I won't.
No, sir.
Not me!

Via email and with thanks to the YouTube poster art john:

That this musical is, for many, the definitive Peter Pan, has much to do with the fact that it was broadcast many times on American television, therefore probably reaching an even larger audience than Disney had done in 1953.

Peter Pan ran at the Winter Garden Theatre for 152 performances, and following the closing night the sets were moved to a studio in Brooklyn and adapted for television. It was there that the cast performed the show once again, on March 7th, 1955 for instant transmission on NBC.

Kent Fletcher, who played Michael, was my same age and probably my first crush even though I had no idea what a crush was at the time.

I remember opening a newspaper and reading of his untimely death in a car crash in the early 1970's.


Peter Pan at Wikipedia.

Full text of the original novel at The Literature Project is here.



"You always know after you are two. Two is the
beginning of the end."
- Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie