When Is ‘The Sound of Music’ Airing on TV This Year?
Each year, the annual TV airing of The Sound of Music on ABC is as much of a holiday tradition as wreaths, carols or overdoing it on the pumpkin pie. Though the Oscar-winning musical isn’t set during the holidays, it has become associated with the Christmas season, with some of its songs, like “My Favorite Things,” finding new lives as Christmas standards.
So when you can you and the family gather around the TV this year for an evening of raindrops on roses and edelweiss? The Sound of Music will air on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, on ABC, at 7pm ET. The film has been airing on the network shortly before Christmas each year since 2002.
The Julie Andrews musical won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Wise, became the highest-grossing film of 1965, and launched Andrews into superstardom.
Adapted from the 1959 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical — and based on the real-life story of the Trapp Family Singers, who escaped Austria on the eve of World War II — the film also stars Christopher Plummer as Captain Georg von Trapp, father to the seven singing tots who blossom under the tutelage of Andrews’ Maria, a nun turned governess.
While the film is wholesome family fun, the film shoot was a bit less so; Plummer admitted to being irate and curmudgeonly on set, and openly insulted the film for decades, once referring to it as “The Sound of Mucus.” In 2011, he described the film as “so awful and sentimental and gooey” to The Hollywood Reporter.
But in his 2012 memoir, he reported that rewatching the film changed his mind. “The more I watched, the more I realized what a terrific movie it is,” he said. “[I was] totally seduced by the damn thing — and what’s more, I felt a sudden surge of pride that I’d been a part of it.”
Plummer’s singing voice was also dubbed over for the original film and soundtrack by Bill Lee; a version of the film containing Plummer’s original vocals was made available for the first time only last year.
Despite Plummer’s reservations about the film, he and Andrews developed a warm friendship on set, with Andrews later noting that Plummer’s portrayal of Captain von Trapp “gave the film its glue.“
Why is the film considered a Christmas classic if it doesn’t take place around the holidays? “The Sound of Music’s universal themes of love, family and overcoming hardship in the face of adversity are exactly what we’re all thinking about over the holiday season,” Andy Kubitz, ABC Entertainment’s exec VP of programming strategy, told TV Insider in 2020.
If you absolutely can’t wait until December to get in an alpine state of mind, you can also stream the film right now on Disney+.
Remind 
Home For The Holidays
November 2021
Celebrate the holidays with your favorite classic stars!
Buy This Issue