To a generation of Canadians, with childhood between 1966 and 1984, the legend of Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest is more recognizable as that of Rocket Robin Hood of Sherwood Asteroid, Space Age version and descendant of the medieval outlaw, who, accompanied by such latter-day Merry Men as brawny Little John, "pleasingly plump" Friar Tuck, and spirited, red-goateed Will Scarlet, continues his ancestor's crusade against heavy taxation, despotism, and the general forces of evil.
Rocket Robin Hood was produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and later in New York City from 1966 to 1969. Al Guest of Toronto had been founder and leader of "The Guest Group", a team of cartoon animators that formed into Trillium Productions to bring the Merry Men of the future to television. Krantz Films of New York, the company also responsible for the second and third seasons of Spiderman (1967-70) and two series of six-minute cartoons that recounted periods and personalities in history and featured the museum-inhabiting Max the 2000-Year-Old Mouse and the quirky, time machine inventor, Professor Kitzel, financed and had ownership of the project.
In addition to some of the staff for Grantray-Lawrence Animation's The Marvel Superheroes (1966-8; also a Krantz Films property), Guest requisitioned illustrator talent from places as far away from Canada as England and Spain. Per-episode budgets reached a high of $18,000, prompting company chief executive Steven Krantz to hire and send Ralph Bakshi to Toronto to oversee what Krantz considered to be a problematic production. Bakshi replaced Shamus Culhane of "The Guest Group" as the Rocket Robin Hood in-animation-studio producer, and the style of the television series underwent a distinctly noticable change at this time. Differences of opinion on matters creative and financial and consequent quarrels in Trillium offices resulted in Bakshi departing Toronto and moving production of remaining episodes to New York City.
The writers of Rocket Robin Hood evidently had a tongue-in-cheek penchant for mixing past with future (i.e. old Earth periods with the Space Age) and myth with fantasy, with a Gothic motif distinguishing the backgrounds of many later episodes to a desirable spooky effect. However, the production as a whole does suffer from poor animation, too many half-baked sequels to earlier episodes so that animation, even dialogue, could be reused wholesale, and a stereotypical pair of continuing villains, one-dimensional tyrant Prince John and the Sheriff of N.O.T.T., whose overweening ineptitude is so laughable as to nullify any attempt at instilling a sense of menace. It is not surprising that Rocket Robin Hood does not enjoy the critical success of the other Krantz Films animation properties. Halliwell's Television Companion, while saying that Spiderman was, "...quite stylishly done," describes Rocket Robin Hood as, "Undistinguished cartoon capers." But it was, by and large, great fun! For Generation X, it was the equivalent of the Saturday matinee serials of the 1930s and 1940s.
The speed of light is recognized in one instance as being impossible to surpass, and yet easy, fast interstellar travel is frequently referred to or accomplished, with no mention of how it is achieved. Space is said to be an airless void in some episodes, while in others humans or other air-breathing creatures can survive in the vacuum of space for quite some time without the necessary attire. However, Rocket Robin Hood is innocent fantasy. It is set far in the future, the Earth year 3000, when scientific possibilities are nearly infinite. Lapses in continuity can be forgiven and disbelief can be suspended, because the notion that distant descendants of Robin Hood's men will all look the same as their ancestors, share a sense of social justice, and come together to vanquish evil, is enticing enough to command the unwavering attention of young or young-at-heart viewers.
Having been mostly produced in Canada, Rocket Robin Hood has understandably received more exposure in the Great White North than elsewhere. Syndicated in the 1970s and 1980s for broadcast, in no particular episodic sequence, on television stations (affiliates of the CBC, CTV, and Global networks) in Canada's various regions, Rocket Robin Hood tended to be shown as a Saturday morning offering, though sometimes, it was seen on weekdays.
Rocket Robin Hood was formatted exactly like The Marvel Superheroes, with each half-hour episode composed of three 6 to 7 minute segments, with cliffhangers ending segments one and two and a recap occurring at the start of segments two and three. Each segment was assigned its own title, though the title at the start of segment one is supposed to be the one for the whole episode. However, some of the more amusing titles were attached to the second or third segments of Robin's adventures, including "Say Aaah, or Hot Tonsils", as the third segment title for "The Eternal Planet of Romarama", and "Planet, Planet, Who's Got the Planet?" titling segment three of "The Incredible Gem of Cosmo Khan".
Between the segments of each episode are descriptions of some of the Rocket Robin Hood characters, with appropriately amusing superlatives, and mated with rapid scenes demonstrating the characters' abilities, personalities, habits, or other attributes.
"Rocket Robin Hood, the happy outlaw of outerplanetary space, is the
direct descendant of Robin Hood of old. He's fast, with a joyful laugh, a
ready jest, and a quiver full of futuristic arrows. Robin robs from the
cosmic rich to give to the astral poor. He's fun. He's fantastic. Rocket
Robin Hood, merriest of the Merry Men in the astounding year, 3000."
"Strongest member of Rocket Robin Hood's band is Little John, the
brawniest spaceman ever to rocket through the cosmos in the fantastic
years to come. This Goliath of the galaxies has the might of a cosmic
Hercules, the brute force of an unleashed meteor, combined with a truly
super weapon- the electro-quarterstaff. Little John, whose great strength
is tempered with a simple, good-hearted kindness toward all living
things. Mightiest of Rocket Robin Hood's Merry Men in the amazing years
to come- Little John."
"When the problems of Rocket Robin Hood call for 'heavy' thinking, then
it's time for the one and only Friar Tuck to come to the rescue. Some,
like the wicked Sheriff of N.O.T.T., think him fat, foolish, and not
worth worrying about. But don't you believe it! Friar Tuck, whose courage
is as tremendous as his appetite, is just one of the astounding space
characters in the merry band of Rocket Robin Hood in the fantastic years
to come."
"Arch-enemy of Rocket Robin Hood is the cruel space tyrant, Prince John,
despot ruler of the National Outer-Space Terrestrial Territories. With
the help of the wicked Sheriff of N.O.T.T., the black prince plans for
that terrible day when he will destroy and conquer the entire Solar
System. Well, he might, if it were not for-- Rocket Robin Hood. Rocket
Robin Hood, outlaw defender of right in the astounding years to come."
Animation quality is uneven and at times incontrovertibly poor, always limited but in the first two seasons more blatantly so- because the backgrounds are not impressive enough to compensate for scarce character movement- an inherent problem with The Marvel Superheroes' animators, it would seem, and a liability that was no doubt a factor in Steven Krantz's disatisfaction with the expensive production of Rocket Robin Hood in its first and second seasons. Fight scenes often consist of Little John's fist moving toward the camera, a starry effect denoting impact, and a helmeted N.O.T.T. soldier falling to ground or floor, while the limit to the backgrounds of most first and second season episodes is a lush but somehow bleak-looking Sherwood Asteroid, barren neighboring worlds, and the scarcely furnished N.O.T.T. Castle, with occasional planetary orbs seen in the skies.
For Season 3, and some later episodes of Season 2, standard close-ups of characters were used, with lip movement superimposed. A consequent hefty reduction in animation costs allowed for more funds and attention to go to layout and background as the series shifted away from the space opera of the battle with N.O.T.T. headquarters to such pure science fiction/fantasy as a living planetary organism, a sun-extinguishing "Lord of the Shadows", and a frightening fifth dimension where weirdest thoughts become real. Part of the way through Season 2, Ralph Bakshi funded airfare to Toronto for Warner Brothers cartoons' stalwart background designer Richard H. Thomas, to whom Bakshi assigned the task of modifying the look of the "amazing years to come". It has been speculated that the background artists under Thomas' guidance for the third season were "tripping" on LSD while they were working. Use of bizarre milieu of the kind that made the last segment of 2001- A Space Odyssey a psychedelic experience, is Rocket Robin Hood's most defining trait, and it is precisely these episodes that are best remembered by young viewers of the series.
Backgrounds of Season 3 defy satisfying verbal description, but this writer will attempt it. Continued bleak settings were rendered darker. Hideous rock formations, for instance those on the asteroid controlled by Dr. Manta in "From Menace to Menace", are sometimes adorned with hanging vines and surrounded by wastelands with decayed but oddly symmetrical patterns of lines and cracks in the soil, giant, exposed stalagmites, crags, winding rivers, and leafless trees with jagged branches. Medieval castles of Gothic architecture and tall, mushroom-shaped towers are situated in these unnerving locales, with skies filled with planets, crescent moons pointing upward, and multi-colored nebulae as ubiquitous in the cosmic vacuum as clouds on Earth. Technological alien civilizations have spiral streets and stairs, microchip-shaped or top-heavy buildings with cathedral-like windows, reel-to-reel computer tapes, conspicuous levers, a laser cannon having a vertical, transparent energy tube with the power source shown building upwards in the tube, electric arcs joining a machine with a miniature sphere, and monorail cars.
In such completely outlandish places, a literally black villain develops his army of cat shadows which emerge from a circular pool of liquid suspended in mid-air, mechanical mummies and a huge, flying sphinx are controlled by a descendant of King Tut, and an unscrupulous scientist uses a device to mentally manipulate a planet's elements, turning plants, craters, and volcanoes into devouring monsters. Audacious material for an animated cartoon television series of narrow budget!
Equally effective is the music, including such melodies as an instrumental rendition of the main title song, played whenever Sherwood Asteroid is introduced and probably meant to signify brotherhood and good will. An "old technology" theme frequently plays over long, fading shots of machinery, for example when Tondo, the "underground gentleman" of "Lord of the Shadows", briefs Robin on the history and achievements of the indigenous race of the planet invaded by Dr. Nocturne, and when the Minutae civilization is first shown in "Space Giant". A music of similar feel is used in other scenes in which Robin and the Merry Men meet alien races or speculate on the nature of a menace, such as that of "Dementia Five". A tune sounding like two drumsticks being clapped together accompanies the emergence of a problem or challenge, like Baron Blank's setting of a trap for Robin and Will Scarlet in "Who'll Kill Rocket Robin?", or the surrounding of Robin and friends by the robot mummies in "The Solar Sphinx". One of the most haunting pieces of music in the series is the synthesized piano/pipe mix which plays over Robin and Little John's ordeal in "Dementia Five" and with the first appearance of the Flying Dutchman in "The Ghost Pirates". It is also heard at length in "Dr. Mortula".
Voice talent in the series is of high calibre, with the late Bernard Cowan (voice of Peter Parker of the 1967-70 Spiderman television series) narrating and Ed McNamara, whose acting credits include Silver Streak (1976) and Bayo (1985), providing the resonant tones of Rocket Robin. Len Carlson, who was the voice of the seagull in CTV's The Waterville Gang (1972-3) and has announced for several CTV game shows, substituted for McNamara at times in Season 3. Chris Wiggins, best known as the patriarch of The Swiss Family Robinson (1972-3), voiced the witty and reverent Will Scarlet and such fearsome foes of the Merry Men as Infinata, the overlord of "Dementia Five", and Baron Blank of planet Blotto. Paul Kligman's piercing characterization of fusspot Friar Tuck is similar to his rather shrilly nattering J. Jonah Jameson of Spiderman (1967-70), and Gillie Fenwick, who played the butler, Poole, in the 1968, Jack Palance version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and can be heard as Dr. Smartyr, Dr. Conner, and feline sorcerer Pardo in Spiderman (1967-70), gave vocal life to the verbally polished, otherwise oafish Sheriff of N.O.T.T..
The legacy of the three-season-long Rocket Robin Hood offers some intriguing anecdotes. The Spiderman television series of 1967-70 utilized extensive footage from Rocket Robin Hood's "From Menace to Menace" and "Dementia Five" for two of its Ralph Bakshi-produced third season episodes, a certain side view of Rocket Robin's face was repainted and used for The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo, an educational series of five-minute cartoon shorts provided to the CBC television network by Al Guest and his wife, Jean Mathieson, in the mid-1970s, and a housing subdivision in Mississauga, Ontario, a Toronto suburb, has the dinstinction of streets named in honor of the Rocket Robin Hood characters.
IN MEMORIAM
Bernard Cowan (Narrator and other voices)
Paul Kligman (voice of Friar Tuck)