Disney’s Robin Hood

Good morning, how’s everyone doing? Well, I hope. This past week has been a little bit better than last, my dad managed to get a new car last Wednesday, but actually getting it didn’t come with its problems, as it wasn’t the original one he was going to get. Originally, he left early Wednesday morning to go to the bank to get the money for a car he’d arranged to collect at noon on Tuesday night, only for the bank to have a power cut, and close for a couple of hours, and then the guy he was suppose to be collecting from called and said that he was at work, and his brother (who should of been there) had to go and run an emergency errand, which meant neither of them would be at the house to show my dad the car until about 7pm, so my dad had to forget about that, as he couldn’t guarantee it would be suitable for us, and if it wasn’t that he’d be able to get a train back home, so he had to go window shopping in short to find a new car, which thankfully he did, and it was a pretty decent find, it’s bigger than the previous one and runs smoother too. We were all really happy and relieved he’d managed to find one, as we had appointments to attend at the start of the week… On Monday, my mum had the dentist which was traumatic for her, as they didn’t numb her mouth properly, so she felt every bit of what they did to her, which in turn resulted in her not being able to open her mouth for the whole day, and then yesterday she was at the Doctors regarding an issue that’s still ongoing. To top this last week off, in the short time my dad had his new car, I’ve managed to mess up my shoulder after he had to brake suddenly, and I had to brace myself quite hard with my hand, which resulted in putting pressure on my shoulder, so I’m having to rest it as its limited me what I can do because of it.

Anyway, on with this weeks post… As I’m having to rest my shoulder, I’ve mentioned before that something I like to do is watch films (like most people), mainly Disney movies, and something a lot of people don’t know is, that my all-time favourite Disney film is Robin Hood, ever since I was a little girl, it would be the first film I would watch when I was sick and that’s still the case today, and when I saw that today marks 50 years since it was released in the United States (a week later in the U.K), I just knew I had to do a post about it, so read on to find out some interesting facts about the film that brought the dashing, jovial fox who robs from the rich and gives to the poor in the classic retelling of Robin Hood!

*This post contains spoilers (if you have not seen the film)*

Full Summary:

Alan-A-Dale introduces the story of Robin Hood and Little John, two outlaws living in Sherwood Forest, where they rob from the rich and give to the poor townsfolk of Nottingham, despite the efforts of the Sheriff of Nottingham to stop them. Knowing the royal coach is laden with riches, Robin and Little John rob Prince John by disguising themselves as fortune tellers. The embarrassed Prince John then puts a bounty on their heads and makes the Sheriff his personal tax collector, who takes pleasure in collecting funds from the townsfolk including hidden money from the crippled blacksmith Otto and a single farthing from a young rabbit, Skippy. When Skippy and his friends test out the bow (a birthday present from Robin) and fire an arrow into the grounds of Maid Marian’s castle, the children sneak inside, meeting Maid Marian and her attendant Lady Kluck. Meanwhile, Friar Tuck visits Robin and Little John, explaining that Prince John is hosting an archery tournament, and the winner will receive a kiss from Maid Marian. Robin sneakily participates in the tournament disguised as a stork whilst Little John disguises himself as the Duke of Chutney to get near Prince John. Robin wins the tournament, but Prince John recognizes and exposes him, sentencing him to death despite Marian’s pleas. Little John threatens Prince John with a dagger, resulting in a fight between the Nottingham villagers and Prince John’s soldiers. Robin’s party escapes, bringing along Marian and Lady Kluck.

In the forest, Robin and Marian share a romantic evening, then are surprised by Robin’s merry men, who sing a funny song dubbing John the “Phony King of England”. The song becomes a hit, so Prince John triples the taxes out of anger. Most of the townspeople who cannot pay are imprisoned. The Sheriff visits Friar Tuck’s church to steal from the poor box. Tuck attacks the Sheriff with a quarterstaff, resulting in Tuck’s arrest for “treason”. The friar is imprisoned in the castle, and Prince John orders his execution, hoping to lure Robin into doing something rash to save his friend.

The night before the execution, Robin Hood and Little John sneak into the castle. Little John manages to free Tuck and the other prisoners, while Robin steals all of Prince John’s gold. Hiss awakens, and tries to stop them, rousing the castle. Chaos ensues as Robin and the others try to escape to Sherwood Forest, and Robin is forced to return to the castle to rescue Skippy’s sister, Tagalong. The Sheriff chases Robin through the building and attacks him with a lit torch, setting the castle ablaze and forcing Robin to jump into the moat. The soldiers shoot arrows into the moat, but Robin dives to safety, and rejoins Little John and Skippy. Hiss chides a despairing Prince John for his failed trap, and points out the castle (belonging to Prince John’s mother) is afire, which drives Prince John to insanity.

Later, King Richard returns to England, placing his brother, Sir Hiss and the Sheriff under arrest and allows his niece Maid Marian to marry Robin Hood as the King and Queen at their royal wedding, turning the former outlaw into an in-law.

Voice Cast:

Brian Bedford as Robin Hood
Monica Evans as Maid Marian
Phil Harris as Little John
Roger Miller as Alan-a-Dale
Andy Devine as Friar Tuck
Peter Ustinov as Prince John / King Richard
Terry-Thomas as Sir Hiss
Carole Shelley as Lady Kluck
Pat Buttram as the Sheriff of Nottingham
George Lindsey and Ken Curtis as Trigger and Nutsy
Billy Whitaker, Dana Laurita, Dori Whitaker, and Richie Sanders as Skippy, Sis, Tagalong, and Toby
John Fiedler and Barbara Luddy as the Church of Nottingham’s Sexton and his wife
J. Pat O’Malley as Otto the blacksmith

Robin Hood was the result of another movie getting canned. Disney had been considering making a movie about Reynard the Fox since at least the 1930s. The problem was, Reynard skewed more toward villain than antihero, which ended up being a challenge for the writers. Despite scripts and storyboards, the Reynard movie still hadn’t come to fruition more than two decades later. Animator Ken Anderson eventually blended the idea into the Robin Hood script, reasoning that Robin Hood’s outlaw status made him sort of Reynard-like.

In October 1968, during a fishing trip with Ken Anderson, studio executive Card Walker suggested that a “classic” tale should be the subject for the next animated film after The Aristocats (1970). Anderson proposed the tale of Robin Hood, to which Walker responded enthusiastically.

In a follow-up meeting, with Wolfgang Reitherman, Bill Anderson (no relation), and Larry Clemmons, Ken Anderson was assigned the job to begin “exploratory animal character drawings”. Anderson blended his ideas of Robin Hood by incorporating that the fox character could be slick but still use his skills to protect the community.

Animator Ken Anderson first conceived Friar Tuck as a pig, but then decided that the church might take that particular depiction as a slight. He’s not the only character that switched animals: the Sheriff of Nottingham was supposed to be a goat, but changed to a wolf to seem more villainous.

This is the first “Walt Disney Animation Studios” film to not feature any humans since Bambi (1942), unlike that film, these animals are “anthropomorphic”, living like humans do, without there being any non-anthropomorphic animals.

The Tony Award-winning Brian Bedford is well known for his Shakespearean work, including acting and directing in the Stratford Festival.

Roger Miller was a respected singer-songwriter in Nashville long before Disney recruited him to voice and write songs for Allan-a-Dale. Miller worked with legends like Minnie Pearl, Chet Atkins, George Jones, and Ernest Tubb before writing his biggest hit, “King of the Road.”

The characters of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Pat Buttram), Friar Tuck (Andy Devine), Nutsy (Ken Curtis), and Trigger (George Lindsey) were all voiced by actors known for doing westerns. This is because at one point in the production, the setting was the Old West.

Of all of the cast in the movie, only around a half a dozen of the voice actors and actresses were truly English.

“Love” was nominated for an Oscar. The ballad that plays while Robin and Marian make eyes at each other was written by Floyd Huddleston and George Bruns. Nancy Adams, Huddleston’s wife, provided Maid Marian’s singing voice for the song.

Because things like backgrounds and characters were so painstakingly drawn and painted by hand, it wasn’t uncommon for some scenes and character reactions to be repeated throughout earlier Disney movies. The dance sequence that goes with “The Phony King of England” was made from a potpourri of dances from other Disney movies, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Aristocats. This was achieved by an animation technique called “rotoscoping,” where animators trace over the frames of old footage to use it in a different environment.

Another particular scene is where Little John and Lady Kluck dance together mirrors part of the song “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book with Baloo and King Louie respectively.

The animation of Little John, the bear in Robin Hood, is nearly identical to that of Baloo in The Jungle Book, but Little John more closely resembles a brown or grizzly bear (Baloo was based on an Indian Sloth Bear).

The robe that Prince John wears, and the crown worn by the puppet version of him, are the same robe and crown the king wears in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Robin Hood’s costume (green tunic and feathered cap) is similar to that of 1953’s Peter Pan, sometimes leading to confusion between the two characters.

Released in 1973, to celebrate the Walt Disney Company’s 50th birthday.

At the time leading up to its release, Robin Hood had a bit of a burden to carry — many observers were treating it as a benchmark to determine whether or not the studio could carry on without the late Walt Disney since this was the studio’s first animated feature produced without his involvement.

Robin Hood was very successful upon its initial release, garnering around $9.5 million, the biggest Disney attraction at that time. Its 1982 re-release brought in even more income.

This is one of the Disney animated films to have no humans (not counting the opening sequence showing artwork of the human equivalents in a book).

Disney animator and director Byron Howard admitted that Robin Hood was his favorite film while growing up and cited it as a major influence on Zootopia.

When Robin Hood (Brian Bedford) and Little John (Phil Harris) first appear on-screen, they wander upon a fallen tree which bridges a river, and each cordially insists that the other cross first. This is a friendly subversion of the traditional Robin Hood narrative, in which Robin Hood and Little John meet while crossing opposite sides of a narrow tree bridge and fight with quarterstaves over who will be allowed to cross first.

The music played in the background while Lady Kluck fights off Prince John’s goons in an American football style manner is better known as Fight On, the fight song of the University of Southern California and On Wisconsin, the fight song of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The church bell on Friar Tuck’s church is an actual bell, filmed and added in post-production.

Sir Hiss is similar to Kaa from The Jungle Book, not only in physical appearance, but most notably in the use of hypnosis. However, his eyes are smaller than Kaa’s.

The famous gap in Terry-Thomas’ teeth was incorporated into the design of the character he voices, Sir Hiss (It makes a handy opening for his forked tongue to dart out.)

Peter Ustinov grew famous playing over-the-top villains. His campy, spoiled, and thoroughly weak-willed portrayal of Prince John is an effective caricature of his own performance as the Roman emperor Nero in the epic film Quo Vadis (1951).

A few months before release, the Disney animators needed Sir Peter Ustinov to come back to the Disney Studios to re-record some of his lines as Prince John. The animators made phone calls to New York City, London, Paris, Vienna, and Tokyo, trying to locate Ustinov, only to discover that he was working at the NBC Studios in Burbank that week, a half-mile down the street from them.

The opening theme was adopted by the fans of Liverpool Football Club, and was used as a song for club Captain Steven Gerrard.

Little John and the Sheriff of Nottingham make cameo appearances in the direct-to-video release Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.

Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Trigger, Prince John, and the Sheriff of Nottingham appear at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as meetable characters.

Robin Hood is apparently ambidextrous, as he can shoot an arrow with both hands.

Robin Hood’s disguises were a fortune teller, a blind beggar, a stork archer and Nutsy.

Maid Marian only appears in the movie for thirty minutes, despite being the main love interest.

Prince John’s infantile behavior whenever someone mentions his mother is a sly reference to the real King John “The Fool” of England. The brother of King Richard “the Lionheart,” John, the favorite son of (and heavily spoiled by) their father, King Henry II, was said to be crude and dim-witted and attempted to usurp the throne from Richard while the latter fought in the Crusades. Though Richard eventually returned from battle and foiled John’s rebellion, John eventually became King anyway after Richard’s untimely death (1199) in battle without an heir.

In an alternative ending included in the “Most Wanted Edition” DVD, shows Robin being wounded after escaping from the castle. In this ending, Prince John, hooded and cloaked, is about to stab Robin but is interrupted by the arrival of King Richard. The filmmakers felt it made Prince John too sinister and took away from Robin Hood as the hero. It was also seen as too dark a turn from the otherwise upbeat and carefree tone of the movie, and so it was deleted and replaced with the ending where Robin Hood not only survives unscathed, but Prince John, Sir Hiss , and the Sheriff of Nottingham are imprisoned for their treachery with Allan-a-Dale explaining King Richard’s return in front of a wanted poster of Robin Hood that now says “Pardoned by King Richard” on it.

Robin stands as a beacon of hope and justice, resonating with viewers of all ages. The film’s message that good will always triumph over evil serves as a timeless reminder of the power of collective action in the face of adversity. The character of Robin Hood, with his unwavering commitment to justice and gallant spirit, has remained a symbol of heroism for decades. He exemplifies the idea that even in the face of impossible odds, individuals can make a difference through their actions and their willingness to stand up for what is right. Robin Hood has left a heartwarming legacy in the world of animation. The film’s characters and story have been reimagined in various forms over the years, from literature to television series and even video games, further cementing its place in our collective consciousness. The film’s ability to entertain, inspire, and instill a sense of hope has solidified its place in the annals of animation history. So, whether you’re a lifelong fan or just discovering the adventures of Robin Hood, take a trip to Sherwood Forest and experience the timeless wonder of Disney’s Robin Hood once more. With its unforgettable characters, captivating story, and timeless messages, this classic film continues to shine brightly, even after 50 years. Happy anniversary to a film that reminds us that in the face of adversity, there’s always a reason to say, “Oo-De-Lally”!

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading today’s post, I hope you all have a lovely week and I shall see you next Wednesday 😃