Based on the character designs from a long abandoned Disney film about
the French story of Reynard the Fox, of which I know nothing, Robin Hood
tells the familiar story of, well, Robin Hood. Only, and this was
actually pretty unique at the time. Robin Hood is an anthropomorphic
fox. Disney animals had often been anthropomorphized but not like this.
Instead of just dogs that talk or
display human like thoughts and motives now we had an erect, bipedal,
well dressed character that was as much a fox as Mickey was supposed to
be a mouse. The unfortunate consequence of this character design is
that it, more than any other cultural influence, spawned the furry
subculture....a very, very disturbing subculture that I am going to
avoid talking about any further. But I kid you not, this was the
starting influence.
Anyway, Robin Hood, as you know, unless you are new to our planet, is a story about a wellborn thief in medieval England who steals money from the rich and redistributes it to the poor. Sort of like a medieval social welfare program but better since Robin Hood does it with an ox-cart loaded with awesome and we do it with boring assed tax laws (boo). Doing this has made Robin the enemy of the local Sheriff of Nottingham and the stand-in ruler of the realm, Prince John, who is overtaxing the people (I guess they had boring assed taxes after all) for his own gain while his brother, King Richard the Lionhearted (literally), is out of the country on a crusade. Throw in a love story between Robin Hood and Prince John’s cousin, another anthropomorphic fox named Marian, and you got yourself a classic swashbuckler in the vein of Errol Flynn.
This is, I believe, is the single most underrated Disney film of all time though I think I understand why it is that so many people dismiss it outright without realizing what’s in front of them (are you blind, world?). First, this was made during the darkest time period of Disney animation, the years between Disney’s death in 1966 and the release of the Little Mermaid in 1989. Indeed, this movie was actually the first real post-Walt Disney film ever released by the studio. The film before it was the Jungle Book....and that is already an egregiously overrated movie in its own right. So why should this movie be any better, especially considering that this was an extremely low budget film, by Disney standards, and that the man who drove the success of the company’s best films was dead?
It really shouldn’t, when looking at the facts. First off the animation is from the budget xerography era, post-101 Dalmatians, where everything looks like untidy pencil sketches. It worked well in previous movies but suddenly every Disney film was starting to look like each other, sometimes exactly like each other. In fact, due to tight budgets stemming from financially trying times, much of what appeared in Disney movies at this time was, in fact, actually recycled animation! Robin Hood is particularly notorious in this regard. A dance in the woods is traced off of Snow White’s dance with the dwarves, a bear’s dance with a chicken is a carbon copy of Baloo’s dance with King Louie in the Jungle book, and so forth. In fact, the popular character of Baloo himself essentially reappears in his entirety in this movie with the exact same design, characteristics, and even the same voice actor in Phil Harris. The only difference is that now he has a different color of fur and the name Little John. But hey, Baloo’s the best thing about the Jungle Book so who’s complaining?
The thing is, that for all of it’s cheapness and recycled material, which is what really turns off a lot of critics I think, the package as presented here actually does work very well. Disney succeeded at finding a way to make a great movie on the cheap. The story is clear cut, and though cliche, it has a real emotional impact when it’s supposed to. Seeing friar tuck suddenly get captured and the grief felt over his impending execution is effective. The romance between Robin Hood and Marian, though abbreviated, is still good enough to remember and better than most Disney movies of the past. The action sequences all effectively combine humor and sword play. It’s much more interesting than the saturday morning cartoon it’s been made out to be.
If anything the simplicity of this movie is a strength because it also allowed the animators to have fun with the movie’s many characters by fleshing out a number of creative comical scenes that still forward the story. The Sheriff of Nottingham, voiced by Pat Buttram, is a funny, corrupt caricature of the Texas “deputy dog” type of law enforcer and he has a number of great moments with his vulture deputies that I remember fondly. It might seem out of place in a medieval English setting but it really is a lot of fun, at least for me, being from Texas and all. Phil Harris virtually reprises his role as Baloo the bear, which again, might seem tired at first but then his character is so entertaining that you wouldn’t want him to be missing from the movie (that guy saved the Jungle Book). Prince John is also consistently funny and well developed, you have to love the running gag about his relationship with his mother. Most of the best laughs are derived from interactions between the Prince and his advisor, Hiss the snake. I also liked the constant use of anachronisms throughout the movie.... a football playing old hen? Completely awesome. Also one of the best parts about the movie is it’s folksy, American soundtrack sung by country singer Roger Miller who plays Alan-a-dale, a rooster. Remember the hamster dance? Yeah, we can thank Roger Miller for that one too.
So Robin Hood wasn’t innovative in anyway and it’s a cheap production but it has an memorable and fun soundtrack, a good story, great characters and heavy dose of of warm hearted charity between the protagonists. I think some people may hate that, finding it insipid, but I personally love it.
I give it 4.2 Golden Arrows
Anyway, Robin Hood, as you know, unless you are new to our planet, is a story about a wellborn thief in medieval England who steals money from the rich and redistributes it to the poor. Sort of like a medieval social welfare program but better since Robin Hood does it with an ox-cart loaded with awesome and we do it with boring assed tax laws (boo). Doing this has made Robin the enemy of the local Sheriff of Nottingham and the stand-in ruler of the realm, Prince John, who is overtaxing the people (I guess they had boring assed taxes after all) for his own gain while his brother, King Richard the Lionhearted (literally), is out of the country on a crusade. Throw in a love story between Robin Hood and Prince John’s cousin, another anthropomorphic fox named Marian, and you got yourself a classic swashbuckler in the vein of Errol Flynn.
This is, I believe, is the single most underrated Disney film of all time though I think I understand why it is that so many people dismiss it outright without realizing what’s in front of them (are you blind, world?). First, this was made during the darkest time period of Disney animation, the years between Disney’s death in 1966 and the release of the Little Mermaid in 1989. Indeed, this movie was actually the first real post-Walt Disney film ever released by the studio. The film before it was the Jungle Book....and that is already an egregiously overrated movie in its own right. So why should this movie be any better, especially considering that this was an extremely low budget film, by Disney standards, and that the man who drove the success of the company’s best films was dead?
It really shouldn’t, when looking at the facts. First off the animation is from the budget xerography era, post-101 Dalmatians, where everything looks like untidy pencil sketches. It worked well in previous movies but suddenly every Disney film was starting to look like each other, sometimes exactly like each other. In fact, due to tight budgets stemming from financially trying times, much of what appeared in Disney movies at this time was, in fact, actually recycled animation! Robin Hood is particularly notorious in this regard. A dance in the woods is traced off of Snow White’s dance with the dwarves, a bear’s dance with a chicken is a carbon copy of Baloo’s dance with King Louie in the Jungle book, and so forth. In fact, the popular character of Baloo himself essentially reappears in his entirety in this movie with the exact same design, characteristics, and even the same voice actor in Phil Harris. The only difference is that now he has a different color of fur and the name Little John. But hey, Baloo’s the best thing about the Jungle Book so who’s complaining?
The thing is, that for all of it’s cheapness and recycled material, which is what really turns off a lot of critics I think, the package as presented here actually does work very well. Disney succeeded at finding a way to make a great movie on the cheap. The story is clear cut, and though cliche, it has a real emotional impact when it’s supposed to. Seeing friar tuck suddenly get captured and the grief felt over his impending execution is effective. The romance between Robin Hood and Marian, though abbreviated, is still good enough to remember and better than most Disney movies of the past. The action sequences all effectively combine humor and sword play. It’s much more interesting than the saturday morning cartoon it’s been made out to be.
If anything the simplicity of this movie is a strength because it also allowed the animators to have fun with the movie’s many characters by fleshing out a number of creative comical scenes that still forward the story. The Sheriff of Nottingham, voiced by Pat Buttram, is a funny, corrupt caricature of the Texas “deputy dog” type of law enforcer and he has a number of great moments with his vulture deputies that I remember fondly. It might seem out of place in a medieval English setting but it really is a lot of fun, at least for me, being from Texas and all. Phil Harris virtually reprises his role as Baloo the bear, which again, might seem tired at first but then his character is so entertaining that you wouldn’t want him to be missing from the movie (that guy saved the Jungle Book). Prince John is also consistently funny and well developed, you have to love the running gag about his relationship with his mother. Most of the best laughs are derived from interactions between the Prince and his advisor, Hiss the snake. I also liked the constant use of anachronisms throughout the movie.... a football playing old hen? Completely awesome. Also one of the best parts about the movie is it’s folksy, American soundtrack sung by country singer Roger Miller who plays Alan-a-dale, a rooster. Remember the hamster dance? Yeah, we can thank Roger Miller for that one too.
So Robin Hood wasn’t innovative in anyway and it’s a cheap production but it has an memorable and fun soundtrack, a good story, great characters and heavy dose of of warm hearted charity between the protagonists. I think some people may hate that, finding it insipid, but I personally love it.
I give it 4.2 Golden Arrows
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