Robin Hood (The Disney Cartoon)

Robin Hood (1973)

Runtime: 83 minutes

Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman

Starring: The voices of a bunch of British actors, along with the likes of Pat Buttram and Andy Devine

From: Disney

The term "long time, no see" has never been more true than it has been for this cartoon:

This version of the classic tale I had seen before... although the last viewing of this in full was when I was a child. It may as well been a full three decades ago and the main thing I remembered was the opening credits and the opening credits song (Whistle Stop). It was just a recent revelation on my part that this had a big fan following online; I know one personally that is a gigantic fan but I had no idea there were so many who had strong nostalgic memories for this. I do not love the film yet I can still say it is pretty good.

The story is more or less the classic Robin Hood tale, only it is done with anthropomorphized animals, and many of those animals are what you'd expect them to be for each character. Robin Hood & Maid Marian are foxes, Prince John and King Richard are lions, Friar Tuck is a badger, Lil Jon... excuse me, Little John is a bear, because he was a direct copy of Baloo from The Jungle Book. Prince John here is a clueless buffoon, makes rash decisions and is even childish to the point he sucks his thumb. Insert your own political comments if you so desire.

Disney was in dire straits at the time, so besides Baloo being copied for usage here there was also some rotoscoping done of The Jungle Book so those movements could be used for Robin Hood. Yet the movie looks fine when it comes to animation and everything else so that is not a detriment. There are other versions of the tale I prefer (such as the one with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland)-this is still a cute movie where there are plenty of chuckles and all the songs/score was good. As I am me I was amused when at times the time period was obvious and the early 70's became blatant in the music.


As an adult I appreciate the cast... there are famous British actors and also the likes of Andy Devine and Patt Buttram; the latter plays the Sheriff of Nottingham as a lawman in the Wild West, which is wacky yet Buttram was in what seemed like hundreds of Westerns so I was fine there. I was most amused with Sir Hiss the sarcastic snake, Prince John's assistant. It was a great touch giving Hiss a gap-toothed look, considering he was voiced by Terry-Thomas. It was indeed nice to see this again after so much time has passed by in my life.