Punching Day: Rocket Robin Hood

Well, it’s already that time again. Nearly nude Canadian children’s television superhero time, I mean. Rocket Robin Hood, the 1966 cartoon created with the equation of public domain character – pants + space. Rocket Robin Hood is a distant descendant of Earth’s famous outlaw, and all of the people in his band are also descendants of his Merry Men. Another important distinction between Robin Hood and Rocket Robin Hood is that Rocket Robin Hood is at least seventy percent jauntier.

The show really wants to make sure you understand this is not Robin Hood. He’s Rocket Robin Hood. Robin Hood robs the rich and gives to the poor. Rocket Robin Hood robs the cosmic rich and gives to the astral poor. Robin Hood hangs out with Little John, Rocket Robin Hood, also hangs out with Little John BUT a space version who wears leather panties, a vest, no shirt, golden bracelets, and an enormous golden belt buckle with a rocket on it.

Aside from making far more nude fashion choices, the character is mostly the same. Rocket Robin Hood is the only one who got a new name in space. Friar Tuck is still regular Friar Tuck, and Maid Marion is still Maid Marion. But they all live on Sherwood Asteroid instead of Sherwood Forest and now have a futuristic dick-shaped fortress to call home.

So by now, you’ve probably figured out this cartoon is fantastic. You can never anticipate what will happen from one second to the next. All you know for sure is that it will be fabulous. When Prince John captures Rocket Robin Hood, he doesn’t plan to throw him in the dungeon or execute him. No, he plans to turn Rocket Robin Hood into a crystal statue. He wants to forever doom Rocket Robin Hood to be a tacky ass tchotchke. He wants to leave Rocket Robin Hood on a dusty old piano next to his $10,000 Swarovski crystal Captain Marvel.

When Rocket Robin Hood is challenged to deal with Prince John’s henchman, Titanor, or Titanar, or Titana (no one can agree on how to say his name), he wordlessly straps on a pair of space skis and blasts into the sky. Then, when he and Titanic finally battle, they heroically swipe at each other with canoe paddles for some reason. That’s the most efficient way to fight in space, I guess? This is a Monday for Rocket Robin Hood.

There are no rules to this show. Animation in 1966 was confused lunatics telling double-confused foreign sweatshops what to draw, and Rocket Robin Hood is triple exactly that. You know a story has officially gone off the rails when Dracula finally shows up, and that was season two for Rocket Robin Hood. He calls himself Dr. Mortula to give him more of a sci-fi vibe, and instead of Dracula’s powers, he has a giant robot bat that fights his battles for him. He tries to recruit Rocket Robin Hood to destroy the sun for him, which is not at all a job being good with a bow and arrow qualifies you for. Instead of joining forces with Dracula, Rocket Robin Hood steals his robot bat, and I’m making it sound far too well-paced and sane.

I found this ending unrealistic because Rocket Robin Hood would absolutely jump at the opportunity to fight the sun. That man has three defining characteristics: his skimpy little outfits, his love of rockets, and a death wish. In one episode, he’s told that the Sheriff Of Nott (the fucking N.ational O.uterspace T.errestrial T.erritory) has built a machine to destroy him, and he’s like, “I think the best way to learn all about a trap is to walk into it, don’t you?” No, Robin Hood, I think it’s Google, you maniac. You vivacious madman.

He does this multiple times across the series– declares something is a trap and then strolls right into it. He has the confidence of a man with severe brain damage from triggering too many traps. Luckily, Little John is always there to bail Rocket Robin Hood out of trouble with his trusty weapon (some sort of extra large shake weight).

Rocket Robin Also occasionally gets out of trouble by realizing it’s all made up. One of the show’s most famous episodes is called “Dementia 5,” and it’s well known for later having its animation cells reused by twenty-five-year-old director Ralph Bakshi (of Cool World fame) for an episode of Spider-Man called “Revolt in the 5th Dimension”. If you look closely, you might notice the similarities.

“Dementia 5” is one of the trippier episodes of Rocket Of Robin Hood. It begins with an alien escaping from his homeworld with a terrible secret about Dementia 5 that ends up in Rocket Robin Hood’s hands. Rocket Robin Hood gets attacked by the ruler of Dementia 5, who’s sort of a lobster man in an open yellow bathrobe with a mutated frog sidekick? Again, I’m worried I’m making it sound too sane.

He tortures Rocket Robin and Little John for a while before Rocket Robin Hood realizes the horrible secret of Dementia 5 it’s that it exists only in the mind. The secret to fighting the lobster bathrobe man is to just ignore him, which causes his whole vibe to make more sense. It’s pretty hard to ignore a crustacean who may or may not be flashing his genitals at you, even in this weird future where pants are forbidden.

Adding to the strangeness of “Dementia 5” and every episode of Rocket Robin Hood is the soundtrack. Whoever created it has never met a theremin they didn’t want to furiously bawoOOOweeEEEeewooo. I’ve never thought of someone jamming on a theremin before, but that’s what is happening here. They’re going to town on weird sci-fi noises usually while Rocket Robin Hood is having one of his very frugal no-movement fight scenes.

The animation budget for Rocket Robin Hood was negative seventeen dollars, as is traditional for cartoons of the time period. They also didn’t put a lot of money into even mildly researching any of the science in their science fiction show. I know this was a pre-internet time when information was harder to come by, but it still seems like someone at the library would know if you could fly through space in only hot pants.

It’s amazing how quickly the source material of Robin Hood was thrown out by the writers. Instead of wealth redistribution, Rocket Robin Hood is more about fighting animal-shaped robots, conquering living planets, and chilling with his boys. It makes perfect sense that the Hood family has been unsuccessful at permanently defeating Prince John for hundreds of generations. Rocket Robin Hood loves his life. If Prince John ever loses power, what’s he going to do, become an accountant? Wear pants!?

Final thoughts: First of all, if watching cartoons with awesome gay characters turned children gay there wouldn’t be a single straight person in all of Canada. There: homophobia solved. In honor of Rocket Robin Hood give your plutonic same sex friend a lingering hug. Then befriend a genie, teleport to another dimension, and kick Frankenstein’s ass. If you can squeeze in some helping the poor knock yourself out, but it’s not really necessary. The important thing is to get those pants off.

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