Trivia / Robin Hood (1973)

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Prince John has no mane, most likely due to him originally being a tiger and the animators not bothering with a new design. However, a male lion who lacks testosterone does lose his mane and strength, a fitting imagery for the weak Prince John.
• Acting for Two:
  • King Richard and Prince John are both voiced by Peter Ustinov.
  • In the second Japanese-dubbed version, Mika Doi voiced both Maid Marian and Skippy.
  • Barbara Luddy voiced Mother Rabbit and the Sexton's wife.
• Billing Displacement: During the opening credits roll call at the beginning following Alan-A-Dale's introduction, Robin Hood (along with Maid Marian) was listed third, while Prince John, the villain, was up first.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In issue 26 of the magazine Animator, Don Bluth expressed dissatisfaction with working on this film.
    I drew with great excitement, thinking how good it was to work on a Disney feature. When Robin Hood was completed I decided it did not look the greatest of films. The heart wasn’t in it. It had technique, the characters were well drawn, the Xerox process retained the fine lines so I could see all of the self indulgence of the animators, each one saying, “Look how great I am,” but the story itself had no soul.
  • Floyd Norman once said that he was grateful to have gotten fired from animating on it.
• Creator's Pest: Animator Floyd Norman personally disliked Skippy due to how "annoying" and "bratty" he is.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Peter Ustinov also voiced Prince John in the German dub of the movie, but not King Richard.
• Orphaned Reference: Even after plans to set the film in the Old West were abandoned, a number of Western stars were still kept in the cast.
• Playing Against Type: Henki Kolstad in the Norwegian dub, who was known for playing kindly old men like Dr. Dawson or the Sultan of Agrabah, voices the Faux Affably Evil Sheriff of Nottingham.
• Prop Recycling: Less egregious than other types, but a few notable instances make it the more well-known example of Disney reusing or recycling animation:
  • Little John uses Baloo's design from The Jungle Book (1967) but recolored brown and with the green hat and cloak placed on top, and many of Little John's interactions with Lady Kluck are based on Baloo's screentime with King Louie. Coincidentally, both characters are also voiced by Phil Harris. Downplayed in the Japanese dubs where Daisuke Gori who did Baloo in the Jungle Book only provided Little John's singing voice in the theatrical dub. Also downplayed in Once Upon a Studio where Little John and Baloo are Richard Epcar and Jim Cummings respectively.
  • Maid Marian's dancing manages to use it twice from two previous Disney films. One section is based on Duchess' dancing from "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat", while another uses Snow White's from the dance scene in the dwarfs' house. The latter is more noticeable, considering there is actually a slight frame-rate difference compared to the rest of the film.
• Real-Life Relative: In the French dub, the voice actors of Skippy, Sis and Tagalong, are Christophe Bruno, Béatrice Bruno, and Aurélia Bruno (Lisa Simpson's voice), who are actually brother and sisters. In fact, even Toby Turtle is voiced by Fabrice Bruno, a fourth sibling.
• Those Two Actors: Monica Evans (Maid Marian) and Carole Shelley (Lady Kluck) were also a double act in The Odd Couple (1968) (as Cecily and Gwendolyn) and The Aristocats (as the goose sisters Amelia and Abigail).
• Uncancelled: The 2017 CD/digital release of the soundtrack ushered in the return of the Walt Disney Records Legacy Collection of Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition albums. (At the time, two years had passed since the last Legacy Collection soundtrack, The Aristocats.)
• Uncredited Role: The film only listed the actors playing the main character and key supporting characters; other actors like J. Pat O'Malley (Otto), John Fiedler (Sexton), Barbara Luddy (Sexton's wife), and all the child actors went uncredited.
• What Could Have Been:
  • If anything, the film would have been a take on the tale of Reynard the Fox, but instead went to the Robin Hood mythos during production, which would be an interesting case of a Dolled-Up Installment, as the Reynard elements have been retained (Treasure Island (1950) was planned to have Silver tell the story of Reynard via animated sequences á la Song of the South, but was cut, making it a case of Refitted for Sequel as well).
  • At one point, the animators considering playing with the Animal Stereotypes and make the Sheriff a goat; but, indicative of Disney's Audience-Alienating Era in The Dark Age of Animation, producer-director Wolfgang Reitherman rejected it because a wolf was more imposing. Furthermore, Robin Hood was going to have a full cast of Merry Men for the story, but Reitherman shot that down too, because he was too enamoured of the idea of doing a funny animal medieval emulation of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and had just Robin and Little John.
  • At some point during early development, one of the proposed settings was in the Old West, with actors Pat Buttram (The Gene Autry Show), Andy Devine (Jingles from The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok), Ken Curtis (Festus from Gunsmoke), and George Lindsey (Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, and The Real McCoys before playing Goober), all of whom had notable experience acting in Westerns. Writer Ken Anderson was interested in setting the film in the Deep South to evoke Song of the South, but concerned executives shot that down; Reitherman thus decided to simply keep the setting in England.
  • Friar Tuck was originally conceived as a pig, but the filmmakers feared that the Catholic Church would be insulted. (The Church didn't seem to care the last time this was done, though this could be forgiven as Porky is an established character.)
  • In one version of the ending, the Sheriff was in attendance at Robin Hood and Maid Marian's wedding, indicating that he may have reformed or been pardoned.
  • The special edition DVD shows off a reconstruction of an unused ending for the movie, in which Robin briefly becomes a Dude in Distress following an injury sustained from his fall during the climax: he would be left with Maid Marian at the church while Little John went off to find help. Prince John comes in while Robin is still knocked out, and is prepared to stab Marian to get to Robin, while she is prepared to stand in front of him to defend him. Of course, both are saved by the timely arrival of good King Richard.
  • Another alternate storyline involved Prince John setting another trap for Robin by sending fake love letters to him and Maid Marian so they will meet in Sherwood Forest where his guards will capture them. The letters would have been sent by carrier pigeon, but the pigeon was so fat it had to be catapulted into the air; this later evolved into the character of Orville the albatross in The Rescuers.
  • Prince John was originally going to be a tiger, but King Richard "The Lion Hearted" obviously had to be portrayed as a lion, so the tiger idea was dropped. Interestingly, it seems that when they decided to drop this idea, they just removed the stripes from the model sheets of the character, without making further changes. This could explain why he has no mane.
  • According to the book Mouse Under Glass, a dark ride based on the film was developed for the Disney Theme Parks, but it didn't work out. According to Tony Baxter, this is because of the film's lack of atmosphere:
    "Whether it's a good movie or not is beside the point. It's a movie that's characters, there's no atmosphere in it. I call it 'sticks and stones and rocks and leaves'. First you have the stone walls outside the castle, then the stone walls inside the castle, then the leaves in the forest, that's it. There are no exotic environments, you just have all these scenes with Robin meeting Friar Tuck, then Robin meeting Little John, then Robin meeting Maid Marian. That's when I figured it out: rides are about exotic places, not characters. The best attractions are where you suddenly find yourself in a jewel mine^note As in Snow White's Scary Adventures or flying over London^note As in Peter Pan's Flight."

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