dreadedcandiru2 (dreadedcandiru2) wrote in binky_betsy,
dreadedcandiru2
dreadedcandiru2
binky_betsy

Useful Notes: Rocket Robin Hood

[Off-key singing in a reedy tenor]Come gather around me, foob-snarkers surround me, hark now to the ballad of Rocket Robin Hood.[/off-key singing in a reedy tenor]



Since Lynn seems to have wanted to make her mark by animating cult oddity Rocket Robin Hood, I think it's only fair to describe the show (such as it is) in depth and why she probably missed her mark. Y'see, back in the 1960s, a mid-level subcontractor in Toronto was tasked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (or Broadcorping Castration or whatever) to take time from doing crappy cartoons based on Marvel comics that were effectively illustrated radio to produce a feature for a kids' show named Razzle-Dazzle. What they came up with was pretty much illustrated radio about Robin Hood In SPACE!!!!! in the astounding year 3000:



What no one realized at the time is that the CBC was about to yank Razzle-Dazzle from the airwaves because it was popular and respected and thus must have been junk because hey, what did the viewing public know, the morons. The end result was one tool re-tooling the work of the original tools and replacing a respected hit with a premise too stupid for Hanna-Barbera because it was cheaper to produce.

Said premise is that some nutbar in the asteroid belt found out that he was the direct descendant of Prince John Lackland and declared everything he could lay his mitts on as being part of the National Outer-Space Terrestrial Territories (or NOTT for short); despite the feeble protests by the Sherriff of NOTT that squeezing people to penury was stupid and short-sighted, the maniac ran things like a scab foreman. The only person in the asteroid belt opposing him was an agent of Earth's government who was descended from Robin Hood: Rocket Robin Hood. He and his merry men hung out in an asteroid with an engine that he could move at will so as to evade and harass the lunatic John. A fine time was had by some until the company went tits up and and the show had to be produced in New York by Ralph Bakshi whereupon things went to lunch. Recycled crap that had twelve minutes of actual story and twelve minutes of filler about electro-quarterstaffs and robbing from the astral rich to give to the cosmic poor got replaced by trippy, mind-blowing weirdness about living hallucinations and mad scientists with robot beetles. The reason this is important is that one of the people looking to get hired on who couldn't make it to the States was one Lynn Franks (nee Ridgway). She had no idea that having an animation budget of, I dunno, Canadian Tire Money was going to mess with her chances job-wise and probably never will.
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