The Matter of the Greenwood by Steven H Silver

Some early run ins with Robin Hood.

I imagine my first real encounter with Robin Hood must have been seeing the Disney animated version that was released in 1973 with Brian Bedford voicing Robin-as-a-Fox, Monica Evans as Marion-as-a-Vixen, Phil Harris as Little John-as-a-Bear, Roger Miller singing “Oo-De-Lally,” etc. Although I, along with many other people my age, imprinted on that version of the Robin Hood legend, I don’t actually remember the first time I saw the movie. Other early encounters included a 1975 episode of a short lived television series called Don Adams’ Screen Test in which the former Get Smart star invited audience members to act out classic movie scenes. This was my introduction to Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood when an audience member was selected to act out the scene in which Robin (played by the audience member) had a quarterstaff duel with Friar Tuck (played by Ed Asner). It would be many years before I had the chance to see Errol Flynn and Eugene Pallette demonstrate how the scene was originally played. That same year, one of the co-creators of Get Smart, Mel Brooks, along with Norman Stiles and John Boni, created the comedy, When Things Were Rotten, which I remembered enjoying at the time. It only ran for 13 episodes and was gone by the end of the year. In those pre-internet days, I couldn’t remember the specific title of the show and when I bumped into Brooks in 1982 and asked him about it, he gave me the name. A decade later, he would release Robin Hood: Men in Tights, recycling many of the jokes featured in When Things Were Rotten. I had a chance to catch an episode of the show in 1998 for the first time since its original airing and later had the chance to re-watch the entire series. I’m afraid it didn’t stand up to my youthful enjoyment of the show. I discovered that the best parts of the series had been used in Robin Hood: Men in Tights and most of the series was not particularly funny or memorable, despite a cast that included Dick van Patten, who would appear as the Abbot in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Bernie Kopell, who Brooks had previously used in Get Smart. One final early encounter with Robin Hood. I was over at my friend Stanton’s and he introduced me to a television show that WTTW, the Chicago PBS station, was running. It was the first episode I had seen of a British show with a weird sensibility. I would later learn that it was the eleventh episode of the third season and had originally aired in 1973. John Cleese was playing an eighteenth century highwayman based on Robin Hood: Dennis Moore, who stole lupins from rich and poor alike, never quite getting it right. His theme song was a re-writing of the theme from the 1955 British television version of The Adventures of Robin Hood, that starred Richard Greene. Over the years, of course, I was re-introduced to Robin Hood in a variety of different guises: Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, the stories by Howard Pyle, Martin Greenberg’s anthology The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, as well as Arthur Sullivan’s operatic adaptation, Jennifer Roberson’s Lady of Sherwood and sequels, Parke Godwin’s Sherwood, and many more.

Although I am not a fan of Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it does play a role in a significant day in my life. One afternoon in 1991, my girlfriend flew up to visit me. That afternoon, we went to see Costner’s film. Several hours later, after the movie, dinner, and a play, I proposed to her and she accepted1 . Last year, when I was reaching out to authors for articles for the “Cancelled Too Soon” issue of Journey Planet, Marguerite Reed commented, “(btw, the Arthuriana issue was quite impressive). Perhaps a Robin Hood (the Matter of the Greenwood) issue should be done....” I noted that although I had a couple of articles in that issue, I hadn’t edited it, but would mention the idea to Chris and James. The results are in your han…on your screen.