When Things Were Rotten vs. Robin Hood: Men in Tights by Bonnie K. Jones

When Things Were Rottenvs. Robin Hood: Men in Tights Bonnie K. Jones

Mel Brooks is as persistent as a dog with a chew toy. When he gets an idea, he doesn’t let

go of it. For example: The Producers—it was a movie about a play, then it was a musical adapted from a movie about a play, then a movie of a musical that had been based on a movie about a play. Anyway, he did the same thing with Young Frankenstein—first a movie and then a stage production. But sometimes he went the other way. He started in television with Your Show of Shows writing satire. So he did a television satire about spies—Get Smart from 1965-1969, a big hit.

Which led him to a television satire of Robin Hood, When Things Were Rotten in 1975. The first episode covered the basic story of Robin Hood, Maid Marian and the gang hiding out in Sherwood Forest, foiling the plot of Prince John while waiting for King Richard to come back from the Crusades. Actually, pretty much all of the episodes have Robin and the Gang foiling the plots of Prince John and his henchmen. The cast had players that Mel had worked with before—like Dick Gautier, from Get Smart1, who played Robin Hood and Bernie Kopell2, as Alan-A-Dale. Many of the episodes had a well-known guest star, like Sid Caesar, playing the French Ambassador. Mel had worked with Sid when he was a writer on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Gags came fast and furious—New York Times critic, John O’Connor said there was a new gag every 15 seconds. Many different kinds of jokes and gags were used. People hanging on walls, dancing to jazz music, modern language—anything to get a laugh. It was very expensive to film. Mel wanted a certain look, solidly built sets and costumes, filmed using one camera. A laugh track was added later. Paramount wanted him to use a three camera system, like I Love Lucy, a much cheaper way to work because you get the scenes shot from three angles at once. More like filming a play. Mel was unwilling to change the way he worked and so the studio canceled it after 13 episodes. Too bad, spoofs are fun and were very popular in the late 1960s and 1970s. Batman and Hogan’s Heroes proved that. In 1993, Mel came out with Robin Hood: Men in Tights to the big screen with a big budget. It has a cast of actors to match the budget. Robin Hood was played by Cary Elwes, hero of The Princess Bride. In part, Mel’s movie followed the plot of the 1991 the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which had done well at the box-office. For example—Prince of Thieves had a black character called Azeem. Mel called his character Asneeze and his son Ahchoo. Gags borrowed from the TV show? Robin Hood firing six arrows at once and Robin’s winning arrow from the archery contest flying all around before it hit the target. Hawkeye coulda done it, or Green Arrow, ordinary mortals need not apply. Mel loves recycling: many of the gags in the movie have references to others of his movies like Young Frankenstein and History of the World: Part 1, including having a black sheriff at the end of the movie—Dave

Chappelle—who says it worked in Blazing Saddles. There were also many jokes referencing current pop culture, some of which I’m sure I missed looking at the movie 30 years later. In the movie you will see many actors he had used before, like Dom DeLuise3 as a Godfather type character. Mel also put himself in the movie as Rabbi Tuckman, replacing the Friar Tuck role. By the way, one actor was in both productions. Dick Van Patten played Friar Tuck on TV and the abbot in the movie.4 To sum up—the TV show is full of current cultural references (for 1975) and much juvenile humor. You couldn’t have adult humor on network TV at the time. The movie came out in 1993, also full of cultural references but much more smut and adult language. There’s overlap, but Mel didn’t have to keep the censors happy.

When Things Were Rotten: Main Cast

Dick Gautier Robin Hood Dick Van Patten Friar Tuck Bernie Kopell Alan-a-Dale Richard Dimitri Bertram and Renaldo Henry Polic II The Sheriff of Nottingham Misty Rowe Maid Marian David Sabin Little John Ron Rifkin Prince John

Robin Hood: Men in Tights

Cary Elwes Robin Hood Richard Lewis Prince John Roger Rees The Sheriff of Nottingham Amy Yasbeck Maid Marian Mark Blankfield Blinkin Dave Chapelle Ahchoo Megan Cavanagh Broomhilde Eric Allan Kramer Little John Matthew Porretta Will Scarlet O’Hare Tracey Ullman Latrine

1 - Gautier played Hymie on Get Smart. 2 - Kopell played Siegfried on Get Smart. 3 - DeLuise had previously appeared in Brooks’ films The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Silent Movie (1976), History of the World: Part I (1981), and provided the voice of Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs (1987). 4 - Van Patten also appeared in High Anxiety (1977) and Spaceballs.