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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Deleted Scenes from Disney's "Robin Hood"

I have been following a series of posts by animator Mark Kennedy featuring storyboards from deleted scenes from Disney's 1973 animated Robin Hood, and have found it fascinating. Here is a link to the last one. Robin Hood was one of my favorite of the animated Disney films growing up. Looks like I'm not alone.

Most of my strongest associations with Disney are with their amazing old cartoons from the 1940s and '50s, which were on a lot during my childhood when the Disney Channel was just starting up. Donald Duck was my favorite - such a rotten guy, very fun to watch react instinctively to stuff and then make more trouble for himself. Mickey bored me to tears, but Pluto was pretty good too. I liked characters with a little dramatic tension. I guess I'd better give credit to those mock educational filmreels starring Goofy. I could show you one and we could all reminisce or discover that great animation together, but that's not how Disney does business. Search for "Goofy" on Youtube and you get this.

I did like some of the other animated films but was a cynical child and was somewhat inoculated against an excessive love of Disney by regular trips to Disneyland during visits to Los Angeles to visit my grandparents in Orange County. Somehow other stuff slipped through the cracks, though, like:

Sierra got soooooo much of my money in those days. The Black Cauldron was the game I cut my teeth on. Man, I wandered around that stupid hut for a long time before I figured out how to find that stupid pig Hen-Wen. And that was just the first scene! Good times. I'm really not even sure I ever saw the movie. I did read some of the Lloyd Alexander books, though.

Go see Robin Hood's "missing chapter" at the Temple of the Seven Golden Camels.

3 comments:

RugbugRedfern said...

I've got one word to say about The Black Cauldron:

Guuuuurrrrrgggggiiiiiii!

I think I even tried to use that line a couple times in social settings when someone was about to perform an act of great personal sacrifice. But nobody knew what I was talking about.

Clement Glen said...

It is interesting to see how Disney moved from the original Story of Robin Hood made in 1952 with live-action to the cartoon version.

Sadly the Story of Robin Hood by Disney is very nearly completely forgotten about. But it had some good qualities and I have started a blog about it. Please take a peek and let me know what you think! Its at http://disneysrobin.blogspot.com/

Jeremiah McNichols said...

What a fascinatingly specific blog, Clement. Thank you.