The other day, I posted some Friar-O-Lantern cartoons. One made a reference to 2001 Space Odyssey:
Well, last night, after the trick-or-treating was done and his kids in bed, Brett came over, and he brought over a real-life version.
Best. Friar-O-Lantern. Ever.
Well done, Brett. (He even got the quote right). Eyeteaguy will be proud.
It was the perfect accessory to our decadent evening of beer, Zesty-Mordant Nachos, left-over candy and a bad Zombie movie.
Who’s wining?
I call it a draw….
“By Odin!”, exclaimed Clöst Aerfrök, the Village Elder.
“My Magical Thinking-Box has ceased to work..the Seeing-Portal has gone a strange shade of blue. What sort of trickery is this that Loki inflicts on us?
“How shall I be able to figure out the tide schedule, so we can know when to set sail to invade the Celts? How shall I calculate how to distribute our plunder? How shall I count the Lute-Fisk harvest?”
“This is a grave situation. Here, young Apprentice…guard the Portal, until I summon the Viking Council.”
“Let ME help!…..” offered the Berserker, after Elder Clöst had left.
“No…wait!”, said the Apprentice. But it was too late.
“NYARRGH!”, the Berserker screamed.
“That evil blue glow smells of DEATH! I shall send these vile spirits back to the realm of Niflheim, from whence they came!”
Elder Clöst came back to find the Berserker standing in a pile of the broken pieces of the Magic Thinking-Box.
“HE did it..not ME!”, cried the Apprentice.
“Idiots“, Clöst muttered under his breath.
“Sigh…very well. What is done, is done. Summon the Kilted Barefoot one…he will know what to do”.
The Kilted Barefoot one arrived, and assessed the carnage.
“Aye, the damage is great. But all is not lost. I may be able to help you.”
“Bring me four logs of the stoutest Oak, thick as a man’s arm. A heavy length of twine, spun from the finest hemp, and two human skulls, from our bravest defeated enemies”.
And the Kilted Barefoot one worked through the night, applying his sorcery…
Came dawn, the Barefoot one presented his work:
“Behold…I have strung the pieces of the broken Thinking-Machine bits along the twine, and have formed an abacus. This will still allow you to calculate and count. Perhaps not as quickly as before, but I promise you, the Blue Screen of Death shall torment you no more”.
“Crude, simple, but effective. And still better than what we had before”, exclaimed the Elder. “I thank you, O Kilted One. We shall reward you well”.
And they did.
And the village was soon able to resume invading the Celts, dividing their plunder, and counting their Lute-Fisk.
It’s Friday, and it’s been a really SERIOUS week.
And I’m tired.
So today, I’m not going to discuss who should be the Elf-Leader of the Middle Kingdom. Nor will I take out my Magical Lute and sing whale-songs to save Mother Earth.
Today, I don’t care how we’re going to rescue little Timmy and Bhupinder who both fell down the well.
Today, I won’t ponder the existence of the Gitchi Manitou. Nor will I attend a Morality Play teaching our children to respect their Play-Doh.
Today, I won’t read that inspirational passage that someone wrote. Even if it could change my life. I’m willing to take that risk.
Today, I don’t even want to talk about RSS or SEO. Or PBS or NBC or Ee-Eye-Ee-Eye-Oh.
Nope. It’s Friday, and I’m tired.
Today, I just want to draw cartoon pumpkins.
Stupid, silly pumpkins.
Happy Friday! 
Can you guess which one of these lads is least likely to get invited to the Deer Camp next weekend?
1. Daedalus and the Mask of Vulcan…Separated at Birth?
Are these guys identical twins…or are they the same person?
You never see the Mask’s face…it’s always hidden behind the trash can he wears on his head. And you never see Daedalus’ face either. He wears some cheesy kind of bandit-mask. (Did they even have cheesy bandit-masks in ancient Greece?)
Both men have the same build, and they wear exactly the same crummy old grey robe. You never see the two of them together in the same place. And to top it all off, they both have the EXACT SAME VOICE.
What’s going on here? Are the animators just trying to save money? Or are Daedalus and The Mask the same person, and they’re just trying to screw with our heads?
The world will never know.
2. Seriously. What’s the story with with Newton?
Sometimes I think Newton must be gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) But he’s quite androgynous, so it’s difficult to pinpoint his lifestyle choice.
Actually, in the earlier episodes, Newton had a deeper (albeit somewhat more obnoxious) voice, and it was clearly male. But very soon after that, Newton adopted that whinnying high-pitched tone, suggesting a total lack of testosterone. It makes you wonder if he got gelded by King Dorian’s Royal Veterinarian.
Newton has plenty of effeminate mannerisms (especially the way he keeps looking at Herc with those big goo-goo eyes, like a schoolgirl with a crush). But then again, he also hangs out a lot with with The Beautiful Helena, who’s quite the catch. He’s also half-horse…(which is a whole separate area I don’t even want to get into).
So I’m not really sure which way Newton’s gate swings. At the very least, he must be very gender-confused, not to mention species-confused.
(NOT that there’s anything wrong with that…!)
3. How come all the monsters sound the same?
There are so many monsters on this show it’s a wonder anyone can walk through the Learnian Forest without tripping on one. But whether it’s the Dreaded Beast of Charon, the Nemean Lion, or the Minotaur of Minos, the monsters on the show all bellow or scream in only two different ways.
The first monster sound is a low-frequency angry moan, which sounds like someone wailing through a rolled-up newspaper:
“WHOOOOOAAAANNNNHHH!…WHOOOOOOAAANNHHH!”
When you consider the budget of the cartoon, they probably DID used a rolled-up newspaper.
The other monster sound I call ”Hissing and Horking”. It’s hard to describe with words, but try to think of an angry cat with with emphysema. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll know what I’m talking about:
“HiCHHHHHHHHHH!……HiCHHHHHHHHHH!”
I’m not sure if there is any correlation, but it seems to me the ”angry moan” is reserved for the mammal-type of beasts, while the “hissing-horking” is more applicable to reptilian monsters.
Mabye someone should do a study. (Are there any 20th Century Popular Folklore PhD’s out there?)
4. Why does Hercules get beaten up every episode?
Each episode is so predictable that you can set your clock to it. Someone is in trouble. Herc flies down from Mount Olympus, and without even warming up or stretching, he immediately starts to fight with Daedalus and/or Willamena and/or whatever asshole monster happens to be around.
And in every damned episode, he gets the crap beaten out of him, because he isn’t wearing his ring, and he only has regular human strength. Just when you think he’s screwed…just when he’s about to be eaten or blown up, then (and only THEN), does he put on his ring. The Thunder of Zeus flashes (Tant-Taraaaah!) , Herc gets his strength back, gets up and goes on to kick some serious ass, and saves the day.
Uh, Herc. Did it ever occur to you to keep your ring ON at all times?
Shades of Scorpius! Why would you ever take it off in the first place? Maybe if you kept it on, you wouldn’t get clobbered so much…Dumbass!
Unless it has something to do with batteries that need recharging. If that’s the case, then at least they should mention this on the show, for the benefit of the viewing audience.
They owe us that.
5. How is it possible to run without using your torso?
You can really get a sense of how astutely the animators studied the principles of classic anatomy and human motion and kinetics, when you watch Hercules run.
Whenever Herc is in an all-out sprint, take a closer look. His legs are going like crazy, but his upper body remains perfectly motionless. There isn’t even the slightest pumping motion with his arms.
Holy Crap. That really is amazing! (If you don’t believe me, try to run that yourself.)
Maybe only Demi-Gods are able to run like this.
(And also maybe Rocket Robin Hood…but that’s another cartoon altogether.)
6. Why doesn’t anyone take off the Mask of Vulcan’s mask?
Every episode, the Mask explains (for the benefit of the audience): “While I wear the Mask of Vulcan, I am INVINCIBLE and ALL POWERFUL”.
So? Big deal. Just take off his mask, and then just pummel the sonnavabitch.
But NOOOOooooo. For some reason, Herc never seems to catch on to this. He might throw things at the Mask, like wagon, a huge boulder or a barn. He might try to pound The Mask in the chest with his bare fists. All this does is make The Mask laugh, and he explains (yet again) that so long as he wears the mask, he is invincible, and all powerful. (Yeah, we got it the first time.)
Hercules: Just TAKE the freaking mask off, and kick his ass!
It makes you wonder about Ol’ Herc. Maybe the lad ain’t that bright.
7. Exactly who is the ”Hercules Song” supposed to appeal to?
I’m not talking about the famous opening theme song by Johnny Nash that everyone knows. I’m referring to the lesser-known, somewhat obscure song that Newton occasionally sings:
“I’m glad. I’m glad. To have. To have. A friend. A friend. Like Hercules. Like Hercules”.
Oh. My. God.
Can this be any more GAY?
“I’m not….I’m not. Afraid….afraid. When I’m…when I’m. With Hercules…with Hercules”.
Um…Okay, Newton. We’ve heard enough, now.
I started watching this show when I was five…and even at that age, I realized this song was LAME and was meant for younger kids.
It makes you wonder, just exactly what age group where they trying to target with this song? (Two?…One?) It ranks right up there with Barney and the TeleTubbies.
“Whenever… Whenever….There’s trouble… There’s trouble… He gets there. He gets there. On the double! On the double! “
Okay, Newton. We get it. You may STOP now.
“So I sing. I sing. To you. To you. Be good. Be good. Like Hercules. Like Hercules. Like Hercules!”
For the Love of Zeus, Newton. Please stop. Just STOP! Won’t someone make him STOHHHHP!? (Sob!)
8. Tewt’s Remarkable Communication Skills
Before I start, there’s one thing I want to ask. WTF is Tewt? I think he’s supposed to be a satyr (one of those mythological figures that are half-man and half….what? Goat?…Horse?…Pig? Whatever it is…it just ain’t right.
Poor Tewt can’t speak, but he communicates with his flute. (I dunno, maybe he’s partially retarded or autistic.) But whatever the reason, he sure has overcome his handicap. It never ceases to amaze me how much information he can convey with a few notes of music:
“Tweet twoo”.
“What’s that, Tewt? Helena is kidnapped on Skull Island by Daedalus, and the only way to cross the water is by using the Enchanted Boat of Diomedes that’s docked by the Cave of Doom?”
They must have borrowed this theme from Flipper:
“Click Clack”
“What’s that, Flipper? Bud is stranded on Skull Island, a hurricane is approaching, and the only available boat is moored in Coral Harbor?”
Do you know what would be really cool? Put Flipper and Tewt together and see if they can understand each other.
8. Why is Helena Single?
Ahhh, The Beautiful Helena. (Sigh). You gotta admit, she IS pretty hot. The animation isn’t great, but at least the artists know how to make her look like a woman. She has some pretty decent curves, when you compare her to other early 60′s animated females (Wilma Flintsone?…PUH-Leeze!)
Though I feel sorry for Helena. Life isn’t easy. She’s constantly kidnapped by the creepy old Daedalus, harassed by Wilamena, tied to trees or chased by countless monsters. The only regular male companionship she seems to have are Toot, Newton, and occasionally a pre-pubescent Timon. She looks kinda lonely…what she needs is a REAL man.
Then, Hercules comes along and sweeps her off her feet to rescue her, and Helena is thrilled to be with him. She flirts, drops hints, tries to steal a kiss, and basically does everything but throw her panties at him. Yet Herc remains totally clueless.
Just when you think things are going to start to heat up between the two of them, each episode invariably ends with Hercules taking off into the sky, screaming “Olympiaaaaaaa”, leaving a puzzled Helena behind, wondering what it is she did that Hercules wont’ even TALK to her.
Come on, Herc. She’s hot. And she wants you. Get with the Program.
Maybe it’s because Herc has “issues” with women…(not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
9..Why does Hercules narrate his own show?
“Meanwhile, back in the kingdom of Caledon, a young king Dorian ponders his future….”
Come on. I know the show is for kids. But did they think we WOUDLN’T NOTICE that voice of Hercules and the narrator of the show are ONE and the SAME?
Why does Herc even bother? Does he need the work that badly? (He’s a Demi-God and his Dad is King Zeus). You’d think he’d have enough connections to not need any extra income.
Who knows? Maybe he has gambling debts or something. Or maybe he’s just so egotistical, that he needs to tell stories about himself in the third person, so we all get impressed.
But I don’t think Herc is like that. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they just asked him, because no one else can do it. Who else are they gonna get to narrate the show? King Dorian?…He sounds like a wuss! Or Newton?…Come on! (See comment #2).
Chances are, Herc is probably helping out by filling in for someone. (It could be that the Narrator of Ellipsides is off sick and needs a stand-in).
10. Where can I get one of those Moonstone Belts?
Where do they come from? What kind of technology is this? They look AWESOME.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, these are belts that Herc gives out to selected friends. The belt buckle has a big “H” logo on it, and is about the size of a CD. Whenever you’re in trouble, you signal Herc by opening up the buckle, and out streams this really bright Giga-Watt beam of light that strangely enough sounds like an electric monorail.
HmmmmmmMmmmmmmmmm.
That…is…so…COOL.
You wonder why Newton or Toot don’t start screwing around with these belts when Herc’s away. I’d be using it like a magnifying glass to burn ants. Or reflecting it off a mirror or a watch glass to piss people off. Or hey, instead of depending on Herc every time a monster comes, why not shine it in the mostners face to blind them? (HiCHHHHHHHHHH…! HiCHHHHHHHH!)
I also wonder about the technology behind the Moonstone Belts. It might be a laser, but I’m thinking it’s quite a strong beam (it illuminates half the side of Mount Olympus in broad daylight!). You’d need a battery pack the size of an 18-wheeler just to power it.
Maybe it’s a nuclear reaction, but that also doesn’t make sense. In order to generate that amount of visible light from beta-gamma decay, the radiation fields would have to be enormous. The belt operators themselves would get fried, unless they were behind several feet of lead.
Maybe they’ve discovered a source of Cold Fusion. If so, then come on Herc, and share the technology with the rest of the planet, so that David Suzuki and Al Gore will get off our backs!
1. The Theme Song
“Band of brothers marching together, heads held high in all kinds of weather. With fiery blasts our roaring rockets rise…beyond the earth. Beyond the skies! ….”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MfisiGqtEM
When I heard this as a kid, it sent shivers down my spine. What a kick-ass song! It just made me want to join Robin and blast off into space with him to blow up monsters and bad guys. (If the army today played something similar, I’m sure they’d have no problems getting recruits.)
What’s amazing is the high production quality (considering how cheesy the rest of the cartoon is). I suspect that the producers blew most of their budget on the orchestra, choir and recording studio for the opening theme song, which didnt’ leave much left over for animation, storyboards and writing.
2. They actually beat up the bad guys
Back in the 60′s, there was none of this PC crap on TV. Cartoons would routinely show the good guys actually beating up the bad guys. And the animators on Rocket Robin Hood were only too glad to show this to the kids. (If you dont’ believe me, just watch the opening credits of the show).
There was plenty of direct fist-to-fist combat in Rocket Robin Hood. The best scene I like is in one of those cartoon “interludes” they showed every show, when the narrator describes Rocket Robin to us: ”He’s fun….he’s FANTASTIC”. This is followed by scene in which Robin smiles at the camera, and his fist flies towards us and fills the entire TV screen. We get a first hand view of what the bad guys might see…BAM!
I’d like to see the Bernstein Bears or Caillou try that.
Man, they’d never dare make a cartoon like that today.
3. Little John shows Good-Hearted Kindness Towards all Living Creatures.
Like all the other “commercials” in the cartoon, they showed the same “Little John” clip every damned show. The bad guys are trying to shoot him down with lasers, which he deflects with his “electro-quarterstaff” as he flies out of the sky, right into the bad guys, and clobbers the living shit out of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7pcqYtKwJs
Then a squirrel comes along, and lands on Little John’s quarterstaff. This is when we are shown Little John’s softer side…he laughs. But the animation is so bad, there are mabye two frames of him laughing, played in an endless loop.
In one of the frames, they must have forgotten to draw in his collar bone. So it looked like one of his clavicles kept disappearing and re-appearing as he laughed.
Even at six years old, I recognized this was bad animation.
4. Robins’ Skunk Hair
In this 10 second film clip, they’d sing about Robin Hood, and then his entire head would fill the TV screen. He’s drawn with a white streak running down the middle of his hair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksz2sdGXoFs
I suppose this was meant to look like slicked down jet-black hair. But it looked like a skunk. As kids, we’d all delightely point out to each other. ”Skunk hair…skunk hair!”
For some reason, we’d never get tired of this joke.
5. Really, Really Bad Science.
Okay, I know its a cartoon, but come on! There are limits!
Geez, where do I even start? The fact that Little John can walk around outer space wearing nothing but shorts, a tank top and a goldfish bowl on his head.
How about Sherwood Asteroid flying through what appears to be a sunny partly cloudy sky (Ummm…where does the atmosphere come from?)
I also like whenever a ship flies through space, the soundtrack plays these cheesy synthesizer sounds to let you know you’re in outer space.
I guess the cartoon is so old (it pre-dates the moon landing) that back then, people still didnt’ have a clue what space was like..only that it must have sounded very…er… ”space-like”.
The best is that STUPID ARROW that Robin fires into Prince John’s money bag. The arrow lands into the bag, comes to a dead stop, then accelerates away (with the bag attached) as Prince John looks on, perplexed.
I never saw anything wrong with that, until one of the older kids in the neighbourhood told me this was physically impossible.
Lucky for me, I forgot all the bad science from the show by the time I got my engineering degree.
6. Blinking Eyes
This is one of the trademarks of the show. To save on animation costs, the animators would show a close-up of someones’ face (just the eyes). You’d hear the dialogue, but they’d just show the eyes. Then the eyes would blink, and then you’d have a few more seconds of the eyes.
The whole interval would last about three seconds, but this probably saved quite a few animation cels. (Especially when the blinking eyes were repeated several times in any given episode).
Say what you want, but this was “pioneering” animation work that even Disney never came up with. (Can you name any cartoon show that has done anything similar, before or since?)
7. The fact that the show is still on the air
According to Wikipedia, the cartoon was made from 1966-1969. I remember seeing for the first time, in the late 60′s when I was 5. I remember the re-runs starting in the early 70′s. It’s always been on TV in one form or another. It’s still on today on the Retro Cartoon Channel. How awesome is THAT?
How many other cartoons can you name that are still on the air after 40 years? (Sure, there’s Bugs Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones, Woody Woodpecker, etc.) But those were created in world-class high-budget animation studios. How many other cheesy low-budget Canadian shows fall into the same category?
8. The Astro-Poor
This refers to when the narrator tells us “Robin robs from the cosmic rich, and gives to the astro-poor”. And then they show these motionless people trying to catch poorly animated stop-action coins from the sky that Robin dropped.
Astro-poor. Heh heh. You gotta love it. It’s in the future, so they can’t just be poor. They have to be ”astro” poor.
The astro-poor probably have to live in solar slums, and have to pay the celestial-rent to the inter-planetary landlord.
9. Ahhh….the Animation!
In case I haven’t emphasized this enough, the animation is bad. I mean, really really BAD. I don’t know what’s more hilarious…. how bad the animation is, or the fact that the creators of the show had the balls to produce something as low budget as this and try to get away with it.
It’s a well known fact that the human brain needs to see a minimum of 24 picture a second, in order to perceive continuous motion. I’d say Rocket Robin Hood, on a good day, might have 6 frames a second. Or maybe even less.
Aside from the blinking eyes, the animators used other tricks to save money. For example, repeating the same scenes over and over (similar to Spider Man or the Mighty Hercules).
In some cases, they didn’t even bother with this. (How about zero frames per second?). Seriously, there are often scenes where nothing moves, for seconds at a time (for example, a character might be shocked, or freezing in terror). At this point, it stops becoming a cartoon, and it becomes a slide show.
When they did try animate, it wasn’t consistent. Certain things would disappear and suddenly reappear (body parts, lines on a face, etc).
Or the characters wouldn’t even look the same. (For example, Friar Tuck could look like two completely different people within the same 2 minute segment.) Geezus Christ, it’s like they had completely different groups of artists, who didnt’ even work together in the same studio, and had no idea what the other person was drawing.
It’s almost like the show’s creators stopped caring. Yet they still made the cartoons anyway for four years.
10. The Friar
I’ve saved the best till last. I love Friar Tuck (He’s partly the reason why I’m called the “Friar”) Some of the lads at work gave me the nickname and it stuck.
The best scene is when the Wicked Sheriff of N.O.T.T. (who thinks the Friar is fat, foolish) sends two guards to go capture him. But the Friar shows THEM…he shoves out his belly, and knocks them flying!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebsSyfHaIRY
Then the Friar sits down at his table, to start some serious eatin’. As the dramatic music plays in the back ground, he gleefully grabs an apple, takes one bite, and throws it over his shoulder, and then a sausage, takes one bite, throws it over his shoulder, then grapes, then a chicken leg, then an apple, etc.
I must have seen that film clip 1000 times. But I never get tired of it.
Sure, he’s a glutton when he eats like this. But he can get away with this, because he’s The Friar, and he just clobbered two bad guys.
I was tempted to try that at our company picnic….I could just picture myself eating food and throwing it over my shoulder….It would have gotten a good laugh from the boys, but the boss probably wouldn’t have appreciated it.
