May 25, 2005

19: Rocket Robin Hood

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A staple of my early childhood TV viewing was the cartoon Rocket Robin Hood, an ultra-cheap Canadian-made program with a futuristic spin on the Robin Hood legend. A three-pronged attack of Rocket Robin Hood, The Mighty Hercules and The Amazing Spider-Man also made for an awesome early morning television kitsch trifecta during my teenage years. An episode typically consisted of razor-thin plotlines mixed with a generous dose of repetitive character vignettes and musical interludes added solely to fill out the half hour. I could go on ad nauseam about the subtleties of the cartoon, but truth be told I already have: check out my IMDb review here (scroll down, there's only five reviews in total).


Resurrected by Teletoon (Canada's answer to the Cartoon Network) last year, I caught it a few times surfing between late-night sportscasts and Simpsons reruns. And I decided then to record an episode and capture this signature Robin Hood pose that appears in one of the vignettes, but by the time I remembered to pop a tape in the VCR, Teletoon abruptly replaced it with Flintstones reruns. When they reinserted RRH back into their schedule this spring, I finally nabbed it.

I spent Tuesday night sketching the face out, and finished it up in FreeHand. It's now my goal to one day make this into a one-off t-shirt design.

8 comments:

Allan Lorde said...

Yes! Way to go! You nailed it.

Matt said...

Very cool. It's definitely got an old school pop art vibe.

The character design kind of reminds me of that guy who turns into DC's "The Demon." (I think it's Jason Blood?)

shannon said...

I want a tee! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hi.

Its really great to see other fans of Rocket Robin Hood around. I used to watch it when I was a kid.

And now that it was back on TV, I STILL made time to watch it, even though I am in my 30's now...

I do amateur graphic design as well, and
that is a really neat idea to make a t-shirt.

I suggest you add some stylized 50's style
perspective lettering to your graphics.

Like when they introduce an episode... there is the "Rocket Robin Hood in..." lettering... use that and you have the perfect retro t-shirt.

If you want... get in touch with me: ssingh .a t. swen.uwaterloo.ca if you
do decide to make a t-shirt...

Bye.

S.

Anonymous said...

Really, really super.
I grew up with this show, and still leave it playing on my TV when I have loud parties. (Gives people something to look at and laugh at.)

Any Rocket Robin Hood fans should check out (and join!) the Yahoo group, at:
Yahoo group Hood

And yeah, T-shirts would be awesome!

Maybe with writing like in this photo:
Title image

Andrew said...

did you ever make this into a t-shirt?

I would be interested in a shirt!!

Jeope said...

Heh, no – that one kinda fell by the wayside.

Anonymous said...

Whoa! I had just made and ordered a Rocket Robin Hood T-shirt that very afternoon!
It is really freaky that after so long, you chose that very day to ask, Andrew!

Using the following online T-shirt place: UNIQWEAR.COM

I made the following shirt: My T-shirt

(I took the quote from the 'Robin' vignette)

They sent me a confirmation on Monday, saying that my shirt had been shipped.

1 x $ 21.90
T-Shirts - Men's Heavyweight Cotton T-Shirt
Product ID: 4115810-0
Size: L
Color: royal blue
Front:
Design: Digital Direct.
Text: Digital Direct.
"HE ROBS FROM", Dom normal, 100pt;
"THE COSMIC RICH...", Dom normal, 100pt;
"TO GIVE TO THE", Dom normal, 100pt;
"ASTRAL POOR", Dom normal, 100pt,

But I'd still be interested in a cool custom-designed RRH shirt by a real artist, so if you ever get around to it, don't forget to let us know at the Yahoo group, you'll surely find some interested buyers.


P.s. The Jan. 13 "Anonymous" comment above was me too.