Rocket Robin Hood episode 'Dementia Five'! (1968)

Rocket Robin Hood was an animated TV series produced in Canada from 1966 - 1969.

Remembered fondly by many who grew up in that era, it was a sci-fi adventure series that took Robin Hood and his
Merry Men and put them in an outer-space setting in the year 3000.

I recall absolutely adoring this show as a kid, and being shocked revisiting it years later years to discover how clunky the limited animation was and how simple the stories were.

Watching the show's opening theme though, ▼ I can still see now what I saw in it then...



- As a small bonus, also check out one of the 'expository vignettes' about one of Rocket Robin's men.
Follow the link this small clip of Friar Tuck, which left an indelible memory for me, and may be responsible for some of my adult eating habits...

Sometime during the second season of the show, personnel change in it's production team brought in background designer
Richard H. Thomas and director Ralph Bakshi.

Bakshi had worked his way up in the field of animation while working for Terrytoons and Famous Studios, before opening his own studio in 1968. It was in '72 that Bakshi released his adaptation of R.Crumb's 'Fritz The Cat', his first in a series of animated feature films.

By the third season of 'Rocket Robin Hood', Bakshi and Thomas had given the look and feel of the series a new, slightly darker, more psychedelic tone that often made for some curious results.

Below ▼, 'Dementia Five' - - by far the 'trippiest' episode of the series...

- As a bit of trivia, much of the 'Dementia Five' episode's storyline, script, voice talent and animation cels were re-used in a Spider-Man cartoon (produced at the same studio for American TV), for the 1970 episode 'Revolt In The Fifth Dimension', which you can currently watch at You Tube - -

- Spider-Man: 'Revolt In The Fifth Dimension', Part 1
- Spider-Man: 'Revolt In The Fifth Dimension', Part 2

(Thanks are due to animation historian Jerry Beck for re-kindling many fond memories at one of his Comic-Con 'Worst Cartoons' presentations.)