Animated Conversations in Nottingham: Disney’s Robin Hood (1973)

Abstract

The Walt Disney animated Robin Hood (1973)¹ has often been regarded by critics as unimpressive. The influential site Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 55 percent, the lowest among the twenty-six Disney animations released before 1987.² Various reasons have been alleged for this supposed inferiority. The film has been seen as a small-budget effort made without enthusiasm by Disney’s senior staff after his death in 1966, without the master’s magic input: “You had a pride in the film you were making because he was there… and of course he wasn’t there anymore. There was a vast difference.”³ It was released in the middle of a period when the company’s attention had supposedly turned from animation to its live action films and theme parks. Only seven Disney animated features were made between 1960 and 1980, although there were three part-animated films, including the smash hit Mary Poppins (1964).