News: Rocket Robin Hood finally on DVD?

TVShowsonDVD.com’s David Lambert has posted the news that Rocket Robin Hood might soon be on DVD after a two-year wait.  Two one volume set, collecting the show’s 52-episode run, will be released to DVD on November 17, 2009.  The only information at this point is amazon.ca’s new listings for the volume sets, which are found here and here.

Rocket Robin Hood was supposed to come out October 23, 2007 through Séville Pictures, a date which was delayed to November 27, 2007.  Due to a problem with French-language audio tracks, Séville delayed the release further.

Séville parted ways with Warner Home Video in 2008, as Séville had been subsumed into Entertainment One (now E1 Entertainment) late in 2007.  Why it’s taken until late 2009 for Rocket Robin Hood DVDs to come out is anyone’s guess.

In no way was Rocket Robin Hood a well-produced program.  The show, animated by Trillium Productions very cheaply, melded its Robin Hood motif with SPACE! haphazardly.  CanCon regulations kept the show evergreen for decades, Rocket Robin Hood last airing on Teletoon Retro in 2008.

The show has held up very well, thanks to supreme voiceover acting by Paul Kligman, Bernard Cowan, Ed McNamara, Len Carlson, Carl Banas and Chris Wiggins.  Cowan doubled as narrator and dialogue director.

Cowan’s ear for dialogue has kept Rocket Robin Hood in syndication for generations.  Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse and The Wonderful Stories of Professor Kitzel have fallen by the wayside, but RRH is as durable as a T-beam.

This is one of Ralph Bakshi’s earliest projects, which saw Rocket Robin Hood embrace the trippy, nightmarish visuals it and Grantray-Lawrence’s Spider-Man would become famous for.  This is an exciting month for Bakshi fans, as Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures will come out on DVD January 5, 2010.

Rocket Robin Hood is one of the few Canadian cartoons that can truly be called “iconic.”  I really hope RRH comes out on DVD this time.  I’m becoming wary of the false starts.

Update (October 9, 2009) | Turns out that the Amazon.ca links are for English and French-language releases.  The article has been corrected to reflect the new information.

TVShowsonDVD.com is quite wordy in its correction.  Pruning that article to its basics, only one four-disc Rocket Robin Hood volume set will be released for each language.

Preorders have given RRH an Amazon.ca Sales Rank of #44 as of this writing.  I’m amazed Rocket Robin Hood is in such high demand.  It almost makes me want to quiver in my space boots.

C. Archer
Le Social