Miscellaneous, etc.

Sunday mornings were, as a kid, an empty wasteland of television. You had church shows, you had soccer, and you had all the cultural programming that was apparently mandated by the government. And that was it.

Fortunately, while I was growing up we still had the miracle of little podunk independent stations sprinkled through our cable switch box, some of whom were irreligious enough to present non-God-or-Pakistan-oriented content. Not that it was cutting edge content, mind you.

See, when you’re a TV station out of Peterborough and the Kawarthas, and your total viewing audience could fit comfortably into a high school stadium… well, you find yourself cutting corners. So despite the fact that it was 1983, you still find it cost-effective to run cartoons from, say, 1963. The benefit? Not only do you capture all the frighteningly bored kids sitting around on a Sunday morning, but you also manage to hook in a few of their parents.

Two shows in particular are tattooed in my brain, and I think it’s to everyone’s benefit that it’s settled here and now which one is most catchy and awesome.

The Mighty Hercules (1963)

Pros:

• Upbeat song exemplary of parent-friendly 1960’s pop music.
• Animation of a degree so limited that hilarity can only ensue.
• Homoerotic lyrics that appeal to the young and the old.
• Hercules blows up the sun with a bow and arrow to inform the audience of the title of his show.

Cons:

• Upbeat song immediately burrows into the memory and nests there, impossible to dislodge
• Limited intro animation is the best viewers will ever see during the program
• Lyrics are less “subtly homoerotic” as they are “flamingly gay”
• After blowing up the sun and conjuring a thunderstorm, Hercules still feels the need to flex his biceps — c’mon now

Rocket Robin Hood (1966)

Pros:

• Shamelessly and abruptly switches from electric guitar balladeering to Green Beret balladeering
• Animation limited so severely that “marching” was accomplished by moving the camera up and down over a static shot of the cast
• So much ass is kicked during the opening sequence that it breaks down into a psychedelic freak-out light show
• Did you see that shot of Maid Marian? Yow!

Cons:

• Stupid hippy opening part of the theme song makes it less cool to sing out loud in the shower
• Depictions of purple-cloud-filled space populated by comfortably-breathing people soaring through it set back an entire generation of science students
• Rocket Robin Hood both shoots an arrow at and bare-knuckle punches the viewer, creating distrust
• For each single time Maid Marian appears on-screen, Friar Tuck appears three times

The Winner: Rocket Robin Hood. You might try to credit the four intervening years between one show’s production and the other, but c’mon — they’re totally cut from the same cloth. But where Hercules leaves you with the anticipation (or mounting dread, depending on whether you’d seen a full episode before) of seeing what gay superheroes of Ancient Greece used to do, Rocket Robin Hood dials that up to a full expectation of boots-to-faces.

Plus, it’s just that much more subtle: There’s no iron in anyone’s thighs, but at least you get to watch the roaring rockets rise.