Robbing My Past to Give to My Present

Despite the fact that neither Kevin Costner nor Christian Slater seem to care much for sounding English when playing English characters, I’ve always liked Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Morgan Freeman, Alan Rickman, and that ribald Friar Tuck – what’s not to like? And, though it has its doubtful moments, Robin Hood: Men in Tights is also a fairly enjoyable flick. (“We didn’t land on Sherwood Forest. Sherwood Forest landed on us!”) I have even quite enjoyed the several episodes I’ve seen of the recent BBC incarnation of Robin Hood. Richard Armitage stalking around a Olde English town in black leather and a scowl trying to catch Jonas Armstrong’s Robby H. – that’s just good television.

I have to confess, though, the version of the Robin Hood legend nearest and dearest to my heart is the underrated Disney classic featuring Baloo the bear from The Jungle Book as Little John. That film became the second reason for me to love Baloo the bear, the first reason for me to love Peter Ustinov, and the last reason I’d ever need to learn to climb that big tree in our back yard (to escape from the Sherriff’s men, of course). Though I did learn to scamper up that tree like a monkey, I will admit that I was never quite as graceful as a cartoon fox when I was about it.

As I got older I watched fewer cartoons and clearly discovered other Robins Hood, but every so often, however many years it may have been since last I watched the Sherriff bop Trigger and Nutsy, I would find myself humming one of my two favorite songs from the film. If I was feeling particularly cheerful, strains of “Ooh-de-lally, ooh-de-lally, golly what a day” might grace those fortunate enough to be near my happy self. But if I was feeling a little more solemn it would be the jail song, “Not in Nottingham.”

When I was eight I got a three octave Casio keyboard for my birthday. And, after “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” one of the first songs I plunked out was the jail song. “Every town [plunkplunkplunk plunkplunkplunk]/ has its ups and downs. [plunkplunkplunk plunkplunkplunk]/ Sometimes ups [plunkplunkplunk plunkplunkplunk]/ outnumber the downs. [plunkplunkplunk plunkplunkplunk]/ But not in Nottingham. [plunkplunkplunk plunk flourish plunk]” I don’t remember being a terribly melancholy child, but I really liked that song. “Ooh-de-lally” was more fun just to sing really fast. I could still sing either song (or a host of others) for you now, given the proper motivation. The proper motivation being, of course, a willing or at least tolerant audience.

I rewatched Robin Hood the other day and let myself slip again into the familiar rhythms of dialogue long ago memorized. Moments twenty years gone, people and places lost to the fickleness of childhood remembrance, drifted back to watch with me over my eight-year-old shoulder. Stick-on earrings from a friend, waiting for my dad to pick me up and hoping he’ll be just a little late, snow falling perfect for a snowman, my pink coat with the so-smooth buttons, and a Cam Jansen and an Encyclopedia Brown in my book bag.

And maybe that’s the reason I’ve never been able to get behind the Disney-Will-Steal-Your-Soul movement that’s so popular with the kids these days. Walt’s mammoth empire may have plenty of faults, but all those stories and songs have been inextricably wound through a thousand other bits and pieces pasted all over the insides of my memories of growing up. They’ve served as social adhesive, celebratory activities, gifts given and received, escapes into imagination and from worry. And now they’ve become triggers, springing dusty fragments of childhood out of forgotten crannies and into nostalgia. Like the song says, “Reminiscin’ this and that and having such a good time, / Ooh-de-lally, Ooh-de-lally, golly what a day.” And I can’t help but thank poor, dead, possibly cryogenically frozen Walt for that.

Next week I’m watching The Little Mermaid.