Robin Hood (TV series)/Awesome

Robin Hood's a famous guy. So are his Merry Men. Likewise, his sworn enemies. And one should never underestimate his girlfriend either. Tales of this lot have been told for centuries, and on the Main Page you'll find an increasingly long list of ballads, retellings, novels, films, television shows, video games, tributes and cameo appearances by Robin and his associates.

This is a badass bunch of folks, and here are some of their Crowning Moments...

Robin Hood
"A pox upon the phony king of England! Odelally! Odelally!"
 * Winning the famous archery tournament by shooting his opponent's arrow straight down the centre.
 * His final arrow, in any incarnation, whether it be triumphant or tragic.
 * Whenever Errol Flynn makes a Grand Entrance in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
 * Particularly when he crashes Guy's party with a poached deer over his shoulders, informs the Normans of his intentions, and after sufficiently ticking everyone off, fights his way out single-handedly.
 * Robin proposing to Marian while fighting off Prince John's goons one-handed in the Disney film.
 * Robin Hood and Little John's robbery of Prince John's coach at the start of the movie. Not only do they steal all of the gold on the coach, but also the coach's (gold) hubcaps, the jewels off Prince John's rings, and, just to top it off, Robin ends by literally stealing the robes off John's back!
 * "'Traitors to the crown?! That crown belongs to King Richard! Long live King Richard!"
 * The jail break in the climax. That's a monster-sized CMoA. After Robin Hood recovers from his Disney Death, they give Prince John an insult as the castle burns.


 * From the BBC's Robin Hood. The moment in Sisterhood when he's dangling above the snake pit, getting tortured by an increasingly furious Guy, who demands to know who the Night Watchman is. Despite the situation, Robin remains completely calm, knowing that Marian's going to turn up in approximately thirty seconds to cause a diversion and save his ass..
 * In Robin of Sherwood (the ITV series); the episode 'The Greatest Enemy'. Robin fighting off the Sheriff's army with just a longbow. He's outnumbered by about 50 highly armoured men-at-arms to one outlaw....and the Sheriff's men are still afraid to advance on him.
 * When the Sheriff of Nottingham gets his "nail" for posting Robin's outlaw notice in the Ridley Scott film.
 * Robin finally nailing the treacherous Godfrey in the Ridley Scott film. With a delicious Arrow Cam.

Marian

 * In one of Marian's earliest appearances in the ballads, she dresses up as a man and enters Sherwood Forest to find Robin. They don't recognise each other at first, and battle each other in a fight that lasts for hours. Guess who wins.
 * The The Adventures of Robin Hood version of Marian gives the villians (at her trail) a really good What the Hell People speech.
 * Marian nailing Nutsy in the face with a blackberry pie in the Disney film.
 * From Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Marian may get turned into a Faux Action Girl by the end of the movie, but when she first appears she gives Robin a damn good fight, culminating in a Groin Attack that topples him.
 * in the Patrick Bergin version, her cold, firm defiance to Lord Folcanet, wich culminates in her being forced to the alter by Folcanet, where she firmly states, "I will not marry him, not before god or anyone else." to the preast.
 * From the BBC's Robin Hood. After getting injured as the Night Watchman, Marian looks on as every man in the town square is forced to remove their sleeve so that Guy can inspect them for any tell-tale signs of combat. After giving up, he casually pats Marian on the arm and notices that she's bleeding. Without missing a beat, and with Guy sitting right next to her, Marian uses a fruit-knife to casually slice into her palm to cover for the blood, telling him that she must have accidentally gotten some on her sleeve. It's awesome because it's so understated, and the girl doesn't even wince.
 * The shippers may disagree, but Marian punching Guy in the face at the altar after he coerced her into an engagement and then tried to marry her under false pretences was Made of Win. Not only does she use her wedding ring as a knuckle-buster, but when she rushes from the church she finds that Robin is waiting for her - and after leaping up on the horse behind him she gleefully chucks her wedding veil into the dust behind them as they gallop away.
 * In the Ridley Scott film, when Marion fights a would-be rapist by . No need of a hero for her...
 * Marion and the feral kids rescuing the trapped villagers while the French are attacking Nottingham.

Little John

 * Winning the quarterstaff fight with Robin on the bridge. If you watch any adaptation in which he loses this battle, then the writer is missing the point entirely.
 * Unless the battle includes breaking the staffs into increasingly tiny pieces and Little John nearly drowning in an inch of water.
 * From the BBC's Robin Hood. Breaking wooden stocks off his own shoulders in order to save his wife and son.
 * From Robin Hood Prince of Thieves: using his strength to topple the gallows, upon which half-a-dozen men are slowly being strangled to death, including his own son.
 * In the Disney version, Little John at the end of the tournament. It looks like Robin's going to be executed, everyone's crying, Marian's whining about how much she loves him, and what does the normally jovial Little John do? He grabs the prince by the neck, points a knife at his back and MAKES the prince set Robin free. This is the one who didn't want to rob the stagecoach and didn't think the jailbreak would work, and HE'S the one willing to growl in Prince John's ear, "Okay, big shot, now tell 'em untie my buddy or I'll..."
 * And just before he has to cut his losses and let Prince John go, Little John was starting to force him to declare Robin the winner and get the kiss from Marian.
 * While robbing Prince John's carriage, Little John steals the solid gold hubcaps on a whim. And gets away with it!
 * If we're talking about the hubcaps, then his emptying of the chest full of gold in broad daylight without the guards holding it even noticing certainly deserves a mention.

Will Scarlett

 * His introduction. Robin Hood sees him on the road wearing his rich red suit and assumes he'd be a good target. After finding out he's going to be robbed, Will asks for a chance to defend himself. Robin Hood says he would give him a chance, but he has no quarterstaff. Will says 'that's fine, I'll make my own' and proceeds to uproot a tree and tear off the branches until he has a suitable weapon. Guess who wins.
 * From Robin Hood Men in Tights. He's given virtually nothing to do throughout the whole movie, but at one stage during the battle in the great hall, Will notices a sniper about to shoot Robin. He chucks his daggers at him, pins him to the wall, punches him unconscious and retrieves his weapons as the guy slides to the ground. Then he turns to the camera to make sure we all saw how cool it was, and says: "Am I good? I'm good."

Much the Miller's Son

 * In the The Adventures of Robin Hood, it's Much who takes down a full on (former) knight turned assasin on his way to kill the freakin king of ENGLAND!

Friar Tuck
"Tuck: And here's thirty pieces of silver, to pay the devil on your way to hell!"
 * The friendly sword fight he and Robin had in the The Adventures of Robin Hood.
 * In the 1991 Patrick Bergin film: "Welcome to Hell!"
 * In Robin Hood Prince of Thieves Tuck shoves a corrupt priest out of a high window, but not before helping him pack his belongings:


 * In the Disney version, him beating the snot out of the Sheriff when he tries to take the one farthing they have out of the offering box as taxes.
 * His line right before that, "Get out of my church!" says it all.
 * Made even more awesome by the fact that only the sheriff is armed with a sword. Friar Tuck beats him off with a stick.
 * Made even more awesome because he was winning! The only reason the sheriff got the advantage at all was because the vultures pulled Friar Tuck's hood over his head, basically blinding him.

Allan-A-Dale

 * In the Disney version, he and Friar Tuck foil Sir Hiss's attempt to spy on and find Robin Hood by using his instrument as an impromptu bow.

The Saracen

 * Nasir from Robin of Sherwood was a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome. Where do we even start?
 * On the strength of a single scene (in which Nasir fights Robin to a stand-still with his swords, only to smile at him and abandon his former employer in order to join the outlaws), Mark Ryan was included as a regular cast member and thereby started the trend of adding a Saracen outlaw to the Merry Men in subsequent adaptations.
 * In one episode Nasir is hunted by a fellow Saracen who works for the new Sheriff of Nottingham. Whilst the other outlaws are about to be executed at the castle, Nasir fights his old enemy, kills him, and then turns up dressed in his face-concealing clothes just in time to hear the new Sheriff ask (what he thinks is) his lackey to dispatch the outlaws. Nasir promptly kills him instead.
 * In another episode he hears from two serfs that Gisborne has attacked the village of Wickham. He infiltrates the village and manages to take out ten soldiers single-handedly before being caught. At one stage he stabs a guard from inside a hut, having made a hole in the wattle wall, then reaches through in order to pull the soldier back up against the wall, making it appear as though he's just sleeping.
 * His awesomeness was silently Lampshaded in the series itself. When the outlaws arrive at Wickham for a summer festival, each man is paired up with a village girl. Nasir gets two.
 * From the BBC's Robin Hood. Tiny little Djaq takes out two fully armed guards with a shoe.
 * Then caps it off with the excellent line: "Men are so obvious!"
 * Achoo from Robin Hood Men in Tights Shoots the Rope that is about to hang Robin Hood...even though he was aiming for the hangman.

Prince John

 * King John seeing through Robin Hood's disguise in the Disney film. Said disguise wasn't paper thin, either. Hell, the way he unmasks him was awesome. In the middle of knighting him, he shoves the sword into the tunic he was wearing, and rips it open, not at all making it accidental.

The Sheriff of Nottingham
"Sir Guy of Gisbourne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?
 * From Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Virtually Alan Rickman's entire hamtastic performance, but particularly this: "Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!" and his infamous Cut His Heart Out With a Spoon rant, which is now a Trope Namer.

Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's dull, you twit! It'll hurt more!"


 * The Sheriff of the BBC's Robin Hood gets several of these.
 * After capturing three men identified as Robin Hood's men, he anticipates a rescue and has them hung a full hour before normal execution times, forgoing the opportunity to construct a trap just for the sadistic pleasure of killing men that he assumes are dear to his enemies. Not only that, but he has their bodies concealed within banners on the parapets and reveals them after some Evil Gloating in the courtyard in which he addresses Robin (who he realizes must be hiding in the crowd) and mocks him for his failure.
 * Having been told that Robin plans to assassinate the Black Knights, Guy, and the Sheriff himself during a secret meeting, he ensures that all of his allies are wearing padded vests under their clothing. Not only that, but he instructs everyone in the room to pretend to die after Robin's attack, presumably just for the fun of popping back up after Robin thinks he's killed them all.
 * As noted on this blog, Sheriff Vaizey's all-time crowning moment has to come in the episode “Walkabout”, just after Robin Hood has stolen evidence implicating the Sheriff in treason. He's so stressed about this that he winds up sleepwalking right into the heart of Sherwood. Coincidentally this is also the day that Prince John needs his seal or else he’ll destroy Nottingham, much to the shock of Guy, who's found himself in charge. So Sheriff’s in the middle of the forest, with no time, no shoes, no money, no weapons, not even his false tooth, and he still manages to form an evil outlaw band, con his way into Robin’s camp, rob the gang blind, screw over his partners, and stroll past the torch-bearing mob into Nottingham, berating Gisborne without missing a beat. Pure. Class.

Guy of Gisborne

 * The version of Gisborne was all kinds of "Evil Awesome" in the The Adventures of Robin Hood film.
 * From the BBC's Robin Hood. As an entire garrison of men attack the city gates with a battering ram, Guy shouts at them, "Will someone get this gate open-- In the name of the KING!" Kicks the gate, which is apparently the last straw as the beam holding it breaks into splinters and the gates open. Awesome.

King Richard

 * In the Disney version, King Richard is a living Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * He would have been even more of one had the original ending been kept:
 * He has an even better moment in the Errol Flynn film when in disguise he sees Robin Hood ordering an massive search for himself to protect him from assassination. At that moment, the King says there is no need and doffs his plain black robes to reveal his armor covered by a rich red and gold decorated tunic, it makes for a powerful entrance befitting a King to his heroic loyalists.
 * Doing basically nothing except being Sean Connery in Princeof Thieves.

Others

 * Marian's lady-in-waiting, Lady Cluck, taking down the guards NFL Style, set to the USC "Fight on" and "On Wisconsin", in the Disney film.
 * I forgive Maid Marian for being so irritatingly helpless solely on the merits of Lady Kluck... who herself told Marian, "Run for it, lassie! This is no place for a lady!" right before leaving the Sheriff unconscious while saying, "Take that, you scoundrel!"
 * Seize the fat one!
 * The BBC's Robin Hood had the popular guest-star Matilda, a healing woman who was accused of witchcraft and dunked in the lake in order to extract a confession. She fearlessly screams obscenities at the Sheriff entire time, and is the only character in the entire series who seems to truly unnerve him.
 * Alright, we'll give the much maligned Kate one. In the third season of Robin Hood, the outlaws are about to be burnt at the stake. Kate rushes forward, screaming "heretic!" and slaps Robin around the face, taking the opportunity to slip him an arrowhead that allows him to cut through the ropes. Sadly, that was the coolest she ever got.
 * Robin Hood and Little John attempt to rob some random peddler, Gamble Gold, in the forest. He proclaims that no one in Nottingham can take his stuff from him, and proves it by kicking both their asses.