Gowings on George and Market…Going, Going, Gone

Commerce & Business, Economics and society,, Local history

Gowings menswear store was an retail institution in Sydney’s CBD for six score and then some years. This mid city store was the place you could find—in addition to its main line of affordable casual men’s clothing and apparel—among other things outdoor camping equipment, cricket kits, school uniforms and novelty items. Gowings also had a barber’s shop and you could hire a Year 12 formal suit or a wedding tux.

The Gowings story starts with John Ellis Symonds (JES) Gowings who emigrated to New South Wales from England in 1857. After retail experience in David Jones’ Sydney department store—where he worked his way up to head of mercery—JES’s first venture of his own was to open a drapery shop in 1863 in Crown Street, East Sydney. He then formed a partnership with his brother Preston, in 1868 the brothers opened a Mercery and Glove Depot at 318 George Street. JES managed the store in return for £200 per annum and 50% of the profits. The iconic Sydney retailer was up and running.

The business grew, in 1870 a new mercery warehouse was opened in Edinburgh House, 344 George Street, and 20 years later a second city store at 498 George Street. The brothers’ younger sibling Charles was hired as the Gowings store’s “dog walloper”, his job was chasing dogs away from the store as a preventive measure so they didn’t foul the pavement (Kingston).

Over time the Gowings retailer evolved from specialising in ladies’ gloves and silk umbrellas to menswear, turning itself into high-class gentlemen’s outfitters. JES’ customer-centric retail philosophy involved listening to the customers, treating them like they were friends and securing the best quality goods for them (Kingston). The 1890s and the approach of Federation prompted Gowings, anticipating the modern “Buy Australian” campaign, to push the Australian product. Restyling themselves as “Austral Clothiers, Mercer’s, Hatters”, Gowings Bros launched the slogan “Australian wool for Australian people”. For the country customers Gowings offered Australian manufactured commodities via its mail order service, eg, Marrickville Tweeds from John Vicars & Co, ‘bosker’ rugs made especially for Gowings (Kingston).

After JES’ death in 1908 control of Gowings passed to the John and Preston’s sons, with the firm’s tradition for quality goods continuing. The construction of a new flagship building in 1929 on the George Street site became a landmark for Sydney (at the time it was Sydney’s highest building and the first steel construction in the CBD)✦.

A testimony to Gowings’ fame is the cult phrase that it acquired (and cultivated by the retailer) during the 20th century …”Gone to Gowings” has passed into the Australian vernacular, meaning a failure of some kind or other, or possibly a state of inebriation or dementia (Tréguer). Macquarie Dictionary lists six definitions: 1. Deteriorating financially, 2. illness especially a hangover, 3. Failing dismally (a racehorse, a football team, etc), 4. having departed hastily or without a specific destination in mind, 5. drunk, 6. Insane, idiotic. Alternately it could mean down on your luck, lost at the races, etc. The other famous catchphrase that was posted on the flagship premises” facade was “Walk Thru, No one Asked to Buy”.

The Gowings family maintained a steady as it goes, minimise risk approach to the retail business for most of its history. Attempts to modernise it’s main store came later (installing air conditioning and music in lifts, the first retailer in Sydney to do so). Another innovation was its introduction of the “Gowings Own Brand” label of merchandise.

Gowings’ CBD stores (it added a second city store at Wynyard in 1996 – nicknamed the “Blokeatorium”) retained their popularity with the public, however a move to the suburbs (Oxford Street, Darlinghurst and Hornsby) proved less successful. In 2000 the Gowings family relinquished control of the retail business to an independent listed company G Retail and concentrated on the property development game.

Gowings ad, 1909

Gowings end-game
Under G Retail a new suburban outlet at Parramatta opened in 2002 proved a disaster, and when G Retail lost money three years in a row, the writing was on the board for the veteran retailer. More financial strife followed overreach (an aggressive expansion and building renovation program), G Retail was heavily in debt and headed for administration. In the early 2000s, Gowings, like most small retailers, struggled. A hike in the petrol price in Sydney in 2005 depressed consumer spending, exacerbating its problems (Evans; Perinotto). In recent years Gowings tried to innovate, going online, discounting, etc, but the decline was irreversible by then. Competition from the city’s retail giants was too great, Gowings simply couldn’t match the depth and breadth of range and quality that big merchants such as Target could offer (Lake)◈. The Oxford Street and Hornsby stores closed in 2005 and the following January the flagship George Street store closed its doors for good after 137 years of retailing. Later that year the Wynyard store completed the round of closures.

Compared to the larger, more dynamic players in the market, Gowings had the reputation of being a “blokey store”, leading some observers to pinpoint its ultimate demise in its retail conservatism, “stay(ing) locked in the fifties or sixties and limited (in its) geography” (Lake)

The post-Gowings space
Three months after its closure the Gowings landmark building at 452 George Street was snapped up by the Rydge family’s Amalgamated Holdings goliath for $68.6 million, consolidating its property holdings in this mid-town spot — Amalgamated Holdings had previously acquired the State Theatre building next door (49-51 Market St) as well as the nearby Mick Simmons building.

Footnote: in the late Nineties Gowings wholeheartedly embraced the ‘blokey’ image, its then MD and descendent of the founder proclaimed Gowings “the complete bloke’s outfitters”. Along with its usual clothing lines, it began pitching the “Bear Grylls” experience to men, selling goods for the great outdoor adventure (camping gear, hunting knives, zippo lighters) (Owens).

Gowings bldg (2021)

✦ designed by architect Crawford H Mackellar and incorporating a Palazzo style
◈ Retail expert Rob Lake attributes the fact that Gowings survived longer than many of the other ‘dinosaurs’ to its evolution into a sort of quaint relic which became its “point of difference” but one that didn’t boost it’s sales (Lake)

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Works and articles consulted:
Beverley Kingston, ‘Gowing, John Ellis Symonds (1835–1908)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gowing-john-ellis-symonds-12945/text23395, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 26 April 2021.
‘”gone to Gowings”: meaning and origin of this Australian phrase’, (Pascal Tréguer), Word Histories, 2020, www.wordhistories.net
‘End of an era as Gowings finally gone’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28-Jan-2006, www.smh.com.au
‘Gowings makes it like a man’s, (Susan Owens), Australian Financial Review, 25-Sep-1999, www.afr.com
‘The sad demise of a quirky retail dinosaur’, (Rob Lake), Crikey, 08-Nov-2005, www.crikey.com.au
‘Gowings clearing out for good after 137 years’, (Michael Evans), Sydney Morning Herald, 17-Dec-2005, www.smh.com.au
‘Gowings building sold to neighbour for $69m’, (Tina Perinotto), Australian Financial Review, 28-Apr-2006, www.afr.com

Selling Soda and the American Way of Life to the World: Coke and Pepsi and their 120-Year Rivalry

Commerce & Business, Media & Communications, Popular Culture

For as long as most consumers in the West can remember, it’s been Coca-Cola versus Pepsi-Cola, vying for the public’s preferred carbonated soft drink. Just how long is that? Well, the Pepsi-Cola Company was established in 1902, ten years after Coca-Cola did, so the rivalry got going pretty much early on in the 20th century. It was a long gestation period however for Pepsi before it got close to being competitive with Coca-Cola✱. PepsiCo struggled so much in the early years that in 1923 the company was even declared bankrupt – basically due to WWI sugar rationing in the US. Eight years later it filed for bankruptcy again! Pepsi never actually went away though, slowly and methodically rebuilding itself as a significant player in the industry, albeit for a long time it remained as one observer put it, a “persistent gadfly” in a lake dominated by Coca-Cola (Kahn).

In its early days Coke was marketed both as a medicinal drink and as a “refreshing tonic”

While Coca-Cola powered on with innovatively marketing (using high profile sportsmen) its product to kids with Santa Claus’ help, and expanding Coke overseas, Pepsi didn’t really get its act together until the middle of the 20th Century.  PepsiCo shifted its branding and marketing (moving from bottles to cans and adopting patriotic red, white and blue colours for the product). Another direction Pepsi goes in at this time is product diversification … the company’s 1965 merger with Frito-Lay Inc marks Pepsi’s foray into the snack food field. It also acquired other soft drink brands like Mountain Dew in 1964. Coca-Cola on the other hand confined itself to the beverage field with the introduction of TaB (a sugar-free diet version of Coke), then Sprite and Fresca.

Pepsi’s watershed year was 1975 when it mounted the “Pepsi Challenge”, a series of filmed blind-taste tests in which the majority of participants chose Pepsi over Coke as their preferred soda. This boosted Pepsi sales and escalated the rivalry between the two “Big Sodas”, kicking off what became known in America from the Sixties on as the “Cola Wars” or the “Soda Wars”. Until the Pepsi Challenge happened Coca-Cola had been coasting somewhat, complacently presenting itself as “the real thing” in contrast to the upstart pretender. Coca-Cola’s response to PepsiCo’s move was to promote the then most popular personality on US TV Bill Cosby as “the face of Coke”.

Pepsi embarked on a marketing campaign which depicted itself as a younger, hipper brand than its outmoded rival. Drinking Pepsi was a cool thing to do (so proclaimed the marketers), when stacked up against the tired, same old, same old Coke alternative. Integral to PepsiCo’s campaign was the recruitment of celebrities to endorse the beverage, the centrepiece of which was Michael Jackson. Other  pop music icons followed the success of Jackson’s involvement with the product – David Bowie, Madonna, Lionel Ritchie, etc. Ad men heralded Pepsi as “the choice of a new generation”.

In the early Eighties, under pressure from Pepsi’s inroads into the market, Coca-Cola introduced diet Coke, a caffeine-free soda, followed by a complete redesign of Coke—given the secret codename “Project Kansas”—the outcome in 1985 was a sweeter Coke, New Coke. To counter Pepsi’s sweeter, more syrupy taste, Coca-Cola replaced sugar with corn syrup (which also reduced the production cost). New Coke however proved a disaster for the company, provoking a huge backlash from loyal consumers, some described the new taste as like “two day old Pepsi”. Southern fans of Coke, where Coca-Cola (and Pepsi) had its origins, were especially offended.

Faced with an avalanche of criticism, Coca-Cola brought back the old formula under the name “Coca-Cola Classic”. New Coke for its part got rebranded but never really took off and was eventually discontinued. Disappointment that it was, New Coke did provide one unanticipated positive – it managed to reawaken in many Coca-Cola drinkers suffering from a bout of ennui a new craving for the original taste (Little).

The feud between Pepsi and Coke has continued to the present, in contemporary times reaching social media and outer space. In 2011 the hardball rivalry saw PepsiCo target Coke’s famous, family-friendly mascots, the polar bears and even every child’s favourite stranger Santa.

Vintage 1950s ad: “Pepsi-Chic” before it went “Pepsi-Hip” (Robt Levering)

The battle between the brown carbonated sugar beverages has seen Pepsi and Coca-Cola go tit-for-tat. Coke had the contour bottle so Pepsi introduced the swirl bottle, Pepsi had Gatorade so Coke had Powerade, Coke had Fanta so Pepsi had Tropicana, and so on. Only the decision by Pepsi to branch into non-beverage fields has not seen Coca-Cola follow suit. Some industry observers attribute Pepsi’s declining market position commensurate to Coke (2008–2018: Pepsi’s market share fell from 10.3 to 8.4 per cent, while Coca-Cola’s rose from 17.3 to 17.8 per cent) to it’s preoccupation with diversification leading to the company losing its focus on its flagship product (Weiner-Bronner; Beverage Digest).

World domination through the prism of “Coca-colonisation”
Both Coke and Pepsi are deeply embedded in American culture and psyche as national icons.  Coca-Cola’s brand recognition goes beyond this, embodying a universality that is global in reach. Mid-century Coca-Cola officials gleefully crowed that the drink is the “most American thing in America”. Robert W Woodruff, Coca-Cola president for over three decades, declared it to be “the essence of capitalism”. World War II enabled Coca-Cola to spread the word via US servicemen by cleverly promising (and delivering) them the sugary product in overseas theatres of war. The seemingly unstoppable postwar expansion of Coke as the company sought to extend its market to all corners of the world met with some international pushback. Certain European states like France (spurred on by agitation by the French Communist Party) staunchly resisted the drink’s introduction to their domestic markets, an attempt as they saw it to “Coca-colonise” other sovereign nations. In such countries the arrival of Coca-Cola bottles on their city shop shelves was seen as a pervasive evil, a symbol of American cultural imperialism, an all-consuming Americanisation which undermines the way of life and values of their society⍟.

Footnote: the Big Sodas rivalry had ad companies of second-half 20th century working overtime to come up with the jingle or tagline that would give their client the edge … from Coca-Cola’s early go-to “The pause that refreshes” to the TV age’s standards “Things Go Better with Coke” and “It’s the Real Thing” (the words “real” and “real thing” recur over the decades in Coca-Cola’s ad campaigns). Pepsi for its part, went from “more bounce to the ounce” in 1950 to its 1960s accent on youth, “Come Alive! You’re in the Pepsi Generation” and numerous variations over the years on this theme (“young” and “generation” are the key Pepsi words that recur through the jingles and slogans).

Photo: George Marks/Retrofile/Getty

Postscript: The taste difference!
Most people know that Coca-Cola originally used small amounts of cocaine in the famous beverage (scandalous as that may seem to modern sensibilities), but what is it that makes the two brown-coloured soft drinks taste a bit different? They both have carbonated water, sugar, colour Caramel E150d, phosphoric acid and natural flavourings. Well, according to Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, 2005), its the hints of citrus acid that is added to Pepsi that sets the drinks apart – cf. Coke’s citrus-free, sweet vanilla and raisin flavours.

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✱ Pepsi was always coming from behind in the formative period, by the time PepsiCo was founded the Big Coke was already selling about one million gallons a year

⍟ the familiar bottle of Coke is boundless as well as ubiquitous, having  been carried under the North Pole and into outer space

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Articles and sites consulted:

‘Why Coke is winning the cola wars’, (Danielle Wiener-Bronner), CNN Business, 21-Feb-2018, www. money.cnn.com

‘COKE VS. PEPSI: The Amazing Story Between the Cola Wars’, (Kim Bhasin), Business Insider, 02-Nov-2011, www.businessinsider.com

‘Ever Wondered What’s The Difference Between Coca-Cola and Pepsi? It’s Literally ONE Ingredient’, (Bobbie Edsor), Delish, 03-Dec-3020, www.delish.com

‘The Universal Drink’, (E.J.Kahn Jr), The New Yorker, 06-Feb-1959, www.newyorker.com

‘The Cola Wars’, (Melissa Santore), Ranker.com, 20-Feb-2020, www.ranker.com

Carleton Estate, Summer Hill: History of a Mansion-cum-Special Needs Hospital

Heritage & Conservation, Local history, Medical history

Summer Hill, seven kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, is a small suburb with a village feel to it. Since the 1970s it has seen an increase in the concentration of medium density apartment blocks, though many Federation-era houses have been retained. One of the largest heritage properties, 46–56 Liverpool Road, a historic mansion converted into an exclusive estate, represents one of the suburb’s most interesting back stories.

In 2014 this former grand residence-cum-hospital underwent redevelopment as the Carleton Estate, the mansion, stables and grounds, were converted into 78 individual apartments located in four buildings. The gated estate offered residents a communal garden (and the option of garden plots to grow vegetables), billiards room, swimming pool, gymnasium and parklands.

What interests us though is the one hundred and thirty years preceding the creation of Carleton Estate. In 1879 Summer Hill got its own railway station on the main suburban line, prompting an influx of new residents to the suburb. One of these was Charles Carleton Skarratt, a prominent local hotelier (Royal Hotel, Sydney) with diverse business interests in transport, mining, insurance and a brewery. After the land here (part of the Underwood Estate) was subdivided, Skarratt amalgamated nine of the suburban lots and built the original mansion (1884) on this 12,000 sq m block on the corner of Liverpool and Gower Streets (RPA Heritage News , Vol III, Issue III (Oct 2012).

Prior to Skarratt acquiring the property it was part of the old Ashfield Racecourse, and going right back to origins this was part of Cadigal (Eora) land before 1788. The first white owner was ex-convict and jailor Henry Kable who was the recipient of early land grants (1794, 1804). Kable’s Farm was located on this property. Kable, like Skarratt, had diverse interests, merchant trading, other land holdings, a hotel, etc and was at one stage in partnership with James Underwood, an early owner of the Summer Hill estate.

CC Skarratt

After Skarratt’s death in 1900 ownership of the Victorian Italianate mansion and grounds passed from the family to leading Sydney surgeon Henry Hinder. Just after the Great War it was purchased by the Benevolent Society of NSW as the new site for its Renwick Hospital, to replace the old premises in Thomas Street, Ultimo. Officially opened in 1921 as a “lying-in hospital and a hospital for children whose parents could not afford to pay for their medical care” (‘Renwick Hospital for Infants, Summer Hill, 1921 – 1965’, https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nsw). Patient care centred round the main building and an auxiliary building in nearby Grosvenor Crescent (“Queen’s College”). Two more treatment buildings were added to the complex in 1928 and 1930. By 1937, it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, the hospital at Summer Hill had treated as many as 20,000 children (‘New Block at Renwick Hospital for Children, SMH, 24-June-1937).

In 1964 the state government bought the hospital from the Benevolent Society…from 1965 it was renamed the Grosvenor Hospital. It had a dual function – as an in-patients facility for children, and as an out-patients facility which “provided for the diagnosis and assessment of mentally retarded persons of all ages” (‘Find and Connect’).

There were sweeping changes to the institutional approach to the mentally ill in NSW following the Richmond Report and subsequent Mental Health Act in 1983. The new emphasis was on downsizing to small community resident units. The Summer Hill hospital was streamlined with a progressive reduction over the following years in the number of patient admitted. Renamed the Grosvenor Centre in 1985, the facility’s stated mission was the treatment of children with a “developmental disability of mind” (www.records.nsw.gov.au).

The NSW government was committed to a policy of deinstitutionalisation by 2010 and the writing was on the board for the Grosvenor Centre. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s responsibility for the Centre was shuffled from one government department to another – Health to Community Services to Ageing, The coup de grâce came in 2009disregarding appeals by parents of the Centre’s 20 remaining child residents for a “stay of execution“, the government transferred the residents to purpose-built houses and the institution was closed (‘Find and Connect’). The path was now clear for redevelopment of the post-hospital space and the eventual creation of a gated community in the Carleton Estate.

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the three decades from 1880-1910 saw the Summer Hill populace take on more of an upper class character with a stream of professionals especially from the fields of banking and finance moving to the suburb (‘Summer Hill’, Wikipedia)

The Screen’s Long Love Affair with the Sherwood Forest Saga: Repackaging the Robin Hood Legend

Cinema, Creative Writing, Memorabilia, Popular Culture

The story of Robin Hood is one of those enduring English chronicles from the distant past, which like the Arthurian legend has continually provided rich fodder for the screen. The basic story is an all-too familiar one with universal appeal: a virtuous Saxon nobleman in Mediaeval England, fleeced out of his estate and title by powerful villains, responds by mobilising an heroic and effective resistance against the status quo, on the way freeing the poor and oppressed peasantry from their yokes. That the legend is known throughout the Anglophone world and Europe, is testimony to the fact has there been so many film and television goes at retelling the legend – starting with the first silent one in 1908.

It wasn’t until the 1922 silent version with Robin Hood played by the lead Hollywood actor of the day Douglas Fairbanks Sr that the Robin Hood movie achieved serious cinematic recognition. Fairbanks’ athletic prowess and spectacular stunts elevated the movie and captured the imagination of audiences. With a budget of nearly one million dollars (one of the biggest in the silent era) the 1922 Robin Hood helped to establish the ‘swashbuckler’ sub-genre in cinema.

The next version of note, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is considered by many to be the best movie on the iconic Saxon hero. Errol Flynn in the title role brings the energy and verve to the film that largely accounts for The Adventures of Robin Hood’s standing as one of the great swashbucklers of Hollywood. As one critic observed: “Flynn’s Robert of Locksley, dripping with sexuality, good humor, panache and swagger,  captures not only the derring-do character, but also the more dramatic side of his fight for injustice” (Susan King, ‘Classic Hollywood: 100 Years of Robin Hood movies’, LA Times, 12-May-2010). The use of (Technicolor) colour, still not widely used at that time, added to the film’s freshness and appeal.

R Todd in the Lincoln Green

For most Flynn’s performance and the 1938 classic has remained the benchmark. Of the numerous subsequent RH iterations, none have really stacked up against The Adventures of Robin Hood but some of the efforts do warrant a degree of favourable mention. The modest 1952 low-profile Disney flick, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a sleeper of a movie compared to the  blockbusters above, but it proved popular in the US (good performance by Irish actor Richard Todd in the lead) and was in the main well received by the press: “an expert rendition of an ancient legend”; “as lively as a sturdy Western” (New York Times); a “zesty, colorfully retelling of the familiar story” (Leonard Maltin); and for its authentic English locations.

One of two 1991 feature film versions of Robin Hood was the much hyped Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves which did well at the box office but was not critical well received. Kevin Costner was lambasted for his less than credible impersonation of an English noble as was the screenplay, though Alan Rickman won plaudits for his deliciously hammy Sheriff of Nottingham — “wicked, droll, sly, eye-rolling, witty one-liners and put-downs” (Roger Ebert). The second film entitled simply Robin Hood, starring another Irish thespian Patrick Bergin, tries for more modern touches. The movie tones down the traditional “rob from the rich, give to the poor”, socialist-leaning revolutionary Robin, opting for a more out and out impudent anti-authoritarian (Tom Jicha, SunSentinel, 13-May-1991). Another innovation is the replacement of Hood’s traditional nemeses, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Sir Guy of Gisborne, with two new baddies, Sir Miles Folcanet and Baron Deguerre. The Maid Marian role in RH adaptions are usually passive objects of attention, but this film has Uma Thurman attempting to redress this by actively participating in the climactic sword fight, (one critic was dismissive of this as “a contrived nod to present-day feminism”, Tom Shales, The Washington Post, 13-May-1991).

Crowe’s band

Two more recent iterations of RH have sought to give the story a modern twist. Both Ridley Scott’s revisionist 2010 Robin Hood and the 2018 version analogised the time-honoured legend with the post-9/11 West’s preoccupation with the war on terror. The critical consensus was that Ridley Scott’s version was dour and joyless with the essential adventure ingredient of the tale drained out. Russell Crowe playing Hood as a hardened war veteran was singled out for specific criticism by some – too old to play the role, his accent sounded more Irish or even Scottish than Nottinghamshire, etc. The 2018 Robin Hood depicts the Merry Men, clothed in half-modern costumes, as if they are SAS commandos entwined in a Middle East-type scenario picking off terrorists with automatic weapons (’14 Big Scren Robin Hoods’: Ranked’, (Mary Sollosi), 14-Jun-2019, EW.com).

The 1950s was the first decade that television really impacted on the public and popular culture in advanced Western countries…for countless viewers in Britain, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, this meant a new opportunity to indulge in the perennial classic adventure story of the Lincoln-green set. In those pioneering days in the new medium Associated Television’s Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59) was compulsory viewing in grainy black and white. Richard Greene was a reassuringly efficient “righter of wrongs” and appropriately English in pedigree. His presence as Hood aided by interesting stories and an enticingly catchy theme song, saw the production through 143 episodes. The success of the Greene “Robin Hood” inspired a new wave of TV series on the Nottinghamshire archer extraordinaire from the Seventies on🅐. The pick of these is probably the 1984 series Robin of Sherwood which had the novelty of two different incarnations of Robin Hood. The ITV series was widely praised as a “gritty, authentic production design with real-life history, 20th century fiction and pagan myth” (‘Robin Hood’, Wikipedia). World expert on Robin Hood literature Stephen Knight described it as “the most innovative and influential version of the myth in recent times”. A haunting soundtrack by Clannad helped the “moody and atmospheric” vibe of Robin of Sherwood. Personally, I’m a bit partial to a more recent Robin Hood series (2006-09), largely for Keith Allen’s high camp, deeply sarcastic performance, replete with a range of exaggerated often incredulous facial gestures as the Sheriff of Nottingham (one episode spoofs the Bob Marley song in its title, “Who Shot the Sheriff?”).
Sardonic sheriff
So deeply embedded in film and popular culture is the Robin Hood story that inevitably someone would lampoon it and that somebody was Mel Brooks in his 1993 parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Brooks makes fun of other (serious) iterations of RH like Costner’s Prince of Thieves. In fact Brooks has already roamed into this territory in television in 1975 with his sitcom on Hood and co, When Things Were Rotten. Both were replete with one-liners, sight gags, literal humour and anachronisms (something the non-humorous versions were also very prone to).

One of the funniest alternative iterations of Robin Hood came out of late Eighties children’s television. Creator Tony Robinson‘s Maid Marian and her Merry Men as the title suggests inverts the roles of the legend…Marian is the de facto leader and the brains of the Sherwood Forest outlaws, while Robin, an incompetent ex-tailor (“Robin of Kensington”) is a complete airhead. Another comic inversion of the traditional legend seen here and in Men in Tights is the presentation of Robin as being far from heroic.

Marian’s outfit

Footnote: One of the quintessential personal traits of Robin Hood is his prowess as a master archer which features in all RH screen versions. Given the character’s mythic status this prowess is typically grossly exaggerated –  Russell Crowe manages to hit a fleeing soldier on horseback hundreds of yards away with an arrow flush on the back of his head; Taron Egerton in the 2018 film shoots nearly 20 arrows in the trailer alone! (Max Tenenbaum, ‘The 10 Best Archers From Film and TV’ Screen Rant, 07-Apr-2020).

Postscript: Political Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood TV series was clearly intended as good fun, a vehicle of commercial escapist entertainment, nonetheless buried in the storyline are snatches of political commentary on contemporary events in the UK during the strait-jacketed postwar decade after 1945. An analogy can be made between Robin’s return from serving in the Crusades to find his property and titles confiscated, and the shabby treatment of British veterans returning from the WWII conflagration. The Adventures‘ political messages were not confined to contemporary Britain. The TV program was the brainchild of a blacklisted US producer Hannah Weinstein. Weinstein hired leftist American writers such as Ring Lardner Jr similarly persecuted by the McCarthyism scourge in the US. Lardner and the others were not slow to draw comparisons between the fictional Robin Hood’s plight and their own ongoing victimisation by the zealous American Right. According to Lardner, writing for the show afforded “plenty of opportunities for oblique social comment on (the assault on liberties in)  Eisenhower-era America” (Allen W.Wright, ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood 1950s TV Series Page 2’, (Sept 2005), Robin Hood: Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood, Spotlight, www.boldoutlaw.com).

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🅐 not to mention the similarly themed 1958 TV series William Tell which might be summed up succinctly as “Robin Hood with a crossbow”