Robin and the Three Hoods

Maid Marian and Her Merry Men -- Tony Robinson's take on the legend of Robin Hood as a sitcom for children, running for four series on Children's BBC between 1989 and 1994 -- was in many ways a direct sending-up of Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood. (Nowhere is this more apparent than in the episode "The Whitish Knight", where the mysterious knight has his own song which is clearly a specific reference to RoS' theme music.)

However, you can draw a straight line -- like an arrow, if you will -- from Sherwood, to Marian, to later adaptations of the legend. The character of Barrington, the Rastafarian Merry Man in the latter, was a reference to Sherwood having a Saracen (Nasir) join the ranks of the outlaws, and may be what really popularised the idea for later adaptations; is it even possible, however unlikely, that Robinson parodying the idea is part of what led the writers of the 1991 Prince of Thieves film to believe Nasir was not a character solely created by Carpenter, but the idea went back much further, forcing them to change the name of their own Saracen to Azeem mid-shoot when they found out?

MMaHMM does, however, also have things in common with the BBC's next major television series based on the legend -- the 2006-09 show titled simply Robin Hood, starring Jonas Armstrong and Thorin Oakenshield. Both open in the oddly specific year of 1192. Both have the origin of the name "Robin Hood" as a result of guards mishearing something. There's some certain visual similarities between the outlaws' camps in the two different shows that seem to go beyond mere coincidence, particularly the "early warning system" seen in one episode of each. Marian has a plot-relevant haircut in both. They both have the curious convention of numbering episodes onscreen (only the first series in the case of Marian, which had a more distinct story arc than later series). Both shows have occasions where the outlaws and the villains have to work together. The idea of Marian being in charge of the outlaws is not one original to the CBBC show, but it may well have inspired the more proactive version seen in the noughties series, who already has her own sideline as an outlaw robbing from the rich to give to the poor long before Robin of Locksley returns from the crusades. Both shows include humorous scenes with the outlaws practising tai chi as a deliberate anachronism.

But would you believe both have an episode parodying The Crystal Maze?