When Things Were Rotten

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When Things Were Rotten was an American situation comedy television series created in 1975 by Mel Brooks and aired for half a season by ABC.

A parody of the Robin Hood legend, the series starred Richard Gautier (who earlier had played Hymie the Robot in Brooks' Get Smart series) as Robin Hood. Also in the cast were Dick Van Patten as Friar Tuck, Bernie Kopell (another Get Smart veteran) as Alan-a-Dale, Ron Rifkin as Prince John, and Misty Rowe as Maid Marian.

Besides actors, the series also borrowed one other important element of Get Smart: like Maxwell Smart, this version of Robin Hood and His Merry Men were imbeciles.

One-liners and sight gags were rampant (complaining villagers, commanded to "Hold your tongues!," obediently reach into their mouths). Much of the humor was anachronistic, such as the occasion where Marian's ladies-in-waiting burst into the 1960s Supremes hit "Stop, in the Name of Love," or when the Rock of Gibraltar has been destroyed, and a messenger brings Prince John the remaining chunk, to be told "I always wanted a piece of the Rock," a reference to an insurance company slogan.

However, this rapid-fire, Mel Brooks style of comedy was out of place on network television of the era, so despite critical acclaim, the series failed to find an audience and was cancelled after 13 episodes. Eighteen years later, Brooks produced another Robin Hood parody, the feature film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, with somewhat better results. Van Patten also appeared in the later film as an abbot.

The cancellation of When Things Were Rotten allowed Van Patten and Kopell to move on to more successful and long-running series — Eight is Enough and The Love Boat, respectively. Rifkin, meanwhile, would become best known to modern-day audiences as the ambiguously villainous Arvin Sloane on Alias.

Several episodes of the series have been released on VHS in North America, but the series has yet to appear on DVD.