The Sheriff of Nottingham is a large, fat, grey wolf character from Disney's 1973 feature film Robin Hood, voiced by Pat Buttram. Alongside Prince John, he is one of the main antagonists of the film.
Personality
The Sheriff is in league with Prince John to oppress the people of Nottingham, and is charged with collecting taxes for Prince John. He is unsympathetic to the poverty of the towns people, and he will often use underhanded methods to collect taxes. Because of this, he is hated by the people of Nottingham, who often refer to him as Bushel-britches, referring the the Sheriff's rather overweight physique. He is also constantly trying to capture Robin Hood, but is always fooled by Robin Hood's disguises, despite his claims to the contrary. The Sheriff commands a number of rhinos who carry pikes, and also a posse of grey wolves, who serve as archers.
Appearances
Robin Hood
The Sheriff appears at the films opening, sneaking up on Robin Hood and Little John as the 2 are swimming. Despite his attempts, Robin Hood manages to escape by hiding in a tree.
Later, he is shown traveling though the town for his daily tax collection. He uses several methods to get them. First, he takes them from Otto the blacksmith, by hitting Otto's leg until the coins that the dog hid in his cast come out, which causes obvious pain to Otto's broken leg. At Mother Rabbit's home, he takes the single farthing that was meant as a birthday present for Skippy. The Sheriff even stoops so low as to take money from a blind beggar, though he is oblivious to the fact that the beggar is Robin Hood in disguise.
The Sheriff is one of the participants in Prince John's archery tournament. Once again, he is unaware of the fact that a stork archer is a disguised Robin Hood, and even carries on a conversation with the "stork" about how Robin Hood did not attend, and that the Sheriff could always see through the disguises. Though the sheriff is apparently a decent archer, making it to the final round, he resorts to cheating to defeat the disguised Robin Hood. First he has his vulture henchman, Nutsy, hide in the target, and the vulture adjusts the target so that the Sheriff gets a bulls-eye. When the "stork" shoots, he nudges the stork's bow, in an attempt to have him miss. He loses anyway, thanks to Robin Hood's skill. After Prince John unmasks Robin Hood and sentences to beheading, the Sheriff becomes suspicious when the prince suddenly orders Robin to be released. He then discovers Little John holding a knife to the back of Prince John's neck and attacks him, freeing the prince and resulting in the following battle against Robin Hood.
Despite his supposed loyalty to Prince John, he is not above making fun of him when Prince John is not around, as the Sheriff is next seen singing a mocking song about Prince John that the villagers had made up. Later, he presumably imprisons most of the townspeople on the Prince's rders for not paying the dramatically increased taxes that Prince John imposed as punishment for the mockery, takes money from the poor box in the church, and arrests Friar Tuck for high treason. On Prince John's orders, he prepares the gallows to hang the Friar, knowing that Robin Hood would no doubt come to stop the execution and lead to his capture. While he and his 2 vulture henchmen (Trigger and Nutsy) are working, they are approached by a blind beggar, who is once again Robin Hood in disguise. Trigger gets suspicious when the beggar begins asking too many questions about Friar Tuck's execution, but the Sheriff ignores him, beliving he's harmless. The Sheriff and his men are then seen guarding the jail, however, the Sheriff had fallen asleep on duty. He gets annoyed by Trigger when his crossbow accidentally fires. When he and Trigger hear the sounds of Nutsy being ambushed by Robin Hood and Little John, they investigate, and find what they believe is only Nutsy, but really Robin Hood. The disguised Robin Hood then puts the Sheriff back to sleep with a lullaby and steals his keys and opens the door to the jail, allowing Little John to enter. When Trigger hears the door shut, he accidentally fires his crossbow again, waking the Sheriff up, who fails to see Little John getting in and then reprimands Trigger to not make anymore false alarms. Falling back asleep, he is awoken again when coins from one of the bags that was being pulleyed from the royal treasury to jail cell fell on him. He was then subdued by Little John who stole his clothes to use a disguise to keep Trigger from alerting anyone. The Sheriff is then seen again (in his underwear) chasing Robin Hood when he attempts to escape. The Sheriff corners him in Prince John's chambers and lunges at him with his torch, setting the room on fire. After a brief fight, Robin Hood escapes when the flames cut the Sheriff off from chasing him. It's unknown how he managed to escape the burning room. The Sheriff is finally seen at the end of the film, having been stripped of his position by King Richard, who returned from the crusades, and is sentences to working in the Royal Rock Pile alongside Prince John and Sir Hiss.
House of Mouse
Sheriff of Nottingham, like many others characters created by Disney, appear as guests characters is a bit hard to you find him in the background, he also appears in the main opening. Some of the episodes who Sheriff appears is 'The Stolen Cartoon', "Pete's House of Villains", "Goofy's Valentine Date" and "Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse".
Disney Parks
The Sheriff makes occasional appearances in the Disney Parks as a meetable character.
Gallery
Trivia
- Nine animations of the Sheriff are reused in the film.[1]
- The character was originally intended to be a stupid goat.
- This character is animated by Milton Erwin Kahl and John Lounsbery.
- In the deleted ending for the film, the sheriff attend the wedding of Robin and Marian, indicating that he may have reformed and/or was pardoned.
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