unsuitable as a hero, animator Ken Anderson adapted some elements from Reynard into Robin Hood, making the title character a fox. Robin and Marian The 1976 British-American film Robin and Marian, starring Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, portrays the figures in later years after Robin has returned from service with Richard the Lionheart in a foreign crusade and Marian has gone into seclusion in a nunnery. This is the first in popular culture to portray King Richard as less than perfect. Muslim Merry Men Since the 1980s, it has become commonplace to include a Saracen (Arab/Muslim) among the Merry Men, a trend that began with the character Nasir in the 1984 ITV Robin of Sherwood television series. Later versions of the story have followed suit: a version of Nasir appears in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Azeem) and the 2006 BBC TV series Robin Hood (Djaq). Spoofs have also followed this trend, with the 1990s BBC sitcom Maid Marian and her Merry Men parodying the Moorish character with Barrington, a Rastafarian rapper played by Danny John-Jules, and Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights featuring Isaac Hayes as Asneeze and Dave Chappelle as his son Ahchoo. The 2010 movie version Robin Hood, did not include a Saracen character. The 2018 adaptation Robin Hood portrays the character of Little John as a Muslim named Yahya, played by Jamie Foxx. France Between 1963 and 1966, French television broadcast a medievalist series entitled Thierry La Fronde (Thierry the Sling). This successful series, which was also shown in Canada, Poland (Thierry Śmiałek), Australia (The King's Outlaw), and the Netherlands (Thierry de Slingeraar), transposes the English Robin Hood narrative into late medieval France during the Hundred Years' War. The original ballads and plays, including the early medieval poems and the latter broadside ballads and garlands have been edited and translated for the very first time in French in 2017 by Jonathan Fruoco. Until then, the texts had been unavailable in France. Historicity The historicity of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. A difficulty with any such historical research is that Robert was a very common given name in medieval England, and 'Robin' (or Robyn) was its very common diminutive, especially in the 13th century; it is a French hypocorism, already mentioned in the Roman de Renart in the 12th century. The surname Hood (by