“Urca Urca Tirulero” (1974) – Gianni Marzocchi * Written by Roger Miller and Pertita * LP: Walt Disney Productions Presenta Robin Hood * Label: Disneyland Records
The 1973 Disney cartoon version of Robin Hood distinguished itself with American country music star Roger Miller doing the laconic voice and vocals of its rooster narrator. The 1974 Italian dub of the film offered something different, but equally wonderful, with the elegant croon of actor Gianni Marzocchi doing rooster duty. As a late 50s/early 60s Italian teen idol, Marzocchi already gathered some Disney credentials from an appearance with Annette Funicello in a 1962 film called Escapade in Florence. From the mid-sixties onward, Marzocchi shifted gears and devoted himself mostly to the type of voice dubbing he would do for Robin Hood. The opening tune “Urca Urca Tirulero”—the Italian version of Miller’s “Oo-De-Lally”—appeared on a 1974 children’s record and has shown up on a number of reissues, such as the 1996 Italian CD Il Magico Mondo Di Walt Disney. Marzocchi’s version of “Not in Nottingham” (“Non a Nottingham”), which also swoons with special Italian romance and melancholy, has yet to receive the reissue treatment. A whole album of this sort of acoustic material from Marzocchi would have been heavenly; he died of a tumor, alas, at the young age of 56.