At the age of five, many a morning my parents would awake and come downstairs to find me running through the house with only a bed sheet wrapped around myself and brandishing my father’s college ring, proudly proclaiming “Pickarese! Pickarese!” as I performed many a feat of imaginary heroics.
Their repeated attempts to get me to reveal who or what a “Pickarese” was and why it inspired in me the compulsion to wear a makeshift-toga and brandish my father’s oversized ring at things while making laser sounds were in vain.
My parents were pretty baffled regarding these episodes, until one morning my mother awoke early at 6am and came downstairs to find me transfixed to the TV watching a cartoon called…”The Mighty Hercules”.
Their repeated attempts to get me to reveal who or what a “Pickarese” was and why it inspired in me the compulsion to wear a makeshift-toga and brandish my father’s oversized ring at things while making laser sounds were in vain.
My parents were pretty baffled regarding these episodes, until one morning my mother awoke early at 6am and came downstairs to find me transfixed to the TV watching a cartoon called…”The Mighty Hercules”.
How long this obsession lasted I can’t recall, but I had all but forgotten that story from my childhood until a few months ago I encountered a DVD collection of that cartoon I loved from so long ago in the $1 bin at the Army & Navy.
Mythic History
Turns out The Mighty Hercules was actually made in the 60s, premiering in syndication in September 1963, & available as a half-hour show or as 5-minute segments that could be run during a local kid’s show (from what I can tell, it may have had a limited run on the Captain Kangaroo show at one point or another) .
This Hercules lived (as might be expected) in ancient Greece, hung with King Dorian, and dated the fair Helena, a limited animation version of a Vargas girl. Newt (short for Newton), an annoying centaur of variable but always diminutive stature usually accompanied Herc, and failed to endear himself to the audience, largely due to his tendancy to repeat things in a helium-sucking voice. Repeat things in a helium-sucking voice. The cartoon also occasionally featured a satyr named Toot; mute Toot communicated with Herc and Newt by toodling his pipes (ahem...more on that later)
This Hercules lived (as might be expected) in ancient Greece, hung with King Dorian, and dated the fair Helena, a limited animation version of a Vargas girl. Newt (short for Newton), an annoying centaur of variable but always diminutive stature usually accompanied Herc, and failed to endear himself to the audience, largely due to his tendancy to repeat things in a helium-sucking voice. Repeat things in a helium-sucking voice. The cartoon also occasionally featured a satyr named Toot; mute Toot communicated with Herc and Newt by toodling his pipes (ahem...more on that later)
Herc possessed a magic "H" ring which possibly gave him additional strength, but mostly provided the animators with an excuse to reuse footage of the ring in close-up. Much like He-man shouting “By the power of Greyskull!” with brandishing his erect sword, Herc would often hold the ring up in the air and give a sort of yodel while lightning flashed. "
The arch-villain of the series was Daedalus, based on the inventor from Greek myth who designed the Labyrinth to hold the Minotaur and fashioned his kid, Icarus, with wings made of feathers and wax. Daedalus was constantly inventing dastardly machines and schemes. Involving several mythic beasties from the Greek legends (Two that stood out in my memory were the Nemedian Lion and The Kraken, which would later get Harryhausened in Clash of the Titans and make a guest-appearance in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.)
Individual stories were each about five minutes long, so very little thought was given to plot. Actually, very little thought was given to anything. Typically, some villain (usually Daedalus) would commit a pointless crime and be stopped by Hercules, who would end the episode by shouting, "Olympia!" A voice-over sporadically intoned narration which alternated between covering huge plot gaps and pointing out the blindingly obvious. Hercules couldn't fly, so at the end of each segment he was usually shown running off into the distance or jumping off a cliff, shouting his trademark "Olympia!"
To call this cartoon series 'limited animation' is stretching even that broadly defined term. The animation was only a step above those toy TVs with the record player on top that you slid the filmstrips through. Whole conversations would take place with only three or four frames changing, and it would be the same sequence you saw time and time again. Despite that, the character designs are actually quite nice, done in a stream-lined C.C. Beck-esque style.
To call this cartoon series 'limited animation' is stretching even that broadly defined term. The animation was only a step above those toy TVs with the record player on top that you slid the filmstrips through. Whole conversations would take place with only three or four frames changing, and it would be the same sequence you saw time and time again. Despite that, the character designs are actually quite nice, done in a stream-lined C.C. Beck-esque style.
Hercules, Last Son of Krypton
If Herc looks (and acts) a little more like Superman than you'd expect from an ancient Greek hero, there's a good reason for that: The series was concieved of and written by George Kashdan and Jack E. Miller, two former editors/writers at DC comics. This wouldn't be the last time the Hercules character would be re-cast into the Superman mold.
When it was announced online that production was beginning on the film Hercules: The Thracian Wars, based on a 5-issue comicbook series, an online acquaintance of mine expressed dismay and grief over this new revision of Hercules, lamenting: “Why won't Hollywood ever just do a straight adaptation of the original myths?”. My response to that is simply that I don't think Hollywood (or the general populace) would be too keen on a film where the “hero” is a wife-beating, bi-sexual rapist. The Hercules from mythology is pretty much an overgrown man-child subject to fits of rage. Most of the great feats he accomplished were actually done in penance for beating his first wife to death.
"Misogyny, superhero-style"
Thus, from the beginning of Hollywood's foray into Classical adaptations, besides tenaciously sticking with Hercules' Roman name (Heracles was the Greek), the one constant has been a revamp of the character into a modern moral paradigm.
In the 80s, Hercules was played by Lou “the Hulk” Ferrigno in two films that seemed like attempts to bring 70s rock album-covers to life. Spawned from the “Sword and Sandals” craze that hit Hollywood in the wake of Conan the Barbarian (including such “classics” as The Beastmaster, Deathstalker, and Red Sonja), these two Hercules films were more glammed-up than a Poison video. This Hercules was the good guy, although that was almost by default, as the role (perhaps graciously) didn't require Lou to do any actual acting, he just ran around beating the crap out of monsters and villians. Luckily for Lou, he was also surrounded by a female cast made up almost entirely of former playmates.
Hercules:The Legendary Adventures, produced by Sam “The Evil Dead” Raimi, featured the Fabio-clone Kevin Sorbo as a bleached-clean moral exemplar that spent more time trying to look concerned and give speeches about the evil-that-men-do than he did actually fighting (which is okay, because what he mostly fought was really-primitive CGI monsters that seemed to have escaped from Daedalus' Atari). This Hercules was such a goody-two-shoes moralizer that he could have made Superman start puking apple pie. I watched more of this series than I care to admit, however, if only for the semi-frequent guest appearances of Bruce Campbell.
And then we have Disney's Hercules , which is unabashedly a Superman film set in ancient Greece. Despite my general pedanticness, especially when it comes to mythology, and my apprehensions concerning the Disney Company as a whole (I'll do a blog on that soon enough), I really liked this film. Perhaps it was tapping into those memories of The Mighty Hercules from my childhood, or maybe the wonderful characterizations of James Woods as Hades, and Matt Frewer and Bobcat as Pain and Panic... but most likely it was Susan Egan's wonderfully feisty role as Megara, the female character with the most moxie I've seen since Princess Eilonwy of the Prydain Chronicles.
Disney's Hercules is a timid and naïve lummox with a heart of gold, abs of a steel factory, and superhuman strength. After being taken from Olympus (read: Krypton) as a baby, he is found and raised by an elderly farmer and his wife (The Kents) He then goes through an awkward adolescent stage where he tries to get ahold of using his powers & feels ostracized from his peers (see Superman: The movie). Subsequently, Herc travels to the Temple of Zeus (The Fortress of Solitude) where he learns of his origins. From then on it’s all superheroey fun, with Herc trying to stop the machinations Hades (Lex Luthor) and his two bumbling assistants, who at one point even use some magic to rob Herc of his strength (read: Kryptonite). The climax of both Superman the Movie and Disney's Hercules is a scene in which the heroine dies and is brought back to life by the hero.
Beyond the fact that Hercules was identifiably an inspiration for the creation of Superman, the reason these two have so much in common these days is mostly because of The Monomyth.
Joseph Campbell's concept of the Monomyth is a general framework which provides a description of the significant elements of the world's mythology. His theory is comprehensively described in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, summarised in a single sentence (p30): The hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Campbell gives a more complete summary on p245 with some indication of the many variations around the central theme:
The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadowy presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the Opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again - if the powers have remained unfriendly to him - his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir). The changes rung on the simple scale of the monomyth defy description. Many tales isolate and greatly enlarge upon one or two of the typical elements of the full cycle (test motif, flight motif, abduction of the bride), others string a number of independent cycles into a single series (as in the Odyssey).
Joseph Campbell's concept of the Monomyth is a general framework which provides a description of the significant elements of the world's mythology. His theory is comprehensively described in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, summarised in a single sentence (p30): The hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Campbell gives a more complete summary on p245 with some indication of the many variations around the central theme:
The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadowy presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the Opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again - if the powers have remained unfriendly to him - his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir). The changes rung on the simple scale of the monomyth defy description. Many tales isolate and greatly enlarge upon one or two of the typical elements of the full cycle (test motif, flight motif, abduction of the bride), others string a number of independent cycles into a single series (as in the Odyssey).
Out of the Aegean Closet
Re-watching those Mighty Hercules cartoons from my youth, there was something else besides the animation standards and superman correlations that was glaringly obvious. Strange things were afoot on Mount Olympus.
For example, lets start with the Johnny Mathis’ style theme song:
For example, lets start with the Johnny Mathis’ style theme song:
Hercules,
people are safe when near him
Hercules,
only the evil fear him
softness in his eyes
iron in his thighs
virtue in his heart
fire in every part
of the mighty
Hercules!
people are safe when near him
Hercules,
only the evil fear him
softness in his eyes
iron in his thighs
virtue in his heart
fire in every part
of the mighty
Hercules!
“Softness in his eyes/iron in his thighs”
Then there was the episode where a Greek Prince was dying and one of his physicians said that "only the fruit of the lotus could save him", and the other doctor was like "Where can that fruit be?" and then it cuts to Hercules walking along with Newt.
And of course there's the ongoing theme of this incredibly hot girl constantly chasing Hercules around trying to get him to commit to marry him, and like Bertie Wooster he's pretty adamant about finding ways to get out of it. But unlike say, Archie or even Superman, where it was because he had several other girls vying for his attention, Hercules never so much as talked to a single other female, all his friends were either butch Greek men like him or weird little goat or horse boys...
Hercules may indeed have been the very first blatantly gay American cartoon character, beating even He-Man by two decades.
Personally, I think it should go without saying that I would most certainly marry the girl who presented me with this ring...