DVD Review: "The Herculoids: The Complete Original Series"

UPDATED: See note at end of post

• Series premiere: Sept. 9, 1967 on CBS


• DVD release: June 14, 2011
  
• Created by: Alex Toth


• Stories by: Ken Spears, Joe Ruby, David Scott


• Voices: Mike Road (Zandor, Zok, Igoo, Tundro); Virginia Gregg (Tara); Ted Eccles (Dorno); Don Messick (Gloop, Gleep)

Let me say up front: I have been waiting for this release ever since the DVD format became public. I was a huge fan of The Herculoids when I was a child, watching these strange but lovable creatures and their battles with the nefarious forces - some from off-planet, some native to the planet - who sought to destroy, enslave, or exploit the planet Amzot and its inhabitants.

And as I saw Warner Home Video release series after series of Hanna-Barbera cartoons like The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Wacky Races, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Josie and the Pussycats, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (as well as the other two series that, together with The Herculoids makes up my own "holy trinity" of H-B action cartoons, Jonny Quest and Space Ghost and Dino Boy), my heart held hope that some day Zok, Tara, Tundro, Gloop and their friends would join their brethren on my DVD shelf. That day has come at last with the release of The Herculoids: The Complete Original Animated Series on the Warner Archive label.

Okay, let me get this out of the way: I'm disappointed that WB Home Video (WBHV) didn't see fit to give The Herculoids the same "deluxe" treatment that Jonny Quest and Space Ghost got, nicely remastered with a good (if not extensive) selection of bonus materials. (Even the one bonus feature The Herculoids gets is recycled from an earlier WBHV release; more about that later.) I'd have liked to see galleries of concept art, storyboards, model sheets, etc.; I even fantasized about a bonus CD of soundtrack music.

But given the economic realities of the times, and the declining sales of DVDs lately, I can't fault WBHV for not going all-out for this set. The Herculoids debuted in 1967: 44 years ago! Most of its original fans are *ahem* as old as me, and the series is not well-known even by knowledgeable fans of Hanna-Barbera. So WBHV (probably correctly) saw at best a niche market for a release of the original series; were it not for manufacture-on-demand (MOD) technology, we probably wouldn't be able to enjoy even this release. So, while I'm disappointed that the kind of "deluxe" release I'd hoped for will more than likely never see the light of day, I am grateful that at least we have the original cartoons in a collectible form.

As stated on the product page at the Warner Archives site, these episodes have not been "remastered or restored specifically" for DVD, so there's a little dust and other flaws in the transfer. But honestly, there are so many instances of dirt on the production cels themselves that it's hard to tell which is which; in any event, what there may be is not so noticeable as to be distracting unless you're a demanding videophile, so I'll rate picture quality as "good, not quite great", although this is the best these cartoons have looked in years! (These cartoons will actually look better on smaller screens.)

The sound is the original mono from the original broadcasts; back in the day stereo soundtracks weren't produced even for prime time shows. These episodes sound as good as they can be expected to sound given the age of the materials involved, so once again, I'm rating "good, not great".

As for the content: as I mentioned before, I was a huge Herculoids fan when I was a child, and even today I carry a great fondness for the concept and the characters. Looking at these cartoons as an adult (moreover, as an adult who was inspired by shows like this, Space Ghost, et al to become an illustrator/cartoonist who dabbles in action/adventure comics), I see an imaginative and spectacular concept that didn't reach its full potential due to tight production schedules, minuscule budgets, and the decision that each half-hour program would consist of two 10-to-11 minute episodes instead of one full-length episode. The short running times reduce many of the stories to "shorthand" versions of plots that become somewhat repetitive and formulaic, because almost no time could be devoted to character interactions or explorations of the potentially fascinating creatures and cultures featured in some episodes (such as "The Raider Apes", the Parrot Men from "The Beaked People", or the Reptons from "Ruler of the Reptons").

But having said that, there's still a lot of fun to be had from watching the Herculoids in action; whether it's Tundro shooting energy rocks from his forehead horn, Zok firing "laser" beams from his eyes, or Gloop and/or Gleep assuming their many and varied forms!

I have a couple of quibbles with the presentation, however: I'd have liked to see the shows presented in their original broadcast order [SEE UPDATE BELOW], and some reassurance that the episodes are complete and unedited, especially as regards the prologues to the second cartoon in the half-hour program. (In their original broadcasts, the first cartoon would start after the first commercial break following the opening credits. At the conclusion of the first cartoon, a brief prologue teased the next adventure. These prologues were often edited out of the episodes during their rebroadcasts on the Cartoon Network and Boomerang cable channels.) "Time Creatures" on Disc 1, in particular, seems to start very abruptly as Dorno confronts invaders from Amzot's future, and I wonder if this episode is missing a prologue. It's hard to tell without knowing whether it's the first or the second episode in the show. (Although according to both the Wikipedia article and the Big Cartoon Database entry, "Time Creatures" is the first episode of the show, so maybe the abrupt start is a bit of experimentation on the part of the writers and animators.)

There's no mention of it on the case, but there is one bonus feature, recycled from an earlier WBHV release, "Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Volume 1": a short (4 1/2 minute) mini-doc entitled "The Herculoids" First family of Quasar". It's mostly talking heads, animation historians like Jerry Beck and animation professionals like Paul Dini and Mark Evanier talking about the appeal of the Herculoids to young (mostly male) viewers (one interviewee refers to the concept as "dinosaurs in space" which really isn't far off the mark), the contributions of designer Alex Toth on Saturday morning animation, and the influences on and of The Herculoids. The highlights of the feature are the (all-too-brief) glimpses we get of concept art, model sheets, and storyboards. (My own wishlist for bonus features would have been to have a gallery of this production art on the DVD.)

(Odd that the feature is entitled "First Family of Quasar", though, since the name "Quasar" wasn't used for the Herculoids' home planet until the 1980s "Space Stars" revival of the characters; the few times their planet wasn't referred to as "Zandor's planet" or other such nickname, it was known as "Amzot", which I think is a much cooler name anyway.)

Bottom line: this is a "must-have" for fans of the show; it might be an acquired taste for those unfamiliar with the show from its original run or its Cartoon Network/Boomerang repeats. And I salute Warner Archive for finally making The Herculoids available on DVD!

UPDATE, June 30 2011: According to a tweet I received from @WarnerArchive, the episodes are presented in original production order, e.g. the order in which they were made.

Amzot, NOT Quasar!

Okay, I'm going to get my greatest pet peeve concerning The Herculoids out of the way:

The Herculoids' home planet is named "Amzot". Not "Quasar".

Yes, I know: you'll find Quasar given as the name of the planet in a lot of online references to the series. (Don Markstein's Toonopedia refers in the "Herculoids" entry to "the land of Amzot on the planet Quasar"(!) Where'd he come up with that?) And, yes: Quasar is the name of the planet in the 1980's Space Stars version. But to this long-time fan, the name of the planet is, and always will be, AMZOT! For two reasons:

1) I have never liked the convention, common in children's books/cartoons/TV/etc., of using an astronomical term as a name for another (usually unrelated) astronomical entity. A quasar is a specific term: also known as a "quasi-stellar radio source". Naming a planet "Quasar" is like naming its moon "Galaxy". Imagine dialogue from some space-adventure show that went "There used to be three planets - Moon, Nebula, and Satellite - orbiting the star Asteroid, what happened to them?"

2) "Amzot", as a word, is just plain cool. If it hadn't already been taken, I'd have loved to come up with it as the name of a character or location in one of my stories. (I've been able to come up with exactly one cool name in my writings: Velshen'narith, the main character of my High Priestess format, so far unutilized.)

It comes down to a question of what constitutes "canon" (i.e., the "official version" of the Herculoids story). Fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes consider only the sixty stories written by Doyle himself (56 short stories and 4 novels) to be "canon", and everything else (including Nicholas Meyer's novels The Six-Percent Solution and The West End Horror, however entertaining, to be merely "fictional".) As for the Herculoids, the original 1967-68 series is certainly canonical, or else nothing is. But what of the 1981 Space Stars incarnation? I'm inclined to say "no", because aside from most of the vocal talent (Mike Road, Don Messick and Virginia Gregg reprising their roles from the 1967 run), very few (if any) of the original writers or artists were involved in both series (at least as far as I've been able to find).

Actually, it's a little surprising how few times the name of the planet is even mentioned during the original series. The seemingly-endless parade of serial invaders and despoilers that plagued Amzot were just as likely as not to refer to it as "Zandor's planet", and even Zandor and the others themselves were just as wont to call it "our planet". The planet is not named in the narrated version of the opening credits; it's referred to simply as "Somewhere out in space".

The name "Amzot" does appear early in the first season; however, it isn't on the show itself that it is first used, but on another famous Hanna-Barbera series, Space Ghost and Dino Boy. Space Ghost had debuted the year before (1966), and his success led H-B to create a whole slew of other action-adventure cartoons for Saturday morning TV (including Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Mighty Mightor and The Herculoids themselves. For the second season of Space Ghost, H-B produced six new episodes comprising a single serialized story known as "The Council of Doom". Six of Space Ghost's more familiar villains - Brak, Zorak, Moltar, the Creature King, Metallus, and Spider Woman - united to form said Council with the intent of pooling their talents and resources to destroy Space Ghost once and for all. "Council of Doom" was as much intended to serve as an introduction to the new Hanna-Barbera heroes (the ones who appeared on CBS, anyway) as anything else* - four of the installments had Space Ghost and/or Jan and Jace meeting Mightor, Moby Dick**, the cast of Shazzan … and the Herculoids!

In part four, "The Molten Monsters of Moltar", Space Ghost is captured by Moltar and forced to board a spaceship for a "one-way" trip to the planet Amzot. Landing on Amzot, Space Ghost (still in the clutches of Moltar's "molten monsters") encounter Zandor and The Herculoids, who destroy SG's captors and enable him to return to Moltar's planet (not named) just in time to rescue Jan and Jace from certain death!

The first mention of Amzot within the Herculoids' series itself comes in episode #19, "The Time Creatures".

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*… since these six episodes were all that were produced for the second season of SG (the rest of the "season" consisting of yet more reruns of the first season episodes).

** I kept wondering what that distracting rattling sound I kept hearing during Moby Dick episodes was; now I know it's the sound of Herman Melville rolling in his grave at the fact that his great literary work had been trivialized by a cartoon factory into a kids' show.