Did You Know? - Fun Facts About "Hercules"

Welcome to another edition of a series that I like to call Did You Know?. Inspired a little by the Nostalgia Critic's "What You Never Knew" series, this series will allow me to share with you some interesting tidbits, behind-the-scenes information, and fun facts about an animated movie or TV series. Because I like sharing new information with people.

So, Hercules. I've talked about the film before on my blog - well, specifically, I've looked at the spin-off TV series that it spawned. At the beginning of that post, I talked a little about the film's being a black sheep of sorts for Disney. I think it mainly stems from the fact that saying it's accurate to the Greek myths is like saying that pigs have the ability of flight. Regardless, there are a lot of people - myself included - that actually like the movie.

I've already told you about the cancelled direct-to-video sequel, Hercules II: The Trojan War. You probably don't need to be reminded that Scar from The Lion King makes a cameo. And if you didn't pick up that "Air Herc" campaign is a reference to Nike's "Air Jordan" campaign, I'm guessing you were living under a rock for most of the 1990s (or maybe you just weren't born yet when the "Air Jordan" campaign was popular, like me). But did you know any of THIS?

Concept art for Hercules and the Hydra.

1) Animator Joe Haidar is the one who came up with doing Hercules as a Disney movie. After pitching the idea, he hoped that he would get a supervising position on the film. He did not - in fact, he didn't work on the film at all.

2) When Gerald Scarfe was brought on as the film's production designer, Disney was apparently frightened of him at first. "Partly because of my drawings, and partly because they thought I was going to be cross with them for not being able to draw like me," he said in an interview. "But I felt these people were the top of their world and they might just say 'Shove off. Who are you?' to me."

Gerald initially considered basing the main character on a young Paul Newman or Elvis Presley. Yep, Elvis Presley as Hercules. What a mental image THAT is...

Concept art for Hercules and Philoctetes.

3) Andreas Deja, Hercules' supervising animator, said in regards to Gerald Scarfe's work on the film, "When I first came on the movie, Gerald had done a few drawings and I thought, 'my God, this stuff is wonderful and wild but how am I going to animate it?' 'Where are the joints and how can you make this stuff move in a believable way?' But you just roll up your sleeves and try it. Then you find a middle ground where you have your Disney experience and you take on this new look and it becomes a fun mix. Gerald was a joy to work with because he loved what we did. He had also done some animation in the past so he knew the problems that we were up against."

4) The film's directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, make a cameo during the scene where Hercules is pulling the hay wagon into the marketplace.

This is them.

5) Ron and John's pal Howard Ashman was an inspiration on the decision to have gospel music. John explained on a now-deleted Howard Ashman tribute website that when trying to figure what musical approach would work for the story, he thought back to how, whenever they visited New York, they would always ask Howard what show he recommended seeing. On a 1988 trip, Howard suggested they see Gospel of Colonus, saying that it was the best thing on Broadway at the time.

For those unaware, Gospel of Colonus was a show created by Lee Breuer and composer Bob Telson, a take on Sophocles' Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus (the very same Oedipus who gets a reference in Hercules - Hercules mentions that he and Meg went to see a play about him). The play had a black Pentecostal preacher and his choir tell the story of Oedipus. John never wound up seeing the play (although years later he did see a production in Los Angeles), but he did check out the cast album while Hercules was in development. According to John, "It seemed to suggest a way to approach the music in our movie. It seemed appropriate to have a Greek chorus tell us the story, this being, after all, the story of a Greek demigod. And who better than the Muses, the goddesses who inspired art, literature, and science to be this Greek chorus? And since our chorus was to sing about the exploits of ‘the gods’, having them sing gospel, a style of music that celebrates ‘God,’ seemed appropriate.  It was a short step from there to seeing them as an all girl group like the Supremes, and have them musically bridge scenes, do exposition, comment on action, and celebrate the exploits of our mythic hero."

When they pitched the idea to Alan Menken, he was concerned that the Muses might come off as a bit too similar to Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon from Little Shop of Horrors (which, of course, Howard also had a hand in). He suggested doing Hercules in a more "classical" style a la Candide, but Ron and John were worried that the material would become "stiff and inaccessible" as past handling of Greek mythology in film had been. They felt a gospel approach to the music would make the movie more fun. Alan eventually relented.

Concept art for Megara.

6) Donny Osmond was considered to do Hercules' singing voice, but after his audition they decided that he wasn't quite right for the character.

7) In fact, a LOT of different people auditioned or were considered to voice characters. Brendan Fraser auditioned to voice Hercules. Anne Heche auditioned for Meg. Rod Steiger auditioned for Zeus. Richard Lewis was Ron and John's first choice for Panic.

Danny DeVito was the filmmakers' first choice for Philoctetes, but he wouldn't read for the part. Ed Asner, Ernest Borgnine, Dick Latessa, and Red Buttons all auditioned (as he was leaving, Red guessed that Ron and John would eventually give the part to Danny DeVito). Ultimately, Danny agreed to do Phil - he didn't read for it but was interested.

More concept art for Hercules and Phil.

As for Hades, they initially wanted Jack Nicholson to do his voice (he also offered to voice Phil), but he turned it down because he wanted Disney to give him participation in the merchandising, which they were unwilling to do. Michael Ironside, Terrence Mann, Ron Silver, James Coburn, Ron Steiger, Kevin Spacey, Martin Landau, William Shatner and Phil Hartman all tried out for the role. Nik Ranieri, the character's supervising animator, suggested Frank Sinatra. Even Jerry Lewis was considered. At some point John saw Robert Evans, the producer of Love Story and Chinatown, being interviewed by Charlie Rose and started thinking about casting him as Hades. When he suggested the idea to Michael Eisner, he replied, "Evans?! He would be great! He IS the devil! Well, actually, David Geffen is the devil, but Robert Evans is right behind him!" So Ron and John met with Robert, who was interested in the part and wanted to base his performance off of mobster Lucky Luciano, with whom he'd had experiences that were "laden with threat and fear". He came into the studio to record dialogue, but it soon became apparent that Robert wasn't much of an actor. As John put it, "He gave it a Herculean effort, but in truth, Robert Evans plays pretty much one character and it’s one that he invented and for which he writes all the lines: Robert Evans."

More auditions were held, and James Woods was among those who auditioned, playing Hades as... well, the character we got in the finished movie. John Lithgow was cast, but they didn't feel he was bringing enough energy to the character. Eventually, they decided on James Woods.

Concept art for Hades (and Pain).

Even Thalia, the muse of comedy, was originally going to be voiced by Nell Carter. John explained, "We generally are reluctant to cast people who don’t come in to read. We like to hear what people will do with the material, something not always possible to anticipate based on past performances.  We loved Nell’s singing in Ain’t Misbehavin' and her TV work was very funny. And she wouldn’t audition." Regardless, they cast her, and when she came in for the first recording session, trouble began immediately. "She did not take well to direction. If we suggested ‘faster’ she went slower. If we said ‘bigger’ she got smaller.  She seemed very defensive, out of sorts, and ironically (there’s that word again) for a woman playing the bubbly muse of comedy, unfunny.  She was concerned that we were saying unkind things about her in the booth. In truth we were thinking them, although we really were scrambling, trying to find some way to unlock her 'funny'." After recasting the character, they found out that Nell had reportedly declared bankruptcy that week, and also struggled with substance issues. Make of that what you will...

8) The Fates tell Hades that "in eighteen years precisely, the planets will align ever-so-nicely" and we see the planets aligning... but there are only six of them. This is because the Greeks were only aware of five planets plus Earth which they could see with the naked eye.

Concept art of the Muses.

9) According to Nik Ranieri, Eric Goldberg was originally supposed to animate Hades and Chris Buck was supposed to animate Phil. Then Eric decided he didn't want to animate Hades, and Chris Buck left Disney. So Eric jumped at the chance to be Phil's supervising animator, and Nik was asked to do Hades.

10) When Hermes presents Zeus and Hera with a bouquet of flowers, it's a reference to the logo of FTD Florists, which features Hermes - or, as he's called in Greek, Mercury.

11) Charlton Heston provided the film's opening narration. When the filmmakers asked if he was okay with the lines as written, he said that he had an issue with one - specifically, "You go, girls." He thought they had the grammar wrong for that line and suggested that it instead be "Go ahead, young lady." The filmmakers just thought there was comedy to be had from hearing somebody who played Moses say "You go, girls."

12) Pegasus uses his feathers to emulate a peacock when Zeus says that he has the brain of a bird. In Greek mythology, the peacock was a sacred animal to Hera.

13) When Pain and Panic are feeding baby Herc the potion that'll turn him mortal, Pain says, "Here you go, kid. A little Grecian formula." For those unaware, Grecian formula is a real life hair product that's used to color grey hair.

Concept art of Pain and Panic.

14) In the original myths, Pain and Panic actually worked for Ares, the God of War, not Hades. He had four servants - Pain, Panic, Famine and Oblivion (which John Musker once quipped "sounds like a terrible law firm"). The filmmakers decided to use Pain and Panic in the movie because they thought they sounded like the perfect names for Hades' sidekicks.

15) When Hades says "Guys, relax. It's only half-time.", he's not just referring to how Hercules hasn't taken out the Hydra yet - he says it exactly at the 46-minute mark, the halfway point of the 92-minute long movie. And by the way, since this article has thirty-one facts about the movie in it, by being in the fifteenth spot this fact is at (more or less) the halfway point in the article. Aren't I clever?

16) Y'know that gag in "Zero to Hero" where Hercules and Pegasus fly by a constellation of Marilyn Monroe? Well, originally, the scene had constellations of Ariel and Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, but it was removed because it distracted test audiences (they were too busy going "Hey, that's Ariel and Sebastian!" to pay attention to the rest of the song).

More concept art.

17) When the two boys (who, spoiler alert, are actually Pain and Panic in disguise) are trapped under the rock, one of them yells, "Somebody call IXII!". "IX-I-I" is "911" in Roman numerals.

18) At one point during the song "I Won't Say I'm in Love", there's a reference to the iconic Disney Parks attraction the Haunted Mansion. Specifically, at one point the Muses turn into the singing busts from the ride:

Which one's Thurl Ravenscroft?

19) Two prior Disney characters inspired Eric Goldberg's design for Phil. Those two characters were Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bacchus from Fantasia. Danny DeVito himself also inspired the character's look (a lot of people have joked that he looks like Eric Goldberg, too).

20) Hercules and Pegasus leaving their handprints (well, HOOFprints in Pegasus' case) in concrete is an obvious reference to Grauman's Chinese Theater, but notice that Hercules adds the words "To Sid" to his handprints. This is a reference to Sid Grauman, the founder of the Chinese Theater.

Does this mean that Sid Grauman was around in Ancient Greece?

21) Hercules' "Grecian Express" credit card featured during the "Zero to Hero" segment is an obvious parody of American Express. Don't leave Thebes without it!

No wonder Doug Walker doesn't like the movie - this gag probably gave him
flashbacks to the "Bat Credit Card".

22) When Hades and Hercules make their deal (that Herc has to give up his strength for twenty-four hours so Hades can unleash the Titans and take over Mount Olympus, but if Meg gets hurt Herc gets his strength back), Hades shakes Hercules' hand with his left. Left handedness is associated with being evil - apologies to all you lefties out there - and shaking with your left hand is seen as rude.

23) It took a while for the filmmakers to figure out what Hades' punishment should be. Barry Johnson posted some gag drawings depicting ideas that were considered on Instagram - Hades being reduced to a used chariot salesman or the Underworld ferryman, becoming the janitor at the museum we see at the start of the movie, and getting locked in the Titans' pit with Pain and Panic. Eventually, they settled on having Hercules punch Hades into the River Styx, where he is attacked by the vengeful souls.

24) Some of the twelve labors from the original myth are included in the film - specifically, during the song "Zero to Hero", Hercules has to fight an Erymanthian boar, a Stymphalian bird, and a Nemean lion (who may or may not be Scar from The Lion King), which he also did as part of the twelve labors.

25) Speaking of the myth, at one point Hera (who in the original myth was the villain) sent down two snakes to kill Hercules, only for him to beat them up. Pain and Panic's shapeshifting into snakes is a reference to that.

A t-shirt presumably once worn by someone who attended the world premiere
of the film in New York.

26) The shooting star that Hercules sees at one point during "Go the Distance"? Some have theorized that it's Aladdin and Jasmine flying over Greece on their magic carpet ride. But according to Ron Clements and John Musker, the star is actually Pegasus watching over Herc (Hercules did meet Aladdin in an episode of his TV series, for what it's worth).

27) One of the most frequent criticisms Hercules receives is that it's really, really inaccurate to the myths. Ron Clements defended this in the film's press kit - "We discovered that there wasn't just one definitive version of the Hercules legend, but many, many different stories. He became such an incredibly popular hero that, in fact, a lot of other stories about other heroes got turned into Hercules stories. He was so popular that they took the earlier myths and reinvented them."

Do you remember the tie-in plates from McDonald's? Question - could you eat
off these? Were they microwave-safe?

28) I had to share this tidbit from Nik Ranieri... Hades was inspired, at least in his mannerisms and dialogue, by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left Disney before the film's release (reasons include his completely ignoring Robin Williams' wishes while promoting Aladdin and his meddling with the production of Toy Story [he's the guy responsible for the infamous "Black Friday" reel]). As you probably know, Jeffrey helped found DreamWorks.

At a recording session for the scene near the end of the film where Hades is begging Hercules to put in a good word for him to Zeus (just before Hercules punches him into the River Styx, as mentioned above), Nik suggested that James Woods ad-lib the line, "This was my destiny, I had a DREAM in the WORKS." Get it?

James recorded it (then added "I'm sorry Jeffrey, they made me say it..."), and Nik begged Ron and John to include the line in the movie just for the upcoming screening of it that Michael Eisner was going to watch, but alas, they were too afraid to do it.

29) Here's another interesting story from Nik - during early publicity for another Disney film, 2008's Bolt, Nik noticed that the teaser poster - this one here...

...looked a lot like the teaser poster for Hercules.

When no one was looking, Nik put up the Hercules poster right next to the Bolt poster that was hanging up in the studio foyer. Within a couple of hours, it was taken down.

30) In the 2000s, you could find a stage adaptation of the movie on two of the Disney Cruise ships (the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder, specifically). It was called Hercules: The Muse-ical. You can find videos of the show on YouTube, it really must be seen to be believed.

31) Finally, we have to talk about just how much promotion there was for the film. First of all, they had something called a "Hercules Mega Mall Tour", which was described online as a "20-city traveling show" featuring a stage show, a miniature carousel, a carnival, an animation workshop where visitors could learn how to draw Hercules, and even a sneak peek at the film. I don't think even Frozen was promoted with a gigantic touring mini-amusement park.

This ALSO got a t-shirt.

In addition, to celebrate the film's premiere Disney sent their beloved Main Street Electrical Parade to New York City - with several new Hercules-themed floats among the usual ones - for a special one-night-only performance.

And then there was the weekend upon which the actual premiere, also held in New York City, took place. Aside from the parade there were also dancers, jugglers, and something called the "Hercules Forum of Fun" at Chelsea Piers. Then the next morning there was a stage show called "The Hercules Summer Spectacular" at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

Not bad for a movie that Disney rarely acknowledges nowadays, huh?

Sources:
- http://web.archive.org/web/20131219065443/http://howardashman.com/blog/john-musker-question-countdown-3/
- Nik Ranieri's FaceBook page

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Hercules: The Animated Series"

In 1997, Disney released Hercules.

Of the animated films that make up the Disney Renaissance, Hercules might be the black sheep. It didn't make nearly as much money as its predecessors, was torn apart - particularly by Greeks - for how inaccurate it is towards the myths it was based on, and Disney hardly acknowledges the film nowadays. And yet, despite all of this, Disney still thought the film had the potential to make a great TV series.

And that's how we got Hercules: The Animated Series (or just Hercules, as it's usually called).

Hercules: The Animated Series premiered August 31st, 1998 and ran for two seasons, making for a total of sixty-five episodes. Unlike Disney's other TV shows based on their movies like Aladdin: The Series and The Legend of Tarzan, the show doesn't take place after the movie but rather in the middle of it - specifically, when Hercules is a teenager, training with Phil. When Herc's not training to be a hero, he's going to high school. Actually, I think this might've been one of the first Disney cartoons where the main character goes to high school (you know how many of those there are).

They managed to get a good chunk of the original voice cast back - Tate Donavan, James Woods, Matt Frewer, Bobcat Goldthwait... alas, Danny DeVito was too busy to reprise his role as Phil. Fortunately Robert Costanzo, the guy they got to fill in for him, does a spot-on Danny DeVito impression. On top of THAT, they were able to get tons of celebrities to lend their voices to this show: French Stewart, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Merv Griffin, Jason Alexander, Jane Leeves, Jim Belushi, Craig Ferguson, Richard Simmons, Peri Gilpin, David Cross, Kathy Najimy, Steven Wright, Leslie Mann, Vince Vaughn, Cary Elwes, Will Ferrell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Hyde Pierce, Mandy Patinkin, Betty White, Jennifer Love Hewitt... this was apparently a pretty big deal back in the 1990s. Nowadays, not so much, what with most cartoon shows' casts being about ninety-percent celebrities and ten-percent professionals (don't get me started on that).

Of course, the show DID give us a plot hole - in the movie, you'll recall, Hades sent Pain and Panic to off Hercules after turning him mortal. They failed, and decided to just TELL Hades that they finished him off. Hades didn't find out he was alive until years later, AFTER Herc had completed his training with Phil. And yet in the show, Hades knows that Herc is alive and makes many attempts to get rid of him. According to TV Tropes, the showrunners knew that didn't make sense but just wanted to have fun with the settings and characters. I've also heard that one of the last episodes addressed this by having Hades, Pain, Panic, and maybe Hercules too get doused in water that made them forget the events of the series, but I could be wrong about that.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, is Hercules: The Animated Series any good? Disney's always been a bit hit-or-miss with their TV spinoffs of animated movies. Sometimes it works out...

Other times, not so much...

Let's find out which category their Hercules show falls into. We'll be watching the episode "Hercules and the Techno Greeks" (is that supposed to be a pun on "techno geeks"?).

The episode begins with the show's narrator, whose name is Bob, telling us that the Greeks' city-states were the wonder of the ancient world. There was Athens; birthplace of the modern government, Sparta; birthplace of military science (and a meme), and Arcadia; birthplace NOT of video arcades as its name would suggest but people from Arcadia (ga-doy). Then the Muses show up and basically do the same thing that they did at the beginning of the movie - show up and tell the narrator to go suck an egg. I'm guessing this was how every episode of this show began, with them just recycling this joke from the movie in the hopes that people would still find it funny (you might recall The Emperor's New School doing the exact same thing).

Anyhow, the Muses bring up a place called "Abacus Valley" that the narrator claims to have never been to.

Or maybe it's actually "ABA<VS VALLEY"?

The Muses sing a crappy techno song called "Techno Greek" about how in Abacus Valley there lived some guy named Numericles who invented the concept of math. So for those of you, like me, who hate math and weren't particularly good at it in school (and yet I still somehow managed to get good grades?), now we know who to blame for it. Problem was, these guys also existed...

Centaurs really shouldn't go shirtless.

Every Friday, a rowdy gang of Centaurs - half-human, half-horse - pillages Abacus Valley. Numericles is fed up with those rassa-frassin' Centaurs and announces that they'll pay someone to get rid of them.

Cut to... what I'm guessing is supposed to be the school that Hercules attends. They're all reciting poetry, but one student, an Amazon named Tempest (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), isn't really into it. "An Amazon is prime for ACTION!" she boasts. "We strike first and ask questions later... assuming our enemy still has a TONGUE!"

Hello, character who I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess has lots of inappropriate
drawings of her likeness on DeviantArt.

Oh, and say hello to Hercules' two friends, who weren't in the movie and made up for the show. The boy is Icarus (voiced by French Stewart), the guy who, if you ever looked at Greek Mythology in your Language Arts class at some point (like I did), you should know is famous for flying too close to the sun and getting burned. He's Hercules' best friend and a massive idiot. The girl is Cassandra (voiced by Sandra Bernhard), a girl who's basically a prophet and the sanest of the bunch. Icarus has the hots for Cassandra, but for obvious reasons, she's not interested.

I guess Cassandra is supposed to be a stand-in of sorts for Meg, since she couldn't be
in the show what with it taking place before Hercules met her and all.

Actually, there WAS an episode of the show where Meg appeared, but I believe she and
Hercules both got doused with that same water that made them forget the events of the episode.

Hercules recites his poem, which is all about being a hero. The teacher tells him that he didn't put enough passion into it, so he adds some more and everybody loves it... except Tempest, who says that she hates Hercules and this class. "I don't belong in this pathetic school..." she complains as class is dismissed. "I belong in BATTLE." Then she accidentally kicks Hercules into a statue of Atlas (the guy who carried the Earth on his shoulders, for those unaware), resulting in some WHACKY SHENANIGANS.

I like Hercules' pose here. It's like he's trying to emulate Super Mario.

Then Tempest notices a flyer asking for a "Sword For Hire" (presumably put there by the people of Abacus Valley), and she's totally into that.

We then cut to Hercules, Cassandra and Icarus in Abacus Valley themselves. They're there because Cassandra's abacus got smashed during the WHACKY SHENANIGANS with the statue, and they need to get it fixed. Icarus loves the place because everyone there is an even bigger geek than him.

And also like Icarus, when the guy at the Abacus Store sees Cassandra he immediately has the hots for her and starts acting like a stereotypical dweeb who can't talk to girls. Basically a precursor to Leonard, Howard and Raj from The Big Bang Theory. Although he looks a bit more like Stuart than any of them to me...

"Bazinga!"

Meanwhile, Numericles is interviewing Tempest for the job of Centaur-Beater-Upper. Speaking of which, the Centaurs show up again. Two of them are voiced by Clancy Brown and Bill Faggerbake. Y'know, Mr. Krabs and Patrick Star. Too bad they didn't get Tom Kenny and Roger Bumpass to voice two of 'em too, that would've made the SpongeBob connection even better.

Hercules takes out the centaurs before Tempest has the chance to, which makes her MAD. Hercules is appalled when he hears that she's charging the citizens of Abacus Valley to protect them. "You can't CHARGE to defend the defenseless!" he protests. After thinking it over, Numericles decides to go with Hercules because he doesn't have to pay him, making Tempest even angrier.

"Nerd joke. Nerd joke. Nerd joke."

"My vengeance will be... painfully... agonizingly... VENGEFUL!" she tells Numericles before storming off. "No complimentary tote bag for YOU!" he calls after her. She goes to this place called "The Feedbag", which is run by this goat-esque guy who sounds like the Robot Devil from Futurama.

I can't help but wonder (no pun intended) if Tempest is intended to be a parody of Wonder Woman. I haven't read any Wonder Woman comics, she's an Amazon too, right?

You think this guy is related to Phil?

The Feedbag, as it turns out, is basically a bar for Centaurs. The Clancy Brown-voiced leader of the Centaurs, Blotox, challenges her to a brawl... and promptly gets his horse's rear end handed to him. The other Centaurs are impressed, and the Bill Faggerbake-voiced one says that according to the Centaurs' bi-laws, Tempest beating the crap out of Blotox makes HER their new leader. This gives Tempest an idea - she can use the Centaurs to get revenge on Hercules and Abacus Valley!

Cut back to Hercules, Icarus and Cassandra. Icarus is trying to fix Cassandra's abacus... and fails miserably. Hercules' "beeper" (a bluebird) tells him that Abacus Valley needs his help, so off he heads. Once he arrives, it turns out that the Centaurs aren't attacking the place - they just wanted to test his "response time". Then the Muses show up to sing another crappy Techno song about how the Abacus Valley guys keep summoning him to do miniscule stuff like getting rid of mice and squirrels.

Okay, I know where this is gonna lead... the Abacus Valley guys are gonna keep bothering Herc like this, and then when Tempest and the Centaurs finally DO attack and they summon him, Herc won't believe them. Y'know, just like in The Boy Who Cried Wolf. But, for now, Hercules encounters Blotox, who's crying about how the other Centaurs replaced him with a hot chick.

"Look on the bright side. At least they didn't trap you in a maze."
"No, that's a MINOtaur. They're the ones that look like bulls."

Hercules offers Blotox the chance to be his deputy and protect Abacus Valley. "Blotox, you CAN learn to be good!" he says. We get a training montage, like the one in the movie except Herc has to be the trainer since Phil isn't in this episode. Meanwhile, Tempest and the other Centaurs are preparing for their surprise attack - this time they'll be attacking on MONDAY, not Friday, so the Abacus Valley guys won't know they're coming.

Herc introduces Blotox as his new deputy to the Abacus Valley guys, but they're all afraid of him. "There is nothing in this world that would make me allow a FILTHY CENTAUR to protect our valley!" Numericles claims. Jeez, way to be racist, Numericles. But then Tempest and the other Centaurs charge in, and Numericles immediately does a 180.

"I'M the most attractive character on this show!"
"No, I'M the most attractive character on this show!"
"No, I am!"
"No, I am!"
"No, I am!"

Hercules and Tempest start swordfighting, but Herc decides to cut the fight short when he sees the Centaurs pursuing Icarus and Cassandra. Then that dude from the abacus store pops out of a vase and starts hitting on Cassandra.

Uh, is he starting to turn into Glenn Quagmire?

Hercules takes out the Centaurs via dumb luck, leaving Tempest to face off with Blotox. Fortunately, Blotox manages to defeat her. Tempest storms off, and now Blotox is the leader of the Centaurs again. And now the Centaurs work as security for the people of Abacus City. The end.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

Is Hercules: The Animated Series any good? Well, I personally thought this episode was pretty good. Would I go so far as to say it's better than the movie? No. But it's certainly one of Disney's better spin-off shows. I really like the Centaurs, and the jokes all land quite well. The animation, of course, is a massive downgrade from the film. And the episode feels empty without Phil in it, but that's admittedly a nitpick. If you like the film, I highly suggest giving the show a watch.

Just don't go into the show expecting to learn a thing or two about Greek mythology. It's about as accurate to those myths as Frozen is to the original Snow Queen story by Hans Christian Anderson. By which I mean, not at all.

So, what are we reviewing next time?

Hoo boy...

Back to the Drawing Board - Disney Sequels That We Very Nearly Got

Okay, I know that in my most recent post I said that my next review would be of Loonatics Unleashed. But I didn't say that my next POST would be a review of Loonatics Unleashed. The review is coming, but first, here's another edition of Back to the Drawing Board, where we look at things that didn't even get a bit of test animation.

If you're a child of the 2000s, you're probably familiar with Disney's batch of direct-to-video sequels. From 1994's Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar to 2008's The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel's Beginning, Disney released a ton of straight-to-DVD follow-ups to a good chunk of their animated films. Some of them even made it into theaters. Who cares if a film didn't need a sequel? It got one anyway. Now, some of these genuinely were pretty good...

But the ones that aren't good really are not good.

With all of the direct-to-video sequels that we DID get, it's interesting to look at a list of the ones that didn't get off the ground. And guess what we're going to be doing today?

Now, I'm perfectly aware that there are a few articles on other sites about this already. But hey, when has being unoriginal ever stopped me before?

Chicken Little 2

I found this on the Disney Wiki. I'm pretty sure it's fanmade, but here it is anyway.

Chicken Little is widely-regarded as one of the weakest entries of the Disney Animated Canon, but I myself do not hate it. I mean, yeah, it's by no means a MASTERPIECE, but I like Chicken Little, Abby, Runt, and Fish as characters and several of the jokes genuinely ARE pretty funny ("CURSE THESE GENETICALLY TINY LEGS!").

That being said, I don't think we really need to see the further adventures of Chicken Little and his friends. Which of course didn't stop the folks at Disney from coming very, very close to making a sequel. I've heard that it was going to be called either Chicken Little 2: Mission to Mars or Chicken Little 2: The Ugly Duckling Story. Judging by the name, I'm guessing that this would've been about Chicken Little and his friends going to Mars. I guess their mindset was, "Well, hey, if it worked for the Brave Little Toaster..."

Oh, and apparently there was also going to be a love triangle between Chicken Little, Abby, and a French sheep. Abby would've felt that she was at a disadvantage and given herself a makeover. I think it's pretty obvious how this would've worked out: Chicken Little would've chosen Abby over the sheep and Abby would've learned that it's best to be yourself and blah-blah-blah... NEXT SEQUEL!

The Jungle Book 3

I couldn't find any concept art for The Jungle Book 3, but I figured I had to
put at least ONE picture in this section, so have this.

I plan on making a more detailed review of The Jungle Book 2 at some point, so I'll just say right now that I don't think that it's particularly good. That being said, their planned thirdquel (is that a word?) does sound like it might've been pretty interesting.

See, they were gonna have Baloo and Shere Khan get captured by poachers and taken to a Russian circus or something. Mowgli and the gang would've rescued them, and Shere Khan would've pulled a Heel-Face Turn and become a good guy. If nothing else, this one DOES sound like it'd be a little more engaging than The Jungle Book 2.

Ironically enough, the plot of this is kind of similar to what the plot of The Jungle Book 2 was originally going to be... specifically, it would've focused on Baloo falling in love with a female bear and having to rescue her from poachers.

On a somewhat related note, I distinctively remember reading another early synopsis for The Jungle Book 2 about Baloo meeting Mowgli's daughter or something. I don't remember the name of the website, but I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it...

The AristoCats 2

When it comes to Disney movies from the 1970s, The AristoCats was never one of its more popular ones. Heck, even nowadays it seems as though a lot of people regard it as one of Disney's weaker efforts (not to the same extent as Chicken Little, but still). But one thing is keeping the film from being part of the "films Disney doesn't care about even if they aren't even bad films" pile that Robin Hood, The Black Cauldron, and Brother Bear are currently sitting on - Marie (who's not even the main character of the film) is incredibly popular in Japan. I'm not sure how popular she is in America, but Disney seems to think she is. Hence, she gets tons of merchandise while the film's other characters get jack-squat. Personally, I've always preferred Berlioz myself.

How come Berlioz doesn't get as much merchandise as Marie
does? Just look at how cute he is!

So surprise, surprise, this planned sequel to The AristoCats would have focused on Marie. Specifically, she and her brothers were to face off against a jewel thief on a luxury cruise ship. She also would've gotten a love interest (to be honest, I've always liked the fan-couple of Marie and Oliver from Oliver and Company - what do you think the odds are that they would've just used him?*).

Interesting fact - at one point in development of The AristoCats, Thomas O'Malley
had stripes. Is it just a coincidence that they gave him stripes in the concept art?

According to Tod Carter, "This film went through multiple scripts and different incarnations and probably didn't really have a clear vision in the beginning. Our goal was to create that vision and tell a solid story. With the exception of retaining the main characters, we were given a good deal of freedom to create original story." He also said that the ship would've had a cast of characters from places like France, Scotland, England, Spain, places like that to give the film a "European flair".

Now, this one was actually VERY CLOSE to being made. I've heard that voices were being recorded for it - John Goodman was apparently going to voice Thomas O'Malley, and I think Jack Black was going to voice Scat Cat. If that's true, I hope they at least received paychecks. I don't know who the other voices were.

Ah yes, and originally the film was going to be traditionally-animated, but somewhere in production it became a CGI production - and if it sounds weird that they were going to make a CGI sequel to a hand drawn-animated movie, remember that Michael Eisner, who was the CEO of Disney at the time, also wanted to remake classic Disney films like Pinocchio and Dumbo in CGI in order to prove that it was "better" than hand drawn animation** (hmmm, a CGI remake of a hand-drawn Disney film? Doesn't that sound familiar?). Tod Carter admitted that he's not a fan of converting characters to CGI (unlike Disney, who LOVES IT) because "there is an importance in designing for your target medium." According to Tod, had they gone this route the characters wouldn't have had the same softness, which is essential to the characters' charm. Judging by this thing I found online, I'm gonna have to agree - characters from The AristoCats look kind of iffy in CGI:

 

Some characters should really just stay hand-drawn.

Dumbo II

This is another "we were THIS CLOSE to getting it!" project. You probably know that the 2001 Dumbo: 60th Anniversary Edition DVD features a sneak peak of the film. And then the project (obviously) got cancelled, meaning that Disney probably feels pretty stupid for putting that sneak peak on the DVD now.

Dumbo, nobody wants to see your rear end.

Apparently, the film would've taken place ONE DAY after the events of the first film. The circus would've received more baby animals - two bear cubs, a zebra, a hippo, and an ostrich - and they, along with Dumbo and Timothy, would've gotten stuck in New York and having to find their way back to the circus.

I can smell the plush toy sales already!

According to his resume, Broadway performer Danny Rutigliano (whose other connection to Disney is performing Timon in the Broadway adaptation of The Lion King) was to provide the voice of Timothy. I wonder if they were planning on having Dumbo talk in the movie like that Dumbo's Circus show did. Probably not, but I wonder how people would've reacted if they had.

Hercules II: The Trojan War

I was under the impression that Hercules (while a film that I personally like) wasn't exactly looked at positively by Disney. It under-performed at the box office (but to be fair, so did Fantasia), Greeks hated it for playing fast and loose with their mythology, and they don't acknowledge it that much today. Of course, it DID get a TV series (which amusingly enough did indeed have an episode called "Hercules and the Trojan War"), so what do I know?

Anyhow, Hercules II would've focused on Hercules and Meg living in Athens with their daughter, Hebe. When Hercules discovers that his old friend Helen was kidnapped by Paris of Troy, he would've rallied the Greek Army to go and saved her. I don't know how far into production this got before it was cancelled.

It is worth noting, however, that Disney DID get to make a direct-to-video sequel to Hercules in 1998, though. This was Hercules: Zero to Hero, which was just a compilation of episodes from the show bridged by segments featuring Hercules and Meg looking through Herc's yearbook. Just like how Tarzan and Jane was literally just three episodes of the Tarzan TV show bridged by a story about Jane trying to figure out what to get Tarzan for their anniversary. Kind of makes you wonder if they were considering making that a trend.

This was the only home media release of any episode(s)
of the TV series. Fortunately, the whole show is on Disney+.

Pinocchio 2

There have actually been non-Disney sequels to Disney's Pinocchio - specifically, there's Filmation's Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (which featured the voices of Scott Grimes, Ed Asner, and Frank Welker... and got Filmation sued by Disney, too)...

And Belvision Studios' Pinocchio in Outer Space (which focused on Pinocchio and a "twurtle" named Nurtle going to outer space to defeat a giant space whale. I am not kidding).

Could Disney's own Pinocchio sequel have topped those? Well, it got cancelled, so we'll never know. In fact, all we DO know about this one is that the story would've had Pinocchio question why life is unfair sometimes. Which is incredibly vague. Who knows, maybe it would've been about Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket going to Japan and joining a group of ninjas, then fighting a giant catfish voiced by Brad Pitt or something. And now somebody's probably going to write that fanfiction.

Or maybe they would've just taken the lazy route and remade Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. Filmation had closed by this point, and the movie's still kind of obscure, so who was gonna complain?

The Seven Dwarfs

Okay, so this is technically a prequel, not a sequel, but eh...

"The Seven Dwarfs" was to be directed by Mike D'lsa (who worked as an animator on films like Hercules and Home on the Range) and written by Evan Spilotopoulos (who actually helped write many of the other direct-to-video Disney sequels). The film would've explained how the Seven Dwarfs met (Dopey and Grumpy would've begun the movie living in a village full of dwarves, and then they would've gone on an adventure and met the other dwarves from there) and how the Evil Queen (whose name would've been revealed to be Narcissa) would've taken the throne from Snow White's father. Ah, yes, and it would've been CGI. Here's a piece of concept art featuring CGI Dopey.

Kind of creepy, isn't it?

As production went on, the film became focused on Dopey, because he and Grumpy are the only dwarves that Disney seems to care about (and even then, they might care about Dopey a little more than Grumpy - notice how Dopey's kid showed up in that Descendants film, but Grumpy's kid did not?***). Eventually Mike D'las left the project, and eventually Disney decided to cancel it. However, we did eventually get to see what the lives of the Seven Dwarfs were like before Snow White came along - Disney's television series The 7D, which I have not seen a single full episode of. But I've heard great things about it!

For those of you too lazy to read all that, here's a summary: Disney almost had its own direct-to-video version of Lord of the Rings starring the Seven Dwarfs.

UPDATE: I have found an animation test for the film! Give it a watch, it's pretty funny.

Say whatever you want about John Lasseter, but if he did thing one thing right, it was putting a stop to the direct-to-video sequels (otherwise, we probably would've had The Jungle Book 7 or The Princess and the Frog 3 or something by now). It is a shame that Disneytoon Studios had to close a few years afterward, because it could've been used for bigger and better things. But hey, at least Disney's days of making awful sequels is behind them!

Uh, okay, let me rephrase that... Disney's days of making awful ANIMATED sequels is behind them...

Never mind.

* Probably not very likely, but hey, they were originally gonna have Cruella DeVille be the villain of The Rescuers, and Penny from that movie was originally going to be the girl that adopts Oliver in Oliver and Company, so...

** Plus, there are at least two CGI direct-to-video sequels to TV specials that were stop-motion. So there's that...

*** While I'm on the subject of that... even if we can accept that somebody had a kid with Dopey, why is the son of Dopey, who's a dwarf, human? Did Dopey marry a human? Who is Dopey's wife?