THE HERCULOIDS - THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL SERIES (1966-1967) (Warner Archive Blu-ray review)

THE HERCULOIDS - THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL SERIES 

(1966-1967) 

Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated 
Duration: 374 Minutes 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.33:1) 

Director: Charles Nichols
Cast: Mike Road, Ted Eccles, Virginia Gregg, Don Messick, Ted Cassidy

"Somewhere out in space live The Herculoids! Zok, the laser-ray dragon! Igoo, the giant rock ape! Tundro, the tremendous! Gloop and Gleep, the formless, fearless wonders! With Zandor, their leader, and his wife, Tara, and son, Dorno, they team up to protect their planet from sinister invaders! All-strong! All-brave! All-heroes! They're The Herculoids!" - The Herculoids Opening Narration

Hanna-Barbera Studios 60's sci-fi animated series The Herculoids (1966-1967) was one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons, alongside The Adventures of Johnny Quest and Space Ghost and Dino-boy, which I saw during the early 70's re-runs of the shows. In The Herculoids we have  the human King Zandor (voiced by Mike Road, Johnny Quest), along with his wife Tara (voiced by Virginia Gregg who did the voice of Norman Bates in Psycho, Psycho 2, and Psycho 3) , and they're young son Dorno  ( Ted Eccles, Bad Ronald) who team-up with a fantastic cadre if creatures to defend their planet primordial planet Amzot from a never ending assault. The Herculoid creatures, all also voiced by Mike Road, are Zok, a flying dragon who emits lasers from his eyes and the tip of his tail, the powerful rock-ape Igoo; the 10-legged rhino-hybrid Tundro who shoots exploding energy-rocks from his cannon-horn, and a pair of blobby protoplasmic wonders named Gloop and Gleep who can shape-shift in myriad ways. Together the humanoids and the Herculoids use their diverse super-strengths to defend their utopian Amzot planet against attack from such sinister invaders such as the Pod Creatures, the Reptons, the Ogs, the Mutoids and other wild, villainous creations ranging from androids to vegetable-men. 

It was a scrappy and not that well-animated series with a lot of re-used stock footage and backgrounds, but it offered cool, pulpy sci-fi action and a non-stop barrage of robotic and alien baddies, which fueled my day dreams for years to come. This was a staple of my Saturday morning viewing habits, and I watched it as often as possible while sitting in front of the boob-tube with a bowl full of sugary cereal while while my mom yelled at me to start my chores as I bathed in the glow of the vintage cathode ray tube monitor. 

I can see how the show might seem pretty flimsy and thin watching it today without the benefit of nostalgia to warm your youthful heart, and that is because it absolutely is thin and flimsy. It was a very formulaic series with little depth and not many surprises. That said, binge-watching these eighteen episodes yesterday the show  washed over me like the buzz of a thousand Jolt colas! Each twenty minute show offered two 10-minute episodes, the show never gave a back story to the main cast, or stated why their utopian planet was under attack, all we got was some sort of nefarious invading force attacking the planet and then the humanoids and Heculoids would to band together to save the planet from immanent doom, in-between they're was a cacophony of laser blast, ray guns, explosions and things getting banged up - and that's all I really need(ed). 

The dialogue is trite and stilted, if you read the lines aloud from the script it would barely make sense from one sentence to the next, with the opening narration setting it up just right. It tells you all you need to know, and the toon doesn't really activate your brain in any way as to make you ask a lot of questions, you just sort of go along with the campy action happening on screen, connect the dots when necassary, and have a blast watching humanoids and their monstrous friends defeat a one-dimensional enemy, ' nuff said. 

Audio/Video: All eighteen episodes of The Herculoids: The Complete Original Series arrives on Blu-ray from Warner Archive in 1080p HD and framed in the original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1. This is a new HD scan and it looks great, the cell animation and backgrounds look great. There's a bit of grit and debris visible but the animation lines and colors look great from start to finish. 

Audio comes hy way of English DTS-HD MA 2.o mono with optional English subtitles. The canned effects and shrieks, grunts and screams sound great, appropriately vintage, but great. The sound of various rayguns, lasers, and space ships instantly brought back the warm nostalgia of seeing the show on TV as a kid. 

The only extra is a brief archival five minute featurette from 2004, an appreciation for the groundbreaking series with briefs interviews from Paul Dini, historian Jerry Beck, comic/TV writer Mark Evanier, and animator Doug TenNapel, plus we get some terrific character proofs from Alex Toth throughout. 

The three-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with three hubs for the discs with a single-sides sleeve of artwork. Each disc features the same artwork as the sleeve, with discs one and two featuring seven episodes each, and disc three featuring the final four episodes and the featurette. 

Episodes:

Disc One:

1. The Pirates/Sarko the Arkman (21 min) HD 

2. The Pod Creatures/Mekkor (20 min) HD 

3. The Beaked People/The Raiders (21 min) HD

4. The Mole Men/The Lost Dorgyte (20 min) H D

5. The Spider Men/The Android People (21 min) HD 

6. Defeat of Ogron/Prisoners of the Bubblemen (21 min) HD 

7. Mekkano, the Machine Master/Tiny World of Terror (21 min) HD 

Disc Two:

8. The Gladiators of Kyanite/Temple of Trax (20 min) HD

9. The Time Creatures/The Raider Apes (20 min) HD 

10. The Zorbots/Invasion of the Electrode Men (20 min) HD 

11. Destroyer Ants/Swamp Monster (21 min) HD 

12. Mission of the Amatons/Queen Skorra (20 min) HD 

13. Laser Lancers/Attack of the Faceless People (20 min) HD 

14. The Mutoids/The Crystallites (20 min) HD 

Disc Three:

15. Return of Sta-Lak/Revenge of the Pirates (20 min) HD 

16. Ruler of the Reptons/The Antidote (20 min) HD 

17. Attack from Space/The Return of Torrak (20 min) HD 

18. The Island of the Gravites/Malak and the Metal Apes (20 min) HD 

Special Features: 

- The Herculoids: First Family of Quasar (5 min) 

The Heculoids gets a fantastic Blu-ray upgrade from Warner Archive who continue to give the sci-fi fantasy cartoons of my youth wonderful Blu-ray editions that not only look fantastic but rekindle my youthful fervor for the fantastic, this gets a super-high recommendation. 

Screenshots from the Blu-ray: 

Extras: