Saturday, April 06, 2013
The Mighty Hercules
I knew it word-for-word, of course. I sat gape-jawed in front of the TV for hours, it seems, and remembered it all. That can't be true, of course, because I also remember spending hours reading, and spending hours playing touch football and Chinese Tackle.
There was a closing verse at the end of each episode, which I can't find.
Join us there with pride
Standing at his side
Victory is here
Raise a mighty cheer
At the sight of Hercules.
The singer is Johnny Nash, who later sang "I Can See Clearly Now." I never knew that connection until now. I also didn't know that the Trans-Lux which did the cartoons is the same company that does the fancy scoreboards now. It's been going for almost a hundred years.
Hercules, people are safe when near him
ReplyDeleteHercules, only the evil fear him
-- or something close to that. I still remember it well, even before clicking your link.
Here's a possible blast from the past. Do you remember Hemo the Magnificent, an animated character used to explain the origins of our digestive and circulatory systems from primitive sea creatures? That show made a huge impression on me. I was delighted to find, in a discussion thread on Netflix, that many people remembered it with affection. It was just about the only educational film I can remember ever being shown that wasn't ridiculous: thought-provoking and memorable without being at all technical, very age-appropriate.
"Salt. Water."
ReplyDeleteAnd everyone laughed, but it was true. I still remember that.
Looking it up, Mel Blanc was in it.
Exactly! I was very impressed by the idea that blood was chemically close to seawater, and that we were carrying around simulacra of the ocean in our bodies after all these hundreds of millions of years on land.
ReplyDelete