Hercules: Zero to Hero

[Margos]

I watched the first part of that... Very interesting, I must say! I love the whole cross-over thing. And Hades really does make Jafar seem rather pathetic and petty. The animation was kind of hard to look at though, I don't think I could have sat through part 2, but maybe some other time.

[pap64]

I watched the first part of that... Very interesting, I must say! I love the whole cross-over thing. And Hades really does make Jafar seem rather pathetic and petty. The animation was kind of hard to look at though, I don't think I could have sat through part 2, but maybe some other time.

Here's the funny thing...

When it's a movie Disney spared no expense in creating lush worlds, beautifully animated characters and dazzling effects. When its a TV show, they get by with just some high school animators, some ink and paint from the dollar store and a couple of thousand dollars . I may be joking, but you have to admit how odd it was seeing Disney stun one minute and shock the next.

I mean, not even the animation Disney produced for his TV shows weren't that bad.

[Elladorine]

Sigh . . . I always had trouble sitting through the TV versions of Aladdin, Hercules, Timon & Pumba, etc. just because of the animation.

[disneyboy20022]

Tarzan the animated series I thought had good animation....and Aladdin I thought did and the fact they brought in new Villains every now and then in the Aladdin Series

[slave2moonlight]

Saturday morning episodes always had better animation than the weekday ones, and I think they eventually would use them on weekdays. They were strikingly better. Still way different from the bigscreen stuff, of course. The animation never bothered me THAT much because I grew up on TV cartoon shows in the 80's and 90's, though I could see the difference of course. And I can't help but roll my eyes when people say that Disney never had stuff with bad animation during Walt's day. I remember seeing some pretty cheap stuff on the anthology show from time to time. Anyway, I loved all these shows, and yeah, I have Zero to Hero and would buy it again if it came out on DVD, partially because I loved the show, and partially because I'm a Disney completist (which means I want the direct to video feature version with it's new, albeit awful animation, as well as a complete series set).

[Disney's Divinity]

And Hades really does make Jafar seem rather pathetic and petty.

That's because Jafar is a rather pathetic villain. But at least Jonathan Freeman gives a good performance.

And it's funny, but I always thought Tarzan was the worst looking movie-inspired show they had, maybe tied with TLM. Hercules and TENS were okay, but the weird designs needed better quality to work. Aladdin, Timon & Pumbaa and Lilo & Stitch turned out the best to me (though I really haven't watched much of the Stitch show).

Of course, there are always one or two episodes in the bad-quality shows where the animation'll look spectacular (compared to the bad norm, at least). I remember the episode where Hercules made a girlfriend/date for himself (that turned into a stalker) being really good animation-wise.

[podman]

I think peoples expectations for the animation on these series are a bit extreme. You just can't do much better on a five times a week show.

With Hercules at least, I feel that the stories, acting, and humor are entirely worth it. Definitely my favorite. Wish Disney would wake up and start releasing complete sets on DVD.

I have a decent bootleg copy but would MUCH rather give Disney my money for a professional quality release.

[slave2moonlight]

I think peoples expectations for the animation on these series are a bit extreme. You just can't do much better on a five times a week show.

With Hercules at least, I feel that the stories, acting, and humor are entirely worth it. Definitely my favorite. Wish Disney would wake up and start releasing complete sets on DVD.

I have a decent bootleg copy but would MUCH rather give Disney my money for a professional quality release.

I totally agree. I don't know if I'd say Hercules was my fave of the shows though, but great show nonetheless. Anyway, I used to tape all these shows when they first came out. I eventually trashed most of those tapes though, sadly, since many were not great quality and I figured season sets would come out at some point. Ugh. Some were pretty good quality too, and I didn't anticipate those DVD recorders that can copy from VHS.... Still need one of those, actually...

[Elladorine]

I think peoples expectations for the animation on these series are a bit extreme. You just can't do much better on a five times a week show.

I'll mostly agree with you there, but if you compare the animation to say . . . DuckTales or Gummi Bears, there's really no comparison in quality.

I'm not trying to be elitist or anything and don't hold it against anyone for liking these shows. I'm sure the stories and such were great (I know that Rey was a big fan of the Hercules series back in the day) but I had trouble just sitting through the opening. My personal favorite of the Disney Afternoon block was Darkwing, and that had pretty bad animation at times. But the characters and concept kept me watching and it was handled better than some of the animation to come in the following years.

For something like Hercules or Aladdin, I'd already enjoyed those guys in the movies and probably would have preferred seeing new stories in comics rather than watching how the animators struggled with the complex character designs (of course there's a whole lot less money to be made in comics). It reminds me of the one time I chatted with Steve Loter; he said they chose simpler designs for a show like Kim Possible since the likes of certain characters were just difficult for the animators to work with, especially when they'd be directly compared to the extremely high standards of already being animated in the feature films.

[podman]

Valid points all.

I think when I look at the TV show I'm never comparing the animation to the movie because I know it could never possibly come anywhere close.

But I am really intrigued that we get to see more of the world from the film, and expecially with Hercules as that means seeing all the Gods that didn't have large parts in the film.

Also, I find the series that focus on a lot of humor work better for me. The Hercules TV show is very clever and funny, with great voice work. Emperor's New School works very well too. Whereas Little Mermaid and Aladdin and such just don't have anywhere near as much going for them to keep them entertaining IMO. The lack of animation quality seems much more glaring to me in those cases.

[drnilescrane]

I think peoples expectations for the animation on these series are a bit extreme. You just can't do much better on a five times a week show.

I'll mostly agree with you there, but if you compare the animation to say . . . DuckTales or Gummi Bears, there's really no comparison in quality.

Funny you should say that - One of my biggest issues with the first batch of Ducktales is they chose TMS (a Japanese firm) to do the animation. This led to some amazing effects work - just look at Scrooge's aircraft - but the character animation was so horribly stiff and off putting (and the Ducks eyes were too big). I actually preferred the later episodes were they branched out into Wang Films etc. as the character animation had a lot more life to it, even if it was more off model.

Darkwing was different in the fact that it was sent off to a lot of studios, not just one as Ducktales had been. That meant we got some fantastic episodes from France at the top end (who were all round great in effects and character animation) and some SHOCKERS from Kennedy Cartoons at the other.

By the time Hercules, Quack Pack, etc. came around France had graduated to Features - A Goofy Movie being their first - and Australia had taken their place as the best TV studio. Australia was given the majority of Quack Pack to make up for shitty writing - The one show where the creative needed to be taken down a peg or too and listen to the executives . Australia also had the added advantage they didn't ruin the comic timing like some of the asian studios.

I remember Tad Stones saying on Usenet he was disappointed that the climax of the first Aladdin DTV went to Japan instead of Australia as they character animation wasn't as good.

[Goliath]

Nothing can top DuckTales, Gummi Bears, TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Gargoyles, but Hercules, the series was also very good. The last good show they did starring their 'own' characters, in my opinion. I never liked spin-offs from movies. It's kind of lazy and they screw up the characters. Hercules is just the exception. I wish they would still invest in good, original tv series. But nowadays they much rather make another spin-off from movies or make a very bad Cartoon Network-ripoff.

[estefan]

Hercules was a fun show and (don't kill me, please), I actually prefer to the feature film as I found Herc to be a tad more likeable in the series.

Though it's interesting people are complaining about the animation quality (which is understandable), when my biggest pet peeve with the series was that the contiunity was messed up beyond belief.

In the series, Hades knows all about Hercules and continually tries to defeat him. Yet, in the film, he doesn't find out Herc is still alive until he's become an adult. I know they needed to find some way to fit in the most popular character from the film, but still.

[Matt]

Will Disney ever release this to DVD/Blu-Ray or evening Disney Plus? I’m so confused as to why they won’t?

[UmbrellaFish]

I remember both this and the Tarzan and Jane DTV releases. I know I owned the Tarzan one on DVD for the longest time, and I’m pretty sure I owned Zero to Hero on VHS? I remember liking it because Meg was featured in the video and she wasn’t in the TV show.

I thought it was a missed opportunity not to include Zero to Hero on the Hercules Blu-ray.

[DisneyFan09]

Have you ever watched this film? I haven't since this was only released on VHS. I don't understand why they never released it on DVD. Yes, the film is practically unknown, but Disney has released more obscure titles on DVD before. I'd love to see Megara on film again since she was not featured in the series.

I've never seen it as well. But Megara was actually included in the series. Sorry if I'm nitpicking, but here's the proof: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Megara.

[Disney's Divinity]

Yeah, I remember that. It was always the episode I looked forward to because Meg was my favorite character from Hercules. I believe there was a memory potion involved so they wouldn't remember each other after the episode ends. It's a shame neither Megara nor the Muses have much involvement in the series (I believe there was one episode where one of the Muses interacts with Hercules to teach him to dance or something though).

[DisneyFan97]

The Hercules show is GREAT !!!

As a kid i thought iy was the BEST SHOW EVER

And i still REALLY LIKE IT !

[DisneyFan97]

I wish this was duubbed into swedish