Hercules: Pop Culture Superstar

Hi, I'm Jordan.

And I'm Kit.

Welcome to Starry Time, where stars plus lines

equal stories.

In this week's episode, we'll be getting silly and exploring the pop culture of our constellation, Hercules.

In this episode, we'll share our favorite and least favorite occurrences of this month's constellation in pop culture.

Then we'll do a new segment called Trailer Power Ranking where we, guess what, power rank the trailers of four live action Hercules films that we watched for just this purpose.

And then we'll end by taking over the brand and wishing upon a star for what we wish existed.

Perfect. Kit, this is gonna be a fun one.

Yeah, so just for a little context, as we were thinking about our asterism for next week's episode, we were considering diving into the wide world of Hercules films.

All right, so the one I like best, we're gonna start with one. I'm starting with Hercules 2014 action adventure film starring, very importantly, Dwayne The Rock Johnson. As you'll find out, there is another Hercules 2014 film that does not star Dwayne The Rock Johnson. This should not be confused with the number one choice, Hercules 2014 film, starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson. This one I chose based on his trailer having the most big budget monster special effects.

Some adventures.

Yeah, and had these really, uh, I would say low budget even for 80s graphics that I liked. I wanted to learn more. I figured it was probably short. Um, so that was my number two pick.

Yeah. I, this kind of, the aesthetic reminded me a lot of like Star Trek, the original series had the same kind of like vibe to it.

Um, my third choice. This is easy also it was almost my second choice is Hercules in New York, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. This one would be higher, except for I'm knocking the producers of the film and the trailer for not believing in young Arnold. They originally pitched this whole movie, it's his first big film, 1970, 10 years, 12 years, 14 years before the Terminator. And they pitch this movie, and you know what they do to Arnold? They overdubbed

Mhm.

And do they give him a Greco Roman accent? No, they just give him a British accent. They didn't believe in Arnold's performance. And so I don't believe in Hercules in New York unless you have the director's cut with Arnold. If you can get that, then this might be number two.

Yeah, we did see a comparison of like a scene that was dubbed and not dubbed. And they're definitely, the dubbing is really bad. And I think I would prefer it undubbed, you know, let Arnold's performance shine through.

He is a very poor, uh, annunciator and performer of English, but again, he's doing better English than I could do it any second language by far. And then that leaves fourth pick, which is a movie called The Legend of Hercules, as we mentioned before, also came out in 2014. It had no actors that I recognized, least of all The Rock. It seemed like kind of soap opera y in a way that sometimes I could be into, but it looked cheap.

Hmm.

So no, if you're gonna go watch one 2014 Hercules film, I would not choose The Legend of Hercules. That was my fourth choice, and behind the other three by a long shot. Long, long shot.

I think, like, I mostly agree. I probably would have put Hercules in New York up a bit higher, just because I love this premise, like, and, like, Arnold as Hercules, but, but the Hercules, basically, like, the premise is, you know, he decides to leave Olympus, because, to, like, you know, hang out in the city, and I, you know, that's compelling. That's compelling as well.

Yeah, it's a retconstellation neither, uh, I mean, I can't speak for you, but I hadn't considered time traveling Hercules to modern New York. You know.

I like it though.

I gotta give him credit. Someone was taking a risk with the script, um, with or without how the execution was done and how they treated Arnold. Um, still, what a great idea. What a great concept. Hercules in New York. Great title.

Yeah, that sounds good. Do you want to, there was a ton to choose from so, so much to choose from. Uh, so do you want to start with your favorites and, uh, we could do honorable mentions too, as needed?

Okay, great. So I'd be happy to start. My favorite Hercules in pop culture is Hercules, the bear.

Mmhm

Did you read about Hercules, the bear?

The Scottish wrestling bear?

Absolutely. Right. Kit. Yes.

So here's the thing. I actually had Hercules, the Scottish wrestling bear um, first of all, the bear is adorable. Okay. This bear is amazing. But I was also like, what are you doing making this poor bear wrestle people? Um, I read that the bear, uh, suffered a slipped disc, which, you know, led to his retirement.

So let me give you some of the pros. Those are all the cons and they are very accurate. Hercules did live 26 years, which is a good amount for a bear. Uh, whether they're happy, happy bear years, we can't know. We do know that at one point he ran away for 24 days and thousands of people, uh, were sent looking for him. What won my heart is that Herc, as he was always called, was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. What for? To promote the Miss World contest.

Okay.

What else was this bear in? Octopussy. The James Bond film. He's got the coolest name and he looks really cute. What's your number one favorite pop appearance of Hercules?

Well, I mean, it's obviously the 1997 Disney film Hercules, which, you know, is excluded from the trailer, uh, power ranking. If that's not permitted, then I'm going to go with the Hercules soundtrack from that same film because that soundtrack is so good. Um, I, I, yeah, I loved that movie a lot growing up. The soundtrack is really good.

Favorite song?

Zero to hero, obviously. Um, I love Go The Distance. Sometimes I listen to that when I'm, you know, working out and that really, that can get you through some stuff. The muses, all of their bits are amazing. So yeah.

All right. I'll start with my least favorite pop culture appearance. And my least favorite was this child bodybuilder called little Hercules.

Didn't see this.

Did you see this guy?

Nope.

This is like, some guy who was like on a bunch of daytime TV shows. Um, his parents like raised him to be like a bodybuilder at like four or five. He was born in 1992. He's just called Little Hercules. Like he, I kind of feel the same way about him that you kind of feel about the bear. I feel like he was probably used by people. It's probably a tragic story actually. But yeah, just little kids who are built like bodybuilders is really, least favorite.

I think this won't surprise you. It was the Hercules parrot.

I was wondering when this was going to come up. Yep. Let's discuss him now then.

Also known as the Heracles Inexpectatus, it is a giant and extinct parrot species in New Zealand. It lived 16 to 19 million years ago. What we know about it's based on two tibia fossils that were discovered in 2008 in New Zealand, but the research on it seems like it didn't come out until 2019, but they think that this was a parrot that was almost three feet tall. It weighed 15 pounds. That's just too big of a bird for me. Too big.

Had a feeling might be in your least favorite category as it fits very closely into the secretary bird, uh, taxonomy. Again, we have here probably the closest to a highly intelligent dinosaur that we could meet in real life. I mean, parrots are known for their brain power.

True.

So even a dumb giant parrot is probably pretty smart. Also three feet tall. Yeah. Heracles Inexpectatus. Um, what if they were around, but had to stay on New Zealand? So like the people who did want to meet them could, would that be okay with you?

Um, yeah, I mean, I read that it probably wasn't flightless, so that helps. It was more of like a tree climber, you know, there's something flying giant birds that I found more, that's more scary. Oh, I also read that this is like an example of island giantism. Like the idea that you can get really big on an island. Um, did you see the nickname for this bird?

Tell me. I'm not sure if I did.

Squawk Zilla.

Squawk Zilla. I definitely did not see that. Hercules parrot squawk Zilla.

Yeah. So that was definitely my, my least favorite for sure.

All right, perfect. So your least favorite was almost my top favorite. Again, we differ on the opinions of whether giant dinosaur like birds, um, should be existing on our planet currently, or whether or not that would be a dangerous and terrifying thing. Discuss in the comments if you'd like.

Yeah, there were a ton of options for sure.

My first honorable mention for favorite was The Hercules rollercoaster, which we see was in Dorney Park in Pennsylvania. It looked like a great wooden rollercoaster ran for about 15 years. Um, went really fast, had a really big drop, but my favorite part and why it was almost my favorite is after it broke down. They replaced it with a new steel rollercoaster called Hydra's Revenge.

Oh, that's good.

I like that. It's kind of just like, uh, you know, a thumb in the nose of Hercules there. Like, this time Hydra was reborn and Hydra won. It looks like a really cool rollercoaster too.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, for that story, for whoever knew the lore enough to tear down one Hercules and replace it with the Hydra's Revenge. That was almost my favorite and tops my honorable mention. What about you? Do you have anything on your list?

I mean, that was also on my honorable, honorable mention. Um, I also had Hercules, the giant Sequoia in California. That's a good name for a giant old tree. I liked that. I also had the Hercules Liger. Very big, very cute. Uh, look up a picture of that. Maybe I'll put some, uh, on our socials.

They look incredible.

Yeah, they're really cool. They're really cute. I also saw that there was a Hercules gay bar in Helsinki, Finland that was founded in 2000 and it's a very popular spot, I guess. So I liked that use of Hercules given like the canonical sexual orientation and queerness of Hercules. So yeah, I liked that a lot as well.

Okay. Do you have some more thoughts about what else to add?

I had a few other things I just wanted to like quickly mention. Um, there was the resupply depot Hercules, which is a proposed space station. Um, love the idea of an orbiting space station. Think it should be named something like Hermes or Demeter. Um, so didn't like that. Um, they also, the same company wants to have like a lunar depot depot named Ares.. And I'm like, do you know anything about Greek mythology.

At least it's appropriate.

Makes sense. And they also, there were some, you know, processing, processors and graphics cards named Hercules and I said, that's also fine, too. So those are my thoughts because there was just so so much to choose from.

All right, great.

Absolutely. Do you want to go first with your pitch?

Sure. What I want first is a new species of sauropod, which is a long neck dinosaur called Herculisaurus because some reason Hercules or Heracles has not been incorporated into any dinosaur name because we have some of the names and we've got like a sauroposeidon and that's like a giant one and yeah so they're already like scraping the barrel yeah so they need to like if you're going to just name them after random greek gods again pick one that's big and strong.

Right.

It's exactly like you're talking about. At least, like, the war machine, at least, like, the giant dinosaur, at least it would make sense. Alright, Kit, what do you wish existed?

So, you know, I kind of struggled with this a little bit, uh, ultimately I decided to go with, uh, Hercules hot sauce.

Whoa.

So just really spicy hot sauce. I feel like that, you know, I kind of, you know, I thought about Hercules with like, you know, weights or, you know, uh, uh, home security. And I was like, no, no. And then I was like, you know what, if you brand your hot sauce, Hercules, that's going to be good. That's gonna be spicy.

Yes.

Yeah, so I don't know what it tastes like. Um, maybe it's got some inspiration from you know, um, Greek food uh, I don't know. I've never made hot sauce before I like to eat hot sauce But uh, that's that's what I'm looking for.

Perfect. Whoever can take on Hercules hot sauce. Great name hhs whoever could take on Hercules hot sauce, uh, it's like 12 labors in your mouth

Oh.

All right Kit those are our favorites, those are our least favorites, those are what we wish existed.

And you know, it's only a matter of time before one of our wishes comes true. This has been Kit.

And Jordan.

Sisters. Lovers of stars and stories.

And we'll see you next week.

On Starry Time.