Ever-intrepid demi-god Hercules battles Proteus and rescues a beautiful princess. He takes her back to her home, the island of Atlantis. Her mother, sadistic Queen Antinea, believes in a prophecy that says if her daughter outlives her, then Atlantis will be destroyed. Naturally Antinea is attracted to Hercules, but first she must get rid of her daughter. Antinea sends a team of weirdly identical blond henchmen to murder her daughter, while she unsuccessfully tries to drug Hercules. With the help of his son, Hercules battles the henchmen, outsmarts the queen, and saves the princess, causing the island to sink into the sea. Prophecy fulfilled!
Information
The soundtrack of the American release contains several short passages from the score of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), in particular the easily recognizable three-note "Creature theme".
This is said to be the only "Hercules" movie filmed in 70mm.
The Episode
Host Segments
Lawn Baby
Prologue:Gypsy wants to join the boys in watching the movie. Crow and Tom are extremely unsupportive.
Segment One (Invention Exchange): The Mads have continued their Deep 13 day care, and as a result, TV's Frank has developed the Lawn Baby, a lawnmower/baby stroller that is an accident waiting to happen. A radiant Joel demonstrates the Wombmate, a device that allows babies to listen to music in utero.
Segment Two: Joel, Tom, and Crow enjoy some good-natured brawling as drawn from the film. They're even good natured after they've been patched up.
Segment Three: Crow’s history report on Hercules is unnecessarily harsh.
The boys play with their Hercules action figure
Segment Four: The Bots' Hercules action figure is rather inactive, constantly repeating, "I'm so sleepy, I can barely keep my eyes open."
Segment Five: Joel and the bots bid the Hercules movies adieu (for now, anyway). They read a letter. Back in Deep 13, Frank is being chased by his invention, and it ends as badly as one would expect.
Stinger: "Hercules!", followed by Herc's freaky expression.
Trivia
Goof: Joel says “Zatharatu” when he means to say Zarathustra.
Nathan Devery finished up his internship with this episode.
"Bonanza!" "And if that map burns, it'll be a Greece fire!"
"Bonanza" was a 1960s TV western whose opening credits began with a burning map of the Ponderosa Ranch.
"Things fall apart."
Refers to the novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.
"Come back to Atlantis. Make it Atlantis again, mon!"
A parody of "Come back to Jamaica", an advertising slogan used to promote Jamaican tourism during the 1980s.
"Everything is beautiful in the valley."
A reference to the song "At the Ballet" from the musical A Chorus Line.
"Michael Gross, no!"
Michael Gross is an actor best known for his roles in the TV series "Family Ties" & the film "Tremors".
"John!" "Marsha!" "Oh, John!" "Oh, Marsha!"
A reference to a piece by comedian Stan Freiberg that mocked cheesy radio soap operas: the dialogue consisted of two characters (both voiced by Freiberg) just repeating their names to each other over and over.
"Everybody must get stoned!"
I'm just posting this to take the opportunity to point out that the name of that Bob Dylan song is "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 ", not "Everybody Must Get Stoned" as everyone on Napster used to think back in the day.
"We love you Conrad, Oh yes we do."
After the queen's brutal massacre of the slaves, Joel and the Robots sing a sad, slower version of the usually cheery and bright song, We Love You Conrad, from the popular musical Bye Bye Birdie, alongside it's 1963 movie counterpart.
