Let’s start off with a basic overview of The Herculoids. This was an old saturday morning cartoon featuring a sparsely inhabited planet that had 3 humans living on it, Zandor, Tarra, and Dorno. For some reason, evil technologically advanced aliens were always hellbent on taking over this particular planet, or blowing it up. Luckily there were 5 creatures on the planet that would always save the day. In fact they are the first reason we love The Herculoids.
1. The Creatures
Here is a rundown of the non-human stars of The Herculoids. Igoo was a giant ape made out of rocks. He was super strong and basically couldn’t be hurt by anything. His favorite pastime was throwing boulders at invading spaceships. Tundro was also a rock creature, except he was based on a mix of a rhino and a centipede. Also, he could shoot rocks out of his horn, spin his head to drill through rocks, and his legs extended to ridiculous lengths for all those times he needed to be taller. Next we have Zok, who was basically an alien dragon. Yes, that is awesome. That includes not only being able to fly and breath fire, but also traveling through space and shooting laser beams out of his head. Last but not least we have Gloop and Gleep, essentially the first Flubbers. They are balls of goop that can turn themselves into chairs or trampolines, or whatever else they need to. The best part is all of these creatures seemed to understand what the humans in the show were saying and would comply with their orders. Imagine having a space dragon you could ride around. That was everyday life for Dorno.
2. Zandor Has a Mysterious Past
As previously mentioned, highly advanced alien races were always coming to the little planet Zandor, his wife, Tarra, and their son, Dorno, called home. Was it because these aliens had ruined the ecosystems on their home planets during their never ending search for superior technology? Were they gathering interplanetary slaves for a gigantic space war? No, they were usually just pissed at Zandor. Almost every single alien invader listed a past slight by Zandor as their main reason for attacking. It was never specifically said what exactly Zandor had done to piss these aliens off, but I think he was a space pirate. He would steal their technology and sell it to other aliens until he was able to buy a tiny planet where he and his family could spend the rest of their days wearing fur loincloths and avoiding any use of technology whatsoever. I assume all of the angry aliens had a brother killed by Zandor during a theft gone wrong.
3. Did I Mention Zok?
Yes, all of the creatures in The Herculoids are pretty cool. Zok is by far the coolest though. Let me give you a rundown of this again. Zok is a space dragon who can fly through space, breathe fire, and shoot laser beams out of his head. Now I will pause for a second as these facts sink in and you realize that Zok is THE COOLEST THING EVER. Wait, it gets better, Dorno, son of Zandor, would often ride Zok and get a great view of enemies getting blasted by laser beams. There is nothing in the world that would be greater than riding a space dragon, not even riding a 10 legged rock rhino.
4. Sexism is Funny
Zandor, being a former space pirate, was pretty bad ass. He would lead the charge against whatever aliens happened to be invading that day, and would rack up a good kill count. This is counting all of the assumed kills that happened off screen, these old cartoons never showed the good parts. Dorno inherited some of his father’s bloodlust and would use a slingshot to rain down fiery uncomfortableness upon his enemies. Not as effective as his father, but still a pretty good contribution. Then there was Tarra. Oh, Tarra, you tried. You really did. Since this was an old cartoon and Tarra was a woman, that meant she was essentially useless. Her attacks against the aliens would usually end with her being kidnapped and used as a hostage until Zandor came and rescued her. She was captured a shockingly high number of times. Chances are she was tired of living in the jungle in a fur loincloth and just wanted to leave with people who had technology such as dishwashers and hair driers.
5. Technology is Evil
The Herculoids was all about going green before going green was trendy. These were semi-barbaric humans fighting against advanced races using nothing but their wits, the environment, and space dragons. Technology didn’t stand a chance, especially because only the evil guys were using it. A slingshot was about as advanced as things got for The Herculoids. This appealed to all of us young kids who just wanted to spend all day in a treehouse using a slingshot to shoot acorns at cute girls. Looking back, I don’t think many of us really got the environmental message though. We just knew there was a damn space dragon.
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