June 14, 2022 • 28 mins
Sara and Chrissy are BACK! Our extended holiday into mental health into new baby into paralyzing ADHD hiatus is over! We're kicking off the second half of our season with the 1997 Walt Disney Pictures animated film, Hercules. It's the story of a demigod baby who almost gets murdered but lives to break a lot of things and kill a lot of monsters. This episode has everything. Loose and possibly incorrect knowledge of Greek mythology. An absentee but all-powerful dad. Our THIRD attempted infanticide in six episodes. It's a wild ride and a half-goat, half-Danny Devito is hitched to our chariot.
Join us next time when we'll be watching Fantasia!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sara (00:07):
Hello and welcome to Mouse Ears and a Movie, a Disney
animation conversation.
I'm Sara Farrell Baker, joinedby my cohost, Chrissy Woj.
Chrissy (00:16):
We are two grown women avoiding responsibility and
watching cartoons.
Every episode we'll be watchinga Disney or Pixar animated
feature chosen at random fromThe Bucket.
Sara (00:25):
The Bucket.
Chrissy (00:27):
Then we will reconvene here to share our thoughts, some
behind the scenes knowledge andprobably make some weird noises.
Sara (00:33):
This week we watched the 1997 Walt Disney Pictures
animated feature film, Hercules.
It is the classic Disney storyof a villain wanting to kill a
baby dead.
We're in ancient Greece wherethe new baby of Gods Zeus and
Hara, Hercules, is almostmurdered and mostly turned
mortal.
Baby Herc is strong as shit, butnow he can die.
When he grows up and learns thetruth about his fancy parents in
(00:55):
the sky, Hercules sets out tobecome a hero and return to
Mount Olympus.
To refresh our memories, here'sChrissy with a Hercules Olaf
recap treatment.
Chrissy (01:04):
It began with a child born of Gods.
Once born with magical powerssoon became powerless.
Turned human by his evil uncle'sminions.
His desire to be included,infinite.
Whoops, sorry, Penelope.
Hercules, it's you.
Let me help you with that.
No, I got it.
Maybe we should call himJerkules.
I have often dreamed of a faroff place where a hero's welcome
(01:28):
would be waiting for me.
Didn't know you had a famousfather, did ya?
Surprise! Well, at least he hashis parents.
His parents are gods.
Oh, hi.
I'm Hercules.
I need you to train me.
No way kid.
I'm Zeus's son.
My answer is two words.
Zap.
Okay.
I'm a damsel.
I'm in distress.
I can handle this.
(01:49):
Ma'am, I believe you're tooclose to the situation.
It wasn't my fault.
It was this wonder boy,Hercules.
Why does that name soundfamiliar?
Hercules is still kicking.
Brain flames.
We can still reverse this.
Let's get ready to rumble.
Giant monster.
The giant monster is dead.
Wait, it's back with threeheads.
Hercules' wins.
Zero to hero with no time flat.
(02:10):
I won't say I'm in love.
Name's Hades, Lord of the dead.
How are you doing?
War! Megara is dead.
You like deals.
Let's make one.
The thread won't cut.
Hercules is a God.
I'd rather be human with her.
A star is born.
The end.
Sara (02:25):
Hercules! So this movie was released on June 13th in
1997.
It's the 35th Disney animatedfeature film and the eighth in
the Disney Renaissance.
It received positive reviews,but mixed feedback on the music,
which I do not understand.
Cause I don't love most of themovie.
Most of the movie bores me, butthe music is fantastic.
Chrissy (02:47):
It's kind of hard to believe that it's part of the
Renaissance other than the AlanMenken.
Sara (02:50):
Another thing that got a lot of flack was the animation
style.
I very much agree with that.
I get, they were trying to makethings look Greek, but it got
really distracting at points.
Whenever you would get a sideprofile of young Hercules, he
looks weird as crap.
It's something where like hischeeks like come out.
Like it's just, it, it doesn'twork.
It doesn't work.
And then everyone has likeswirly ears and swirly nipples,
(03:13):
and I'm just, I don't get it.
Chrissy (03:15):
What I thought was interesting though, this is that
weird combination with the flatstyle with the Muses and then
there's this other style withthe story.
And we see that a lot Like Iknow Moana does it.
Sara (03:27):
We see it with the Muses.
We see it as the pottery type,painting things.
Yes.
Montage stuff.
The stained glass in thebeginning of Beauty and the
Beast.
I'm trying to think if we seethis anywhere else.
I mean, in the early Disneymovies, when you've got the big
story book opening, and they gothrough the pages.
It really brings in kind of aperiod relevant art form into
(03:47):
the storytelling.
I love that about Moana.
I love the tapestry or whateverit was that her grandmother was
telling the story of Maui from.
Chrissy (03:55):
The Muses, you can't go wrong with the Muses.
Sara (03:57):
The Muses! We get a Greek chorus.
Chrissy (04:00):
It's an enjoyable interlude in this mostly disney
channel original TV show.
Sara (04:06):
They're my favorite part aside from, I freaking love
Danny DeVito in this movie.
I love him, but I don't know whyI love Phil so much.
Maybe because I am also a grumpypart goat, but
Chrissy (04:18):
I could take him or leave him.
Sara (04:19):
I just I love it.
Ugh.
Chrissy (04:20):
I mean, I love you, but I could take him or leave him.
Like my favorite characters inthe movie, obviously the Muses
make the movie fun, but likeMeg, Hades and Pegasus.
But as you probably have alreadyfigured out, I'm a big fan of
sidekicks and I'm a big fan ofvillains and, there's just
something about Meg.
She's one of the best parts ofthis.
Sara (04:40):
So Susan Egan plays Meg and she originally played Belle
in the Broadway production ofBeauty and the Beast.
I think she went on to try toaudition for other Disney roles,
eventually gets cast as Belle onBroadway.
When the role of Meg comes up,she goes to Alan Menken and
says, I want to be Meg.
I want to try out for this.
And he's like, oh, you're reallylike, you're too sweet for this.
You're very Belle.
(05:01):
Meg has a lot more sass.
She's very headstrong.
And Susan Egan just said, justlet me try.
Chrissy (05:07):
She's super like misanthropic.
Is that the word?
Misanthrope?
Sara (05:10):
I don't know words.
Chrissy (05:11):
Hold on.
Give me a second.
Cause I think this is the rightword.
A person who dislikes humankindand avoids human society.
Yea, that's exactly what I wasgoing for.
She's super misanthropic andhates men particularly.
But that's because she's beenbroken and hurt.
Sara (05:25):
Not even just like a bad breakup.
Her boyfriend is going to diesomehow.
And she decides to sell her soulto Hades, to save him.
And then this boyfriend goes andfinds another lady.
He's like, okay, I'm alive.
Thank you for that nice favor.
Smell you later.
Chrissy (05:40):
I'd be pissed too.
So Susan Egan rocks the role.
Sara (05:43):
And James Woods as Hades, I will say, this is the one
thing I will ever tolerate JamesWoods in cause I cannot stand
the man, he is a fantastic Hadesand their casting process for
the role of Hades was insane.
They went through so manydifferent iterations of this
character.
The Hades that we end up with isnot the Hades that they
(06:04):
originally envisioned for thismovie.
In the early stages, DannyDeVito says, Hey, why don't you
guys cast Jack Nicholson?
He'd be great for this.
But Jack Nicholson is way tooexpensive.
Disney offers him, I think, halfa million dollars and Jack
Nicholson comes back with howabout like 10 to$15 million, and
also half of the merchandisingprofits from Hades merchandise
(06:25):
and Disney said, no, thank you.
And so Then they went with JohnLithgo who tried his damnedest
for nine months to do Hades andthey just could not get what
they wanted out of it.
And he eventually, after ninemonths was released from that
role.
They tried Kevin Spacey, PhilHartman, Jerry Lewis, so many
others.
And then James Woods comes inand is doing this fast-talking
(06:49):
sleazy car salesmaninterpretation that they had not
envisioned for the role, butturned out to be so perfect.
They saw Hades as like a veryslow- talking, gruff, like
someone that you would thinklike John Lithgo could really
knock out of the park.
Chrissy (07:03):
I cannot imagine John Lithgo in this role.
Sara (07:06):
Because the Hades that we got is not a Lithgo Hades.
James Woods really put his spinon this and it ends up making
Hades one of the most belovedvillains.
Chrissy (07:16):
One of the best characters in this movie.
Also Pain and Panic.
Excellent.
Oh my God.
Huge fan of the casting of bothPain and Panic.
So you've got Bobcat Goldthwaitas Pain who, every time I hear
his voice, all I can think of isScrooged.
And then for Panic, you've gotMatt Frewer who, I don't know
who Max Headroom is, butapparently he's a big deal.
(07:37):
Max Headroom is like a eightiescharacter that he played and
that still resonates withpeople.
I think I was too young for him,but I know him from Honey, I
Shrunk the Kids.
He was big Russ, the next doorneighbor.
Sara (07:48):
Then we also have Rip Torn as Zeus.
And as soon as I start hearingZeus speak, my head just starts
screaming, like PatchesO'Houlihan!
Chrissy (07:56):
Who dat?
Sara (07:57):
Patches O'Houlihan from the movie Dodgeball.
Chrissy (08:00):
Oh yeah.
I haven't seen that.
Sara (08:02):
So disappointed.
Chrissy (08:03):
I'm not a Stiller fan.
Sara (08:04):
No one's a Stiller fan.
Stiller's incredibly irritating.
Chrissy (08:07):
How does he keep making movies?
Sara (08:09):
Cause he keeps playing really unlikable characters and
he does that like chef's kiss.
Chrissy (08:14):
Nobody wants to watch it.
I mean, that's wrong.
I don't.
Sara (08:18):
We also have in our title role, Tate Donovan is playing
Hercules.
And if you are a child of thenineties slash early aughts, you
may remember Tate Donovan fromThe O.C.
He was Jimmy Cooper, MarissaCooper's dad.
And he's also, if you everwatched Friends, is Joshua.
Chrissy (08:37):
I got neither of those.
So we get Alan Menken back doingthe music.
Sara (08:42):
Love some Zero to Hero.
Very much love I Won't Say I'min Love.
Chrissy (08:47):
Oh, I have been singing that since it came out.
That's always been one of myfavorites.
Sara (08:52):
I was really into One Last Hope, Danny DeVito's number.
Chrissy (08:55):
That makes sense since you really love Phil.
Sara (08:57):
I love Phil and it's very like dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,
duh, just one of those.
Very classic Broadway.
Chrissy (09:07):
Big jazz, big band.
Sara (09:10):
I'm getting Hello, Dolly with a very gruff New Yorker
vibe.
Chrissy (09:14):
And then we get Go the Distance, which was the song
they had up for Oscar nod.
But it did not win.
Sara (09:19):
It did not stand a chance.
1997 Oscars
Chrissy (09:23):
dominated by Titanic.
Sara (09:26):
Poor Michael Bolton, going up against Celine Dion, belting
out how her heart will go on.
No one stood a chance.
Chrissy (09:33):
Far.
Wherever you are.
I mean, come on.
You can't help having thatbreathy just, oh, it's so fun.
Sara (09:42):
And poor Michael Bolton and his, what?
His clarinet?
His saxophone?
I don't know what he does.
No, who am I thinking of?
Not Michael Bolton.
Kenny G.
Chrissy (09:50):
Poor Alan Menken.
Sara (09:52):
And lyrics by David Zippel.
He is responsible for the lyricsfrom Mulan.
So when Hercules was released,it did not do great at the box
office.
It underperformed.
I feel like that should havebeen expected because it
followed Pocahontas andHunchback, which were just not
well received, not well lovedwhen they came out.
(10:14):
And Disney released Hercules inresponse to the backlash they
received over Pocahontas andHunchback.
Those films were considered toodark.
To which I say, ya think?
Chrissy (10:25):
So let's take a really dark story and make it really
fucking bright and shiny.
Hercules is not the child ofZeus and Hera.
That's just this happy littlelet's give some Sleeping Beauty
vibes with the perfect parentsand the perfect baby.
And then the villain comes inand he's all like, I want to
take over and this baby's goingto be my downfall, so let's boot
(10:47):
him.
Not a fan of how they change it.
So Hercules is actually ademigod, which means that he's
already a human with powers.
He could be killed already.
We don't need to drink a potionbecause he's already there
because he's Zeus's son withAlcmene who is a mortal woman.
Zeus tricked her into gettingpregnant.
Disguised himself as her husbandAmphitryon and banged her.
(11:10):
And they had a baby.
Hera hated the baby.
There's no like Hades villain inthe actual Hercules story.
Hera is the villain.
She's the one sending the snakesto kill him.
She's the one doing all the badshit.
Sara (11:24):
So yeah, you put a big Disney shiny bow on it.
Chrissy (11:27):
It's like trying to take the Hunchback of Notre Dame
and making it a happy movie.
Sara (11:31):
It doesn't work.
No, it works.
Like it works much better thanHunchback did, but I just
thought it was kind of boringand predictable and not really.
Chrissy (11:40):
It was like a cartoon animated series.
Sara (11:43):
So our movie opens and it is narrated by Charlton Heston.
Chrissy (11:48):
Who's boring as fuck.
Sara (11:49):
Very much so.
Chrissy (11:50):
And then the Muses roll in and they're like, get outta
here, man.
Let's pump up the jam.
Sara (11:54):
And we get The Gospel Truth as our opener.
Our Muses are just on fire.
The casting of the Muses, wehave some Broadway royalty.
Lillias White as Calliope.
We have Vanéese Y.
Thomas as Clio.
Cheryl Freeman as Melpomene.
LaChanze as Turpsichore.
I'm not even gonna, I freelyadmit to butchering this Muses
(12:17):
name, but Turpsichore.
I don't know.
And Roz Ryan as Tahlia.
We have Tony winners.
Great belting singers in this.
It is the most fantastic girlgroup we could hope to get out
of a Disney movie.
Chrissy (12:30):
So The Gospel Truth tells us the story of the Titans
and how Zeus banished all theTitans.
And now the gods are throwingparties every day up in Mount
Olympus, which is where we startour story.
Sara (12:42):
With the baby party.
Chrissy (12:43):
All the gods.
Baby Pegasus.
Sara (12:46):
Made from clouds.
They're all celebrating thearrival of baby Hercules.
We see Hermes.
We see Aphrodite.
We see Poseidon, lots of Greekgods all over the place.
And then Hades arrives and Hadesis Zeus' brother.
He is not a big fan of the baby.
Chrissy (13:06):
And Zeus gets to party up in Mount Olympus and Hades is
confined to the underworldbecause somebody has got to make
sure dead people end up dead.
And he shows up at this babyparty.
This is where I get all of theseSleeping Beauty vibes.
Disney made this entire part up.
You're just stealing your oldmaterial here, guys.
Sara (13:25):
So Hades is not super into being confined to the
underworld, and he would like tooverthrow his brother Zeus.
So when he returns down to theunderworld, he visits the Fates.
These three old, witchy lookinladies that share an eyeball
that tells them the future tellsthem the fate.
They also are the ones who cutthe threads of life when it is a
(13:46):
mortal's time to join theunderworld.
When they have their meetingwith Hades, they tell him the
planets are going to align in 18years and he will be able to
release the Titans and defeatZeus, but only if he offs
Hercules first.
Chrissy (14:01):
Dun dun dun.
Sara (14:03):
One thing I did not notice, but my husband pointed
out while we were watching, helike stops the movie and he's
like, hold on, hold on, hold on.
There's only six planets.
That's because the Greeks wereonly aware of six planets at the
time.
With your naked eye, you couldsee like the Earth that you were
standing on and Mercury, Venus,Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
They are the only planets thatthe Greeks could see at the
(14:25):
time.
Chrissy (14:25):
So Hades gives Pain and Panic a potion to make Hercules
a mortal.
He's gotta drink the wholething, otherwise they can't kill
him.
And there was one drop left.
The shape-shifting snakes arelike, trying to kill the baby
and the baby's like ERRR let'sjust tie you in a knot and toss
you.
Cause he's super strong.
Sara (14:44):
He misses the last drop of that potion.
And so the part of his godlinessthat is left is this crazy
strength that he's born with.
Pain and Panic.
They've tried.
They have failed.
There is still a very alive babyHercules.
And then they say, eh, buddy'smortal.
It'll be fine.
Hades will probably be cool withit.
We'll go home and we just won'ttell him.
(15:06):
So then Amphitryon and Alcmenefind baby Hercules and they
raise him as their own.
Chrissy (15:11):
Herc grows up a little bit and super strong baby
becomes super strong kid becomessuper strong, gangly, awkward AF
teen who doesn't understand hisown strength.
Nobody wants to play with himand nobody wants to hang out
with him and nobody wants to himto help.
And he just wants somecompanionship that isn't his
(15:31):
parents, like most ganglyteenagers.
Sara (15:34):
He wants some friends.
Chrissy (15:35):
And then we get Go the Distance, which is a lovely I
Want number.
It's not about becoming a hero.
It's about like being a part ofa community, being a part of
something.
Sara (15:46):
Little fun fact.
While he's singing his song,there is a shooting star that
goes across the sky.
That is not a shooting star.
That is Pegasus, checking on hisbuddy Hercules.
It's a voyeuristic Pegasus.
So after Hercules has justbroken a ton of crap and is
feeling pretty down in the dumpsabout his place in the world and
how different he is, Alcmene andAmphitryon decide to tell him
(16:08):
the truth about his parents,that he is the son of Zeus and
Hera.
So he goes to Mount Olympuswhere there is a statue of Zeus.
It comes to life, scares theliving shit out of him, and then
tells him, Hey son, you mustbecome a hero, a true hero.
So you can become a God again.
Zeus, summons, Pegasus so theycan be buddies and work
together.
(16:29):
And he sends Hercules to trainwith Philoctetes.
Chrissy (16:33):
And like, so I really, I know it is the opposite of
what Zeus actually is, but Ireally appreciate Zeus's
character He's not one of myfavorites, but he's just so
bumbly and goofy.
It's like, he's very much likethe dad in Roseanne, a Dan
Conner from Roseanne.
It's just this big, goofy, happydo-do-do dude.
Sara (16:55):
So when we find Philoctetes, he is a Seder.
Half man, half goat, played byDanny DeVito, known as Phil.
He is retired because all of thegods that he is trained, have
sucked.
He has trained Achilles.
He has trained some other ones Ican't remember the names of,
because they sucked.
Chrissy (17:13):
I don't think Perseus sucked.
Perseus did good shit.
Sara (17:15):
But didn't he like not go the distance?
Chrissy (17:18):
No, he like slayed Medusa and rescued Andromeda
Sara (17:22):
Was he defeated by something stupid like an ankle?
Or a heel?
Chrissy (17:25):
I am bothered by this because the only one I know who
actually was defeated bysomething stupid was Achilles.
And the only reason I know thatis because I have an Achilles
tendon.
Sara (17:34):
Doesn't everyone?
Chrissy (17:35):
I don't know.
I just know that's how I knowthat.
Sara (17:42):
So Phil is saying like, I'm done, I'm retired.
I'm not training anybody.
Sorry, buddy.
And then Zeus, like tasers himfrom the sky, sends a lightning
bolt down and Phil agrees!Changes his mind.
Okay, fine.
I'll train Hercules.
And we go into One Last Hope.
Chrissy (17:56):
All of a sudden Phil's like, all right, I'm not just
in, I'm super in.
I guess when you get a littlebit of hope, you might as well
take it all and throw down.
Sara (18:04):
And if you're going to put your hope on anybody, son of the
king of the gods is not aterrible choice.
Chrissy (18:09):
Probably a solid bet.
So they head out to Thebes, buton their way, Hercules is like,
wait a minute.
That looks like a damsel indistress.
Let's go check that out beforewe get to Thebes, and we meet
Megara, who's in a bit of a bindwith Nessus.
We think she's a damsel indistress.
Herc thinks she's a damsel indistress.
(18:31):
She says, she's a damsel indistress.
But we find out after Herculesbeats him up, she's actually
working for Hades.
Sara (18:40):
Yeah she was supposed to be recruiting Nessus.
And through this Hades finds outthat Hercules is alive and he is
not pleased.
Pain and Panic are about to getit.
And we hop back over to Phil andHercules as they arrive in
Thebes.
The big olive.
It is a city in turmoil whereeveryone rolls their eyes at
heroes because they never comethrough.
Chrissy (19:02):
Hades works out a little plan to get Herc while
Herc is trying to get some work.
But nobody wants him to do herostuff because they're like,
yeah, we don't trust you.
And so Meg runs in and is like,wonder boy.
Oh, thank God I found you.
Which is supposed to be bad forher.
But this is actually bringingall of these people who have no
faith in him to be like, wait aminute.
(19:23):
She's gotten him to come andrescue these two little boys who
are stuck under a rock.
And he's all like muscle muscle.
I got this.
Boom! Run along little boys.
The little boys are played byPain and Panic.
Sara (19:35):
And so Hercules frees these boys without knowing
they're Pain and Panic.
And it turns out it's a trap andthe Hydra comes out from a hole
under the rock.
Chrissy (19:42):
And the Hydra's another one of the Hercules monsters
that like in the actual myth, hedefeats the Hydra.
But before he defeats it, he hasto find out that Hydras, once
you chop off their head, theyjust get more heads.
Sara (19:56):
So Hydra eats Hercules, but he slices himself out from
the inside chopping off Hydra'shead and three more grow back.
And Hercules seems to think thatthe clear solution here is just
more head chopping.
I'll just chop off more heads.
Chrissy (20:10):
Just keep doing it.
Just.
Sara (20:13):
This was a really complicated scene to animate
because in the end, the Hydraends up having, I think, like 30
heads and they needed them tomove succinctly.
And so there's a lot of computeranimation going on here.
And I think it took somethinglike a week.
No, it was way more than a week.
It was a lot of time.
It was a very large amount oftime to animate four minutes.
Chrissy (20:33):
Well, I mean it's kind of wild when you think about any
kind of scene in any kind ofmovie, like live action
animation, the amount of timethat goes into a single cell or
a single scene is just wild.
Sara (20:45):
In this giant battle, Hercules finally causes a rock
avalanche and it kills Hydra.
For a second.
They think it's killed Herculestoo, but he bursts out of his
claws and he's celebrated forbeing a hero.
Chrissy (20:56):
Zero to hero!.
Sara (20:57):
We get my favorite Muses tune, Zero to Hero.
Throughout the song, it's just amontage of Hercules defeating a
ton of monsters and Hades beingpissed and sending more monsters
and Hercules defeating thosemonsters and his fame just grows
and grows.
He's a action figure and he's ashoe.
Chrissy (21:13):
Merchandising.
Merchandising.
Then Hades is all like, Meg, I'mgonna need you to find out what
Hercules' weakness is.
They've all got them.
Go get his.
Sara (21:24):
To which she says, like he has no weakness, but let's go
figure it out.
And in the meantime, Herculesgoes to Zeus.
He goes to see his dad.
Cause he's like, look, I'vedefeated all of these monsters.
I am a hero.
I'm so famous.
I'm an action figure.
I'd like to come be a God now.
And Zeus has to tell him, like,sorry, you're still not a true
hero, but I'm also not going totell you what that means or how
(21:46):
to do it.
Chrissy (21:47):
Yeah.
You have to figure it out onyour own, kid.
Geez.
Sara (21:49):
And Hercules is bummed that his dad won't just like fix
it.
So he just spends the day withMeg.
A little date day.
They go to see Oedipus.
Hercules ends up breaking thearms off of the Venus de Milo
and Meg gets poked by Cupid'sarrow.
It's a very cute gardeny,statuey kind of placed they're
in.
Chrissy (22:06):
It's very Aladdin.
Sara (22:07):
Another fun fact is that in the scene, Meg trips and
Hercules places her on a bench,he picks her up and puts her on
a bench.
And it's not a bench or at leastnot just a bench.
I think it's called Scola, whichis a bench tomb, common in
Pompei.
The ancient Greeks just kind ofsat on their dead all the time.
Chrissy (22:24):
So when Herc heads off Meg is just feelin Cupid's
arrow.
And we get one of the greatestlove songs of all Disney, I
Won't Say I'm in Love.
Sara (22:36):
It's so good.
Chrissy (22:37):
It's so real too.
Sara (22:38):
Susan Egan knocks it out of the park.
She belts it out, about howshe's not going to say out loud.
No way she is not in love withHercules.
No.
Because she's already been hurtbefore, she can't fall in love
again.
She's been burned.
She won't do it.
Chrissy (22:53):
But it's too dang late.
Sara (22:54):
And a tiny Easter egg is that in the scene, we get a row
of Muses busts and they arearranged the same way the
Haunted Mansion's busts are.
Chrissy (23:02):
So Hades catches up with Meg.
She has not found any weaknessesand that's because she can't see
that she's his weakness.
Sara (23:13):
But Hades sees it.
Chrissy (23:14):
And so all of a sudden we get human bait, of course.
And Hades uses Meg to getHercules, to give up his powers
so that he can take over theworld.
Sara (23:26):
They make a deal.
You give up your powers for aday.
Meg won't get hurt and we'rejust going to see what happens.
Otherwise I'm going to kill her.
Chrissy (23:33):
Herc gives up his powers, and then as soon as he
gives up his powers, Hades isall, oh yeah.
Great work, Meg.
You did a good job.
Sara (23:40):
Sells her right out.
Chrissy (23:42):
And Herc is like well fuck.
I'm out.
Fuck love.
Fuck everything.
Sara (23:45):
Breaks poor little Hercules' fragile baby heart.
Chrissy (23:48):
Poor thing.
Sara (23:49):
That's his weakness.
Chrissy (23:50):
So the Titans are released.
The Titans head up to MountOlympus, capture everybody.
Zeus's caged in a mountain.
And, uh, Hercules has to go towork.
Sara (24:01):
Even though he does not have his crazy powers, he goes
on to fight the Cyclops.
And then he is able to defeatthe Cyclops through his whit and
all of the shit that he stillhas left aside from his Godness.
And a column falls down and it'sabout to fall on Hercules, but
Meg jumps up and pushes them outof the way and it lands on her.
Chrissy (24:22):
But now, Hercules can lift it up because Meg got hurt
and Hades' deal is kaput.
Sara (24:28):
So now Hercules is at least a strong demigod again.
Chrissy (24:32):
Jumps on Pegasus, head's up to Olympus and is
like, all right, I gotta do thisthing.
And he does.
He takes out the Titans andfrees the gods and Zeus is all
like, woooo, my son is the best.
But.
Sara (24:44):
Meg kicks it while Herc is up on Mount Olympus.
And as her soul is gettingsucked into the underworld,
Hercules jumps into the riverStyx, this like death river
after her.
And it should kill him.
It reminds me of Harry Potter,in the sixth book with all the
dead crap, the dead lake aroundthe horcrux thingy.
Chrissy (25:02):
A hundred percent.
Sara (25:03):
There we go.
That's the words for things.
So doing this should kill him.
Like you go into this riverthingy and like you're now
detached from your soul and yoursoul's going into the
underworld.
But, this act, sacrificinghimself to try to save Meg is
heroic enough that he is now atrue hero.
Chrissy (25:19):
And the Fates try to cut his thread of life, but it's
gold and he's a God and theycan't cut it anymore.
Sara (25:26):
And so Hercules carries Meg soul out of the river and
just gives Hades a nice bigshove, pushes him right in.
Chrissy (25:33):
Pain and Panic are like, Ooh, should we go help
him?
What if he never gets out?
That's a good plan.
All right.
Let's just ignore that.
Sara (25:41):
That is a lesson in being nice to your evil henchman.
You may need them one day.
Chrissy (25:46):
So Hercules' heads up to Olympus and his parents are
all like cheering andeverybody's cheering and he's
the hero and they're like,you're a God, man.
Welcome to your new home.
But uh.
Sara (25:57):
He decides actually I'm going to go be human.
I'm going to stay on earth withmy Meg.
She's alive now.
It's real cool.
And so after he returns toearth, Zeus puts a constellation
of Hercules in the sky,something that Phil had dreamed
of for one of his guys.
One day, they're going to putone of these heroes that I've
trained up in the stars andpeople will look up and they'll
(26:18):
say, Hey, that's Phil's boy.
Chrissy (26:20):
And Phil gets his boy.
Sara (26:22):
And that's the end.
So yeah, it wasn't bad, but itwas just meh.
It was fine.
Chrissy (26:28):
I've always really liked Hercules, but watching it
this time around, I was justkind of bored.
And there's some movies I canwatch over and over and over
again.
This ain't one of them.
Sara (26:37):
This is a much loved movie for a lot of people, but I feel
like it's mostly loved becauseof the music and we loved the
music.
Chrissy (26:43):
And we love the characters that everybody loves.
Sara (26:46):
You know what I just realized?
We have no villain song in thismovie.
Chrissy (26:49):
Hades deserves a number.
Sara (26:51):
This movie, it was reviewed well, ish, but the
standout thing among all of thereviews was James Woods was
fantastic as Hades.
We don't get any kind of a like,Be Prepared, Poor Unfortunate
Souls, any of that kind of jam.
It's such a campy, fun characterthat having his own musical
number would have punched thingsup.
(27:12):
I'm bummed they didn't do that.
So, we'd love to hear yourthoughts, guys.
You can send us an email atmouseearsandamovie@gmail.com.
You can find us on social mediaand let us know what you think
about whether or not they shouldgive us more Muses.
Chrissy (27:28):
Cowards.
So that's it for Hercules.
It is time to find out what ournext movie is going to be.
I've got The Bucket and it isfilled with the names of Disney
and Pixar animated features.
Every episode we will choose anew movie out of The Bucket and
our next movie is Fantasia.
Sara (27:49):
Fantasia.
Okay.
Well, that's the end of our showguys.
I am Sara Farrell Baker, and youcan find me across social media
@sarafarrellbaker.
Chrissy Woj, where can we findyou on the internet?
Chrissy (28:01):
You can find me on Instagram@quirkychrissy and
Twitter@quirky_chrissy.
Follow along with us nextepisode, when we'll be
discussing Fantasia.
Until then you can find usonline at
mouseearsandamovie.com, onInstagram/TikTok
@mouseearsandamovie and onTwitter@mouseearmovies.
Unknown (28:18):
See ya real soon.
Hello and welcome to Mouse Ears and a Movie, a Disney
animation conversation.
I'm Sara Farrell Baker, joinedby my cohost, Chrissy Woj.
Chrissy (00:16):
We are two grown women avoiding responsibility and
watching cartoons.
Every episode we'll be watchinga Disney or Pixar animated
feature chosen at random fromThe Bucket.
Sara (00:25):
The Bucket.
Chrissy (00:27):
Then we will reconvene here to share our thoughts, some
behind the scenes knowledge andprobably make some weird noises.
Sara (00:33):
This week we watched the 1997 Walt Disney Pictures
animated feature film, Hercules.
It is the classic Disney storyof a villain wanting to kill a
baby dead.
We're in ancient Greece wherethe new baby of Gods Zeus and
Hara, Hercules, is almostmurdered and mostly turned
mortal.
Baby Herc is strong as shit, butnow he can die.
When he grows up and learns thetruth about his fancy parents in
(00:55):
the sky, Hercules sets out tobecome a hero and return to
Mount Olympus.
To refresh our memories, here'sChrissy with a Hercules Olaf
recap treatment.
Chrissy (01:04):
It began with a child born of Gods.
Once born with magical powerssoon became powerless.
Turned human by his evil uncle'sminions.
His desire to be included,infinite.
Whoops, sorry, Penelope.
Hercules, it's you.
Let me help you with that.
No, I got it.
Maybe we should call himJerkules.
I have often dreamed of a faroff place where a hero's welcome
(01:28):
would be waiting for me.
Didn't know you had a famousfather, did ya?
Surprise! Well, at least he hashis parents.
His parents are gods.
Oh, hi.
I'm Hercules.
I need you to train me.
No way kid.
I'm Zeus's son.
My answer is two words.
Zap.
Okay.
I'm a damsel.
I'm in distress.
I can handle this.
(01:49):
Ma'am, I believe you're tooclose to the situation.
It wasn't my fault.
It was this wonder boy,Hercules.
Why does that name soundfamiliar?
Hercules is still kicking.
Brain flames.
We can still reverse this.
Let's get ready to rumble.
Giant monster.
The giant monster is dead.
Wait, it's back with threeheads.
Hercules' wins.
Zero to hero with no time flat.
(02:10):
I won't say I'm in love.
Name's Hades, Lord of the dead.
How are you doing?
War! Megara is dead.
You like deals.
Let's make one.
The thread won't cut.
Hercules is a God.
I'd rather be human with her.
A star is born.
The end.
Sara (02:25):
Hercules! So this movie was released on June 13th in
1997.
It's the 35th Disney animatedfeature film and the eighth in
the Disney Renaissance.
It received positive reviews,but mixed feedback on the music,
which I do not understand.
Cause I don't love most of themovie.
Most of the movie bores me, butthe music is fantastic.
Chrissy (02:47):
It's kind of hard to believe that it's part of the
Renaissance other than the AlanMenken.
Sara (02:50):
Another thing that got a lot of flack was the animation
style.
I very much agree with that.
I get, they were trying to makethings look Greek, but it got
really distracting at points.
Whenever you would get a sideprofile of young Hercules, he
looks weird as crap.
It's something where like hischeeks like come out.
Like it's just, it, it doesn'twork.
It doesn't work.
And then everyone has likeswirly ears and swirly nipples,
(03:13):
and I'm just, I don't get it.
Chrissy (03:15):
What I thought was interesting though, this is that
weird combination with the flatstyle with the Muses and then
there's this other style withthe story.
And we see that a lot Like Iknow Moana does it.
Sara (03:27):
We see it with the Muses.
We see it as the pottery type,painting things.
Yes.
Montage stuff.
The stained glass in thebeginning of Beauty and the
Beast.
I'm trying to think if we seethis anywhere else.
I mean, in the early Disneymovies, when you've got the big
story book opening, and they gothrough the pages.
It really brings in kind of aperiod relevant art form into
(03:47):
the storytelling.
I love that about Moana.
I love the tapestry or whateverit was that her grandmother was
telling the story of Maui from.
Chrissy (03:55):
The Muses, you can't go wrong with the Muses.
Sara (03:57):
The Muses! We get a Greek chorus.
Chrissy (04:00):
It's an enjoyable interlude in this mostly disney
channel original TV show.
Sara (04:06):
They're my favorite part aside from, I freaking love
Danny DeVito in this movie.
I love him, but I don't know whyI love Phil so much.
Maybe because I am also a grumpypart goat, but
Chrissy (04:18):
I could take him or leave him.
Sara (04:19):
I just I love it.
Ugh.
Chrissy (04:20):
I mean, I love you, but I could take him or leave him.
Like my favorite characters inthe movie, obviously the Muses
make the movie fun, but likeMeg, Hades and Pegasus.
But as you probably have alreadyfigured out, I'm a big fan of
sidekicks and I'm a big fan ofvillains and, there's just
something about Meg.
She's one of the best parts ofthis.
Sara (04:40):
So Susan Egan plays Meg and she originally played Belle
in the Broadway production ofBeauty and the Beast.
I think she went on to try toaudition for other Disney roles,
eventually gets cast as Belle onBroadway.
When the role of Meg comes up,she goes to Alan Menken and
says, I want to be Meg.
I want to try out for this.
And he's like, oh, you're reallylike, you're too sweet for this.
You're very Belle.
(05:01):
Meg has a lot more sass.
She's very headstrong.
And Susan Egan just said, justlet me try.
Chrissy (05:07):
She's super like misanthropic.
Is that the word?
Misanthrope?
Sara (05:10):
I don't know words.
Chrissy (05:11):
Hold on.
Give me a second.
Cause I think this is the rightword.
A person who dislikes humankindand avoids human society.
Yea, that's exactly what I wasgoing for.
She's super misanthropic andhates men particularly.
But that's because she's beenbroken and hurt.
Sara (05:25):
Not even just like a bad breakup.
Her boyfriend is going to diesomehow.
And she decides to sell her soulto Hades, to save him.
And then this boyfriend goes andfinds another lady.
He's like, okay, I'm alive.
Thank you for that nice favor.
Smell you later.
Chrissy (05:40):
I'd be pissed too.
So Susan Egan rocks the role.
Sara (05:43):
And James Woods as Hades, I will say, this is the one
thing I will ever tolerate JamesWoods in cause I cannot stand
the man, he is a fantastic Hadesand their casting process for
the role of Hades was insane.
They went through so manydifferent iterations of this
character.
The Hades that we end up with isnot the Hades that they
(06:04):
originally envisioned for thismovie.
In the early stages, DannyDeVito says, Hey, why don't you
guys cast Jack Nicholson?
He'd be great for this.
But Jack Nicholson is way tooexpensive.
Disney offers him, I think, halfa million dollars and Jack
Nicholson comes back with howabout like 10 to$15 million, and
also half of the merchandisingprofits from Hades merchandise
(06:25):
and Disney said, no, thank you.
And so Then they went with JohnLithgo who tried his damnedest
for nine months to do Hades andthey just could not get what
they wanted out of it.
And he eventually, after ninemonths was released from that
role.
They tried Kevin Spacey, PhilHartman, Jerry Lewis, so many
others.
And then James Woods comes inand is doing this fast-talking
(06:49):
sleazy car salesmaninterpretation that they had not
envisioned for the role, butturned out to be so perfect.
They saw Hades as like a veryslow- talking, gruff, like
someone that you would thinklike John Lithgo could really
knock out of the park.
Chrissy (07:03):
I cannot imagine John Lithgo in this role.
Sara (07:06):
Because the Hades that we got is not a Lithgo Hades.
James Woods really put his spinon this and it ends up making
Hades one of the most belovedvillains.
Chrissy (07:16):
One of the best characters in this movie.
Also Pain and Panic.
Excellent.
Oh my God.
Huge fan of the casting of bothPain and Panic.
So you've got Bobcat Goldthwaitas Pain who, every time I hear
his voice, all I can think of isScrooged.
And then for Panic, you've gotMatt Frewer who, I don't know
who Max Headroom is, butapparently he's a big deal.
(07:37):
Max Headroom is like a eightiescharacter that he played and
that still resonates withpeople.
I think I was too young for him,but I know him from Honey, I
Shrunk the Kids.
He was big Russ, the next doorneighbor.
Sara (07:48):
Then we also have Rip Torn as Zeus.
And as soon as I start hearingZeus speak, my head just starts
screaming, like PatchesO'Houlihan!
Chrissy (07:56):
Who dat?
Sara (07:57):
Patches O'Houlihan from the movie Dodgeball.
Chrissy (08:00):
Oh yeah.
I haven't seen that.
Sara (08:02):
So disappointed.
Chrissy (08:03):
I'm not a Stiller fan.
Sara (08:04):
No one's a Stiller fan.
Stiller's incredibly irritating.
Chrissy (08:07):
How does he keep making movies?
Sara (08:09):
Cause he keeps playing really unlikable characters and
he does that like chef's kiss.
Chrissy (08:14):
Nobody wants to watch it.
I mean, that's wrong.
I don't.
Sara (08:18):
We also have in our title role, Tate Donovan is playing
Hercules.
And if you are a child of thenineties slash early aughts, you
may remember Tate Donovan fromThe O.C.
He was Jimmy Cooper, MarissaCooper's dad.
And he's also, if you everwatched Friends, is Joshua.
Chrissy (08:37):
I got neither of those.
So we get Alan Menken back doingthe music.
Sara (08:42):
Love some Zero to Hero.
Very much love I Won't Say I'min Love.
Chrissy (08:47):
Oh, I have been singing that since it came out.
That's always been one of myfavorites.
Sara (08:52):
I was really into One Last Hope, Danny DeVito's number.
Chrissy (08:55):
That makes sense since you really love Phil.
Sara (08:57):
I love Phil and it's very like dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,
duh, just one of those.
Very classic Broadway.
Chrissy (09:07):
Big jazz, big band.
Sara (09:10):
I'm getting Hello, Dolly with a very gruff New Yorker
vibe.
Chrissy (09:14):
And then we get Go the Distance, which was the song
they had up for Oscar nod.
But it did not win.
Sara (09:19):
It did not stand a chance.
1997 Oscars
Chrissy (09:23):
dominated by Titanic.
Sara (09:26):
Poor Michael Bolton, going up against Celine Dion, belting
out how her heart will go on.
No one stood a chance.
Chrissy (09:33):
Far.
Wherever you are.
I mean, come on.
You can't help having thatbreathy just, oh, it's so fun.
Sara (09:42):
And poor Michael Bolton and his, what?
His clarinet?
His saxophone?
I don't know what he does.
No, who am I thinking of?
Not Michael Bolton.
Kenny G.
Chrissy (09:50):
Poor Alan Menken.
Sara (09:52):
And lyrics by David Zippel.
He is responsible for the lyricsfrom Mulan.
So when Hercules was released,it did not do great at the box
office.
It underperformed.
I feel like that should havebeen expected because it
followed Pocahontas andHunchback, which were just not
well received, not well lovedwhen they came out.
(10:14):
And Disney released Hercules inresponse to the backlash they
received over Pocahontas andHunchback.
Those films were considered toodark.
To which I say, ya think?
Chrissy (10:25):
So let's take a really dark story and make it really
fucking bright and shiny.
Hercules is not the child ofZeus and Hera.
That's just this happy littlelet's give some Sleeping Beauty
vibes with the perfect parentsand the perfect baby.
And then the villain comes inand he's all like, I want to
take over and this baby's goingto be my downfall, so let's boot
(10:47):
him.
Not a fan of how they change it.
So Hercules is actually ademigod, which means that he's
already a human with powers.
He could be killed already.
We don't need to drink a potionbecause he's already there
because he's Zeus's son withAlcmene who is a mortal woman.
Zeus tricked her into gettingpregnant.
Disguised himself as her husbandAmphitryon and banged her.
(11:10):
And they had a baby.
Hera hated the baby.
There's no like Hades villain inthe actual Hercules story.
Hera is the villain.
She's the one sending the snakesto kill him.
She's the one doing all the badshit.
Sara (11:24):
So yeah, you put a big Disney shiny bow on it.
Chrissy (11:27):
It's like trying to take the Hunchback of Notre Dame
and making it a happy movie.
Sara (11:31):
It doesn't work.
No, it works.
Like it works much better thanHunchback did, but I just
thought it was kind of boringand predictable and not really.
Chrissy (11:40):
It was like a cartoon animated series.
Sara (11:43):
So our movie opens and it is narrated by Charlton Heston.
Chrissy (11:48):
Who's boring as fuck.
Sara (11:49):
Very much so.
Chrissy (11:50):
And then the Muses roll in and they're like, get outta
here, man.
Let's pump up the jam.
Sara (11:54):
And we get The Gospel Truth as our opener.
Our Muses are just on fire.
The casting of the Muses, wehave some Broadway royalty.
Lillias White as Calliope.
We have Vanéese Y.
Thomas as Clio.
Cheryl Freeman as Melpomene.
LaChanze as Turpsichore.
I'm not even gonna, I freelyadmit to butchering this Muses
(12:17):
name, but Turpsichore.
I don't know.
And Roz Ryan as Tahlia.
We have Tony winners.
Great belting singers in this.
It is the most fantastic girlgroup we could hope to get out
of a Disney movie.
Chrissy (12:30):
So The Gospel Truth tells us the story of the Titans
and how Zeus banished all theTitans.
And now the gods are throwingparties every day up in Mount
Olympus, which is where we startour story.
Sara (12:42):
With the baby party.
Chrissy (12:43):
All the gods.
Baby Pegasus.
Sara (12:46):
Made from clouds.
They're all celebrating thearrival of baby Hercules.
We see Hermes.
We see Aphrodite.
We see Poseidon, lots of Greekgods all over the place.
And then Hades arrives and Hadesis Zeus' brother.
He is not a big fan of the baby.
Chrissy (13:06):
And Zeus gets to party up in Mount Olympus and Hades is
confined to the underworldbecause somebody has got to make
sure dead people end up dead.
And he shows up at this babyparty.
This is where I get all of theseSleeping Beauty vibes.
Disney made this entire part up.
You're just stealing your oldmaterial here, guys.
Sara (13:25):
So Hades is not super into being confined to the
underworld, and he would like tooverthrow his brother Zeus.
So when he returns down to theunderworld, he visits the Fates.
These three old, witchy lookinladies that share an eyeball
that tells them the future tellsthem the fate.
They also are the ones who cutthe threads of life when it is a
(13:46):
mortal's time to join theunderworld.
When they have their meetingwith Hades, they tell him the
planets are going to align in 18years and he will be able to
release the Titans and defeatZeus, but only if he offs
Hercules first.
Chrissy (14:01):
Dun dun dun.
Sara (14:03):
One thing I did not notice, but my husband pointed
out while we were watching, helike stops the movie and he's
like, hold on, hold on, hold on.
There's only six planets.
That's because the Greeks wereonly aware of six planets at the
time.
With your naked eye, you couldsee like the Earth that you were
standing on and Mercury, Venus,Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
They are the only planets thatthe Greeks could see at the
(14:25):
time.
Chrissy (14:25):
So Hades gives Pain and Panic a potion to make Hercules
a mortal.
He's gotta drink the wholething, otherwise they can't kill
him.
And there was one drop left.
The shape-shifting snakes arelike, trying to kill the baby
and the baby's like ERRR let'sjust tie you in a knot and toss
you.
Cause he's super strong.
Sara (14:44):
He misses the last drop of that potion.
And so the part of his godlinessthat is left is this crazy
strength that he's born with.
Pain and Panic.
They've tried.
They have failed.
There is still a very alive babyHercules.
And then they say, eh, buddy'smortal.
It'll be fine.
Hades will probably be cool withit.
We'll go home and we just won'ttell him.
(15:06):
So then Amphitryon and Alcmenefind baby Hercules and they
raise him as their own.
Chrissy (15:11):
Herc grows up a little bit and super strong baby
becomes super strong kid becomessuper strong, gangly, awkward AF
teen who doesn't understand hisown strength.
Nobody wants to play with himand nobody wants to hang out
with him and nobody wants to himto help.
And he just wants somecompanionship that isn't his
(15:31):
parents, like most ganglyteenagers.
Sara (15:34):
He wants some friends.
Chrissy (15:35):
And then we get Go the Distance, which is a lovely I
Want number.
It's not about becoming a hero.
It's about like being a part ofa community, being a part of
something.
Sara (15:46):
Little fun fact.
While he's singing his song,there is a shooting star that
goes across the sky.
That is not a shooting star.
That is Pegasus, checking on hisbuddy Hercules.
It's a voyeuristic Pegasus.
So after Hercules has justbroken a ton of crap and is
feeling pretty down in the dumpsabout his place in the world and
how different he is, Alcmene andAmphitryon decide to tell him
(16:08):
the truth about his parents,that he is the son of Zeus and
Hera.
So he goes to Mount Olympuswhere there is a statue of Zeus.
It comes to life, scares theliving shit out of him, and then
tells him, Hey son, you mustbecome a hero, a true hero.
So you can become a God again.
Zeus, summons, Pegasus so theycan be buddies and work
together.
(16:29):
And he sends Hercules to trainwith Philoctetes.
Chrissy (16:33):
And like, so I really, I know it is the opposite of
what Zeus actually is, but Ireally appreciate Zeus's
character He's not one of myfavorites, but he's just so
bumbly and goofy.
It's like, he's very much likethe dad in Roseanne, a Dan
Conner from Roseanne.
It's just this big, goofy, happydo-do-do dude.
Sara (16:55):
So when we find Philoctetes, he is a Seder.
Half man, half goat, played byDanny DeVito, known as Phil.
He is retired because all of thegods that he is trained, have
sucked.
He has trained Achilles.
He has trained some other ones Ican't remember the names of,
because they sucked.
Chrissy (17:13):
I don't think Perseus sucked.
Perseus did good shit.
Sara (17:15):
But didn't he like not go the distance?
Chrissy (17:18):
No, he like slayed Medusa and rescued Andromeda
Sara (17:22):
Was he defeated by something stupid like an ankle?
Or a heel?
Chrissy (17:25):
I am bothered by this because the only one I know who
actually was defeated bysomething stupid was Achilles.
And the only reason I know thatis because I have an Achilles
tendon.
Sara (17:34):
Doesn't everyone?
Chrissy (17:35):
I don't know.
I just know that's how I knowthat.
Sara (17:42):
So Phil is saying like, I'm done, I'm retired.
I'm not training anybody.
Sorry, buddy.
And then Zeus, like tasers himfrom the sky, sends a lightning
bolt down and Phil agrees!Changes his mind.
Okay, fine.
I'll train Hercules.
And we go into One Last Hope.
Chrissy (17:56):
All of a sudden Phil's like, all right, I'm not just
in, I'm super in.
I guess when you get a littlebit of hope, you might as well
take it all and throw down.
Sara (18:04):
And if you're going to put your hope on anybody, son of the
king of the gods is not aterrible choice.
Chrissy (18:09):
Probably a solid bet.
So they head out to Thebes, buton their way, Hercules is like,
wait a minute.
That looks like a damsel indistress.
Let's go check that out beforewe get to Thebes, and we meet
Megara, who's in a bit of a bindwith Nessus.
We think she's a damsel indistress.
Herc thinks she's a damsel indistress.
(18:31):
She says, she's a damsel indistress.
But we find out after Herculesbeats him up, she's actually
working for Hades.
Sara (18:40):
Yeah she was supposed to be recruiting Nessus.
And through this Hades finds outthat Hercules is alive and he is
not pleased.
Pain and Panic are about to getit.
And we hop back over to Phil andHercules as they arrive in
Thebes.
The big olive.
It is a city in turmoil whereeveryone rolls their eyes at
heroes because they never comethrough.
Chrissy (19:02):
Hades works out a little plan to get Herc while
Herc is trying to get some work.
But nobody wants him to do herostuff because they're like,
yeah, we don't trust you.
And so Meg runs in and is like,wonder boy.
Oh, thank God I found you.
Which is supposed to be bad forher.
But this is actually bringingall of these people who have no
faith in him to be like, wait aminute.
(19:23):
She's gotten him to come andrescue these two little boys who
are stuck under a rock.
And he's all like muscle muscle.
I got this.
Boom! Run along little boys.
The little boys are played byPain and Panic.
Sara (19:35):
And so Hercules frees these boys without knowing
they're Pain and Panic.
And it turns out it's a trap andthe Hydra comes out from a hole
under the rock.
Chrissy (19:42):
And the Hydra's another one of the Hercules monsters
that like in the actual myth, hedefeats the Hydra.
But before he defeats it, he hasto find out that Hydras, once
you chop off their head, theyjust get more heads.
Sara (19:56):
So Hydra eats Hercules, but he slices himself out from
the inside chopping off Hydra'shead and three more grow back.
And Hercules seems to think thatthe clear solution here is just
more head chopping.
I'll just chop off more heads.
Chrissy (20:10):
Just keep doing it.
Just.
Sara (20:13):
This was a really complicated scene to animate
because in the end, the Hydraends up having, I think, like 30
heads and they needed them tomove succinctly.
And so there's a lot of computeranimation going on here.
And I think it took somethinglike a week.
No, it was way more than a week.
It was a lot of time.
It was a very large amount oftime to animate four minutes.
Chrissy (20:33):
Well, I mean it's kind of wild when you think about any
kind of scene in any kind ofmovie, like live action
animation, the amount of timethat goes into a single cell or
a single scene is just wild.
Sara (20:45):
In this giant battle, Hercules finally causes a rock
avalanche and it kills Hydra.
For a second.
They think it's killed Herculestoo, but he bursts out of his
claws and he's celebrated forbeing a hero.
Chrissy (20:56):
Zero to hero!.
Sara (20:57):
We get my favorite Muses tune, Zero to Hero.
Throughout the song, it's just amontage of Hercules defeating a
ton of monsters and Hades beingpissed and sending more monsters
and Hercules defeating thosemonsters and his fame just grows
and grows.
He's a action figure and he's ashoe.
Chrissy (21:13):
Merchandising.
Merchandising.
Then Hades is all like, Meg, I'mgonna need you to find out what
Hercules' weakness is.
They've all got them.
Go get his.
Sara (21:24):
To which she says, like he has no weakness, but let's go
figure it out.
And in the meantime, Herculesgoes to Zeus.
He goes to see his dad.
Cause he's like, look, I'vedefeated all of these monsters.
I am a hero.
I'm so famous.
I'm an action figure.
I'd like to come be a God now.
And Zeus has to tell him, like,sorry, you're still not a true
hero, but I'm also not going totell you what that means or how
(21:46):
to do it.
Chrissy (21:47):
Yeah.
You have to figure it out onyour own, kid.
Geez.
Sara (21:49):
And Hercules is bummed that his dad won't just like fix
it.
So he just spends the day withMeg.
A little date day.
They go to see Oedipus.
Hercules ends up breaking thearms off of the Venus de Milo
and Meg gets poked by Cupid'sarrow.
It's a very cute gardeny,statuey kind of placed they're
in.
Chrissy (22:06):
It's very Aladdin.
Sara (22:07):
Another fun fact is that in the scene, Meg trips and
Hercules places her on a bench,he picks her up and puts her on
a bench.
And it's not a bench or at leastnot just a bench.
I think it's called Scola, whichis a bench tomb, common in
Pompei.
The ancient Greeks just kind ofsat on their dead all the time.
Chrissy (22:24):
So when Herc heads off Meg is just feelin Cupid's
arrow.
And we get one of the greatestlove songs of all Disney, I
Won't Say I'm in Love.
Sara (22:36):
It's so good.
Chrissy (22:37):
It's so real too.
Sara (22:38):
Susan Egan knocks it out of the park.
She belts it out, about howshe's not going to say out loud.
No way she is not in love withHercules.
No.
Because she's already been hurtbefore, she can't fall in love
again.
She's been burned.
She won't do it.
Chrissy (22:53):
But it's too dang late.
Sara (22:54):
And a tiny Easter egg is that in the scene, we get a row
of Muses busts and they arearranged the same way the
Haunted Mansion's busts are.
Chrissy (23:02):
So Hades catches up with Meg.
She has not found any weaknessesand that's because she can't see
that she's his weakness.
Sara (23:13):
But Hades sees it.
Chrissy (23:14):
And so all of a sudden we get human bait, of course.
And Hades uses Meg to getHercules, to give up his powers
so that he can take over theworld.
Sara (23:26):
They make a deal.
You give up your powers for aday.
Meg won't get hurt and we'rejust going to see what happens.
Otherwise I'm going to kill her.
Chrissy (23:33):
Herc gives up his powers, and then as soon as he
gives up his powers, Hades isall, oh yeah.
Great work, Meg.
You did a good job.
Sara (23:40):
Sells her right out.
Chrissy (23:42):
And Herc is like well fuck.
I'm out.
Fuck love.
Fuck everything.
Sara (23:45):
Breaks poor little Hercules' fragile baby heart.
Chrissy (23:48):
Poor thing.
Sara (23:49):
That's his weakness.
Chrissy (23:50):
So the Titans are released.
The Titans head up to MountOlympus, capture everybody.
Zeus's caged in a mountain.
And, uh, Hercules has to go towork.
Sara (24:01):
Even though he does not have his crazy powers, he goes
on to fight the Cyclops.
And then he is able to defeatthe Cyclops through his whit and
all of the shit that he stillhas left aside from his Godness.
And a column falls down and it'sabout to fall on Hercules, but
Meg jumps up and pushes them outof the way and it lands on her.
Chrissy (24:22):
But now, Hercules can lift it up because Meg got hurt
and Hades' deal is kaput.
Sara (24:28):
So now Hercules is at least a strong demigod again.
Chrissy (24:32):
Jumps on Pegasus, head's up to Olympus and is
like, all right, I gotta do thisthing.
And he does.
He takes out the Titans andfrees the gods and Zeus is all
like, woooo, my son is the best.
But.
Sara (24:44):
Meg kicks it while Herc is up on Mount Olympus.
And as her soul is gettingsucked into the underworld,
Hercules jumps into the riverStyx, this like death river
after her.
And it should kill him.
It reminds me of Harry Potter,in the sixth book with all the
dead crap, the dead lake aroundthe horcrux thingy.
Chrissy (25:02):
A hundred percent.
Sara (25:03):
There we go.
That's the words for things.
So doing this should kill him.
Like you go into this riverthingy and like you're now
detached from your soul and yoursoul's going into the
underworld.
But, this act, sacrificinghimself to try to save Meg is
heroic enough that he is now atrue hero.
Chrissy (25:19):
And the Fates try to cut his thread of life, but it's
gold and he's a God and theycan't cut it anymore.
Sara (25:26):
And so Hercules carries Meg soul out of the river and
just gives Hades a nice bigshove, pushes him right in.
Chrissy (25:33):
Pain and Panic are like, Ooh, should we go help
him?
What if he never gets out?
That's a good plan.
All right.
Let's just ignore that.
Sara (25:41):
That is a lesson in being nice to your evil henchman.
You may need them one day.
Chrissy (25:46):
So Hercules' heads up to Olympus and his parents are
all like cheering andeverybody's cheering and he's
the hero and they're like,you're a God, man.
Welcome to your new home.
But uh.
Sara (25:57):
He decides actually I'm going to go be human.
I'm going to stay on earth withmy Meg.
She's alive now.
It's real cool.
And so after he returns toearth, Zeus puts a constellation
of Hercules in the sky,something that Phil had dreamed
of for one of his guys.
One day, they're going to putone of these heroes that I've
trained up in the stars andpeople will look up and they'll
(26:18):
say, Hey, that's Phil's boy.
Chrissy (26:20):
And Phil gets his boy.
Sara (26:22):
And that's the end.
So yeah, it wasn't bad, but itwas just meh.
It was fine.
Chrissy (26:28):
I've always really liked Hercules, but watching it
this time around, I was justkind of bored.
And there's some movies I canwatch over and over and over
again.
This ain't one of them.
Sara (26:37):
This is a much loved movie for a lot of people, but I feel
like it's mostly loved becauseof the music and we loved the
music.
Chrissy (26:43):
And we love the characters that everybody loves.
Sara (26:46):
You know what I just realized?
We have no villain song in thismovie.
Chrissy (26:49):
Hades deserves a number.
Sara (26:51):
This movie, it was reviewed well, ish, but the
standout thing among all of thereviews was James Woods was
fantastic as Hades.
We don't get any kind of a like,Be Prepared, Poor Unfortunate
Souls, any of that kind of jam.
It's such a campy, fun characterthat having his own musical
number would have punched thingsup.
(27:12):
I'm bummed they didn't do that.
So, we'd love to hear yourthoughts, guys.
You can send us an email atmouseearsandamovie@gmail.com.
You can find us on social mediaand let us know what you think
about whether or not they shouldgive us more Muses.
Chrissy (27:28):
Cowards.
So that's it for Hercules.
It is time to find out what ournext movie is going to be.
I've got The Bucket and it isfilled with the names of Disney
and Pixar animated features.
Every episode we will choose anew movie out of The Bucket and
our next movie is Fantasia.
Sara (27:49):
Fantasia.
Okay.
Well, that's the end of our showguys.
I am Sara Farrell Baker, and youcan find me across social media
@sarafarrellbaker.
Chrissy Woj, where can we findyou on the internet?
Chrissy (28:01):
You can find me on Instagram@quirkychrissy and
Twitter@quirky_chrissy.
Follow along with us nextepisode, when we'll be
discussing Fantasia.
Until then you can find usonline at
mouseearsandamovie.com, onInstagram/TikTok
@mouseearsandamovie and onTwitter@mouseearmovies.
Unknown (28:18):
See ya real soon.
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