The Mighty Hercules - Background

Background

128 episodes of approximately 5 minutes each were produced. Adventure Cartoon Productions made the series in connection with Trans-Lux Television, the same people who later brought the anime series Speed Racer to U.S. audiences. Joe Oriolo was producer-director, and many of the animators were veterans of the New York animation scene, including Grim Natwick, Frank Endres, John Gentilella, George Germanetti, Reuben Grossman, and George Rufle.

The theme music is credited to Winston Sharples (as Win Sharples) who spent more than two decades at Paramount Pictures composing background music for the "Superman" and "Popeye" theatrical cartoons produced by the Fliescher brothers. However, the transformative "ring anthem" frequently used as Hercules slips on the ring given him by Zeus, along with several bridges of music used throughout episodes, are taken from the 1954 film The Black Shield of Falworth, the music credited to Joseph Gershenson but really composed by Hans Salter, Herman Stein and Frank Skinner, the long time in-house film composer for Universal Studios.

The show also featured two different sets of voices for the characters (there was no gradual change - most of the early episodes had one set of voices, the rest have the second set). The most noticeably different voice was Newton: in the "older" voice style he sounds as if he has just hit puberty, with his voice constantly cracking, while the later episodes give him a high-pitched Mickey Mouse-like voice. The animation for the "putting on and charging up the ring" sequence also subtly changed with the voices. For an example of the former style and voices, watch the episodes "The Minotaur" or "The Chair Of Forgetfulness"; for an example of the latter, watch "The Nemean Lion" or "The Chameleon Creature".

Hercules's voice actor was Jimmy Tapp. Daedalus' voice actor, depending on the episode, was Gerry Bascombe or Jack Mercer. The series also featured a memorable theme song sung by a relative unknown at the time, Johnny Nash.The voice actor for all the female voices was Helene Nickerson. The theme song was covered in 2009 by Canadian jazz musician John Stetch on his album TV Trio.

In 2005, the series was re-issued to television in a newly remastered version and was reformatted, and in the process, replacing Johnny Nash's familiar theme music with new title music by an unknown singer. The version airing as of 2012 on the Canadian network Teletoon Retro, however, uses the original Nash theme music.