First published at 03:58 UTC on April 6th, 2019.
Saturday Morning cartoon time again, kids!
Hanna-Barbera cartoon studios was the 900# gorilla of TV animation. Their stock and trade was "borrowing" elements and characters from other sources and reworking them as "original" HB…
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Saturday Morning cartoon time again, kids!
Hanna-Barbera cartoon studios was the 900# gorilla of TV animation. Their stock and trade was "borrowing" elements and characters from other sources and reworking them as "original" HB characters. (Sometimes producing something better than the source material in the process.)
This time they raided the pulp fiction world of Edgar Rice Burroughs blending Tarzan with John Carter's Barsoom to create The Herculoids. Space Tarzan (Zandor) lives on a primitive planet with his wife, kid, King Kong (except made of rock), a dragon (who can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes AND tail), an armored dinosaur / rhino with ten extendable legs and a nose horn that doubles as a cannon, and two globs of concentrated awesomeness.
Given a whole galaxy of planets to choose from, why would anyone go looking for trouble on the one ruled by Zandor and his team of gigantic murder monsters? Because cartoon bad guys are a special kind of stupid! And this was 1967, before damned hippies pressured the networks to dial down the violence! (Actually, this show may be what set them off.)
The Pirates was the first Herculoids cartoon broadcast, though not the first one made.
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