The Twelve Labours of Hercules — Clip #4: Invincible

THE TWELVE LABOURS OF HERCULES

Edwin Janzen
Twelve-channel video installation
Clips of various duration, 2009

The television cartoon series The Mighty Hercules was created by Trans-Lux Productions in 1962 and first aired from 1963 to 1968. Featuring the substantially reimagined exploits of the demigod Hercules, the series chronicled Hercules efforts — contained in bite-sized, five-minute episodes — to defend humanity against a series of relentless, conniving villains: the evil wizard Daedalus, the sea witch Wilhemine and Murdis, the Mask of Vulcan. Blending surpassingly cheap animation with a submerged homoeroticism and a chipper combat-readiness typical of Hollywood sword-and-sandal movies (but without the blood), The Mighty Hercules offered young viewers a totally unique (and, in hindsight, somewhat bewildering) cartoon-watching experience.

There is a titans disconnect between the serious academic study of classical history and mythology and the life of those same subjects in the popular mind. History is edged aside by historicism, as characters and subjects real and mythical are appropriated and reappropriated for a vast array of purposes by popular media, including Hollywood movies, advertising, Discovery Channel documentaries and, indeed, Saturday morning cartoon shows. In popular culture, the various heroes and demigods no longer represent themselves, their own struggles, their personal glory and prowess; they represent whatever we want them to.

In this installation, the demigod Hercules, already removed one degree from the ancient myth by the T.V. cartoon show, finds himself removed a second time — reappropriated, redeployed. Locked into the ephemerality of video in the age of mechanical — indeed, digital — reproduction, our friend Hercules finds that, in the postmodern age, his dozen already Herculean tasks have become more exacting — indeed, downright Sisyphean. Accordingly, he labours on, imprisoned in a digital, purgatorial state of unending cacophony, violence and emergency.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• video
• art
• installation
• mighty
• hercules
• newton
• daedalus
• loop

[GodivaGirl1]

Boy, maybe Carey Price ought to be wearing the Mask of Vulcan when he gets in nets!

[fairfax17]

why mess up a classic with such foolishness. Just let the epidsode run. too much time on your hand, huh

[bingobongo445]

The back round music sounds like the same stuff, they used in 1958 when they showed the first tv disaster film of tornado hitting Dallas.

[rolandoperez8506]

somebody shut that freaking half horse human mouth shut

[leegeorgeson]

I wouldn't have told Hercules that the mask was the source of my power lmao

[thedoctor42209]

this cartoon is closer over 40 years

[KevinPatrickCarey]

the explosion sound was always the same for everything

[TomatoeAssassin]

@sqrleprle Only 20 years?

I remember this from over 40 years ago!

(God, I'm old)

[TomatoeAssassin]

I guess the Mask Of Vulcan also makes time repeat itself.

[bruinz0477]

Oh Mask. Had you just gone to the hardware store & invested $1.29 on a chinstrap, you would have ruled the world.....