No one born north of Maine needs this show explained. You’ve seen it. You are probably humming the theme-song right now, in fact. For everyone else, The Mighty Hercules was a barely animated series produced in Canada in the 1960s which, owing to Canadian Content Broadcasting Laws, still airs to this very day usually when Teletoon needs some filler after a movie ends ahead of schedule,
The show follows Hercules (who has iron in his thighs, as per the theme-song) who wanders Greece, thwarting evil (usually one of three or four guys) with the help of his magic ring of strength and his horrible sidekick Newton the Terrible Centaur.
One of those villains is Daedalus who, in this incarnation, is less of a skilled architect and more of… Well… He’s Gargamel here. He’s Gargamel wearing a Batman mask and a bright purple robe. About the only difference is that Daedalus doesn’t tower over his erstwhile opponents, which, of course, is the plot of this episode; Daedalus Becomes a Giant
Which opens with Daedalus showing off a large tomato to his evil wizard cat, Dido, which he identifies as a Fruit from the Valley of the Giants, which he then eats and grows giant! Which causes his cat to do a double take.
And, elsewhere, Hercules is wandering around, looking for Daedalus to punch his lights out (Daedalus hasn’t actually done anything yet except Become Tall, mind). And, having found the Giant Man very easily (him being giant and all) puts on his Magic Ring and just punches the ever-loving crap out of him until D is doubled over in pain begging for mercy and then Herc hauls him up and strings him up on a tree.
He’s… Uhh… He’s very heroic.
Then, because we’re only two minutes into a four minute episode, Hercs ring falls off (it’s a Magic Super Power Ring, so I guess it’s hard to get fitted correctly) and he’s back to being a Regular, Super Beefy Dude against a Very Large Man. Which causes Hercules a HUGE amount of panic and Daedalus picks him up and ties him to a tree! It’s poetic justice!
Newton, true to his Terrible Sidekick status, manages to find the ring just afterward, but is captured after Daedalus manages to sneak up on him despite being Gigantic and also Directly in front of him. Fortunately, in order to taunt Hercules, Daedalus puts the Magic Ring directly in front of Hercules and then goes off to get a bunch of people to watch him taunt Hercules further.
Look, they only had five minutes to fill, they don’t have time to explain every little thing.
So Hercules bends over the branch of the tree he’s tie to using his regular Beefy Man strength, flips the ring into the air with the tip of a branch, and has it land on his outstretched finger (it’s a very lucky toss) which makes Hercules strong enough to uproot the tree he’s tied to.
Then Daedalus comes back with a bunch of people eager to see a Very Large Man laugh at a Regular Man (because it was History Times and they didn’t have Nintendos back then, so they had to get their fun where they could) and Hercules punches him in the stomach so hard he goes flying and lands in a magic pond that shrinks him back to normal size. Then he jumps into the sky screaming “OLYMPIAAAAAAAAAAAN” because that’s how every episode ends.
Octoprime Movie Time! 