somewhere out in space live...

easily one of the coolest of the 60s Hanna-Barbera superhero cartoon shows, the Herculoids just kicks all kinds of cartoon ass.  in a ten minute episode you got more excitement and explosions than you do in two hours of today's cartoons.  of course, all that fun didn't really leave a lot of time for characterization, but at 8 AM or so on Saturday morning, who cared?

not this monster/superhero fan!  of course, I don't remember seeing the Herculoids at all as a kid, until they showed up again in the rather anemic Space Stars in 1981, which of course I watched but knew even then it paled compared to the original, though overall it was not the worst of the bunch.

my favorite is Zok, the Laser Ray Dragon.  I mean, Zok was easily the most powerful beast of the bunch, and also the coolest looking.

he certainly is an interesting and unique dragon- with cat eyes and ears.  because it was done in a hurry and as inexpensively as possible, Zok tends to grow and shrink as the episodes demand.  which is nothing unusual with any cartoons from that time period.

and being designed by Alex Toth, the whole show is cool looking, save for a few of the villains here and there (Mekkano, the Machine Master springs to mind, especially when compared to Metallus, (voiced by the late and great Ted Cassidy), the Space Ghost foe).

here Igoo, the stone ape is about to demolish some hapless robots.  and this is in the opening sequence!

it was about 1978 or so, I think, when I was in WV and saw tv promos for Hanna-Barbera's World of Super Adventure.  Channel 20, WDCA was changing their programming for the new year and the 90 minute package was part of it.

unfortunately, we left before the show started, so I never got to see any of the wonderful cartoons they were showing for a while, though I remember seeing a Fantastic Four cartoon at some point.

there's been a few episodes released on DVD now, but come on, Warners, just release the full show for us.