YMMV / Hercules: The Animated Series

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Aphrodite turning Galatea into a Yandere - just a result of Herc's poorly thought out request? Or did she deliberately make Galatea as crazy as possible just to teach him a lesson about focusing purely on looks rather than personality? Or did she grant Hercules's request to the letter with the expectation that he'd soon get tired of Galatea being clingy and learn his lesson, but didn't anticipate the situation getting completely out of hand to the point she actually became dangerous?
• Base-Breaking Character: Icarus. Some fans see him as a crazily awesome, hilarious and occasionally wise character. Others see him as childish and grating.
• Broken Base: While overall reception towards the show is very positive, there are many fans of the Hercules Disney movie who absolutely hate the animated TV series, mainly due to some big plot holes. The most egregious one is that in the movie Hades was unaware that Hercules was still alive until his 18th birthday; in the animated series, however, Hades was well aware that Hercules was still alive. The show did seem aware of this plot hole and even dedicated an episode giving an explanation on how Hades could forget Hercules.
• Crosses the Line Twice: In the episode about Prometheus, rather than dancing around the fact that his liver got eaten by an eagle every day, the writers went out of their way to make every possible reference to it, including a whole song and dance number. However, the scene where the eagle visibly pulls Promethus' liver out, and then they proceed to argue about the eagle seasoning it while he's eating it, takes the cake.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Some of the gods in the TV series have gotten a fan following, especially Aphrodite.
  • Circe has gained some popularity as well due to Retroactive Recognition.
  • Helen is quite well-liked too, due to being a Nice Girl and played by Ariel herself, Jodi Benson.
• Genius Bonus: A lot of the background behind the show is fairly well grounded in ancient Greek myths and history, far more so than the movie, and more savvy viewers can get the references and Allohistorical Allusion behind the references.
  • In the myths, Hercules actually did free Prometheus from his punishment.
  • Medusa's episode has a gag to anyone that's familiar with working at Disneyland. Hades' employees are brought into orientation, where Pain and Panic say "we're not employees; we're cast members" - cue Face Palm from Medusa.
  • In "Hercules and the Romans", the Romans put an ad to get their gods, and the ones who answer are the Greek ones, whose worship is indeed adopted though with different names, and the Egyptian ones, who are rejected for demanding the Coliseum to be replaced with pyramids. The actual Romans were serial adopters of foreign gods, with their cultural fetish for Ancient Rome leading the Romans to adopt the Greek myths for their pre-existing gods, and following the conquest of Egypt they had a cultural fad that led them to actually build some pyramids in Rome, one of which still survives.
  • Specifically the gag in "Hercules and the Romans" where Icarus tries to call Apollo "Larry." Apollo is known for still being called Apollo in Rome, unlike many of the other gods, so they must not have liked Larry.
  • Hercules asks Aphrodite about his two best friends being in love, and she has to check that they're both human, as a nod to the myth that satyrs and centaurs were born from humans mating with their respective animals. Especially since Hercules has both a satyr and centaur for a friend in the show.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Circe's song "One Good Man" becomes a lot harder to listen to, considering how Idina Menzel and her husband Taye Diggs separated in 2013.
  • Jennifer Aniston voices Galatea in a nod to how she and Tate Donovan were together at the time. The episode ends with Galatea breaking up with Hercules, and their relationship similarly ended while he was guest starring with her on Friends - with him admitting it was a horrible experience.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Idina Menzel made a guest appearance as Circe, a singing witch. Later, she would go on to play Elphaba, who just so happens to be a singing witch, and Elsa, a magical singing queen accused of sorcery. It's doubly hilarious if you're more familiar with Elsa and Elphaba, two sorceresses who are really misunderstood Woobies - because Circe is a straight up evil sorceress.
  • Hades was very upset over being named Pluto, he probably was even less amused when he found out that his planet got demoted to dwarf planet.
  • While Josh Keaton didn't voice Hercules again, eventually Disney would air season two of The Spectacular Spider-Man, in which Josh voiced another superpowered teen trying to balance crimefighting and school.
  • In "Hercules and the Visit from Zeus," to prove a point Zeus makes himself into a mortal boy under the name Zach. This wouldn’t be the last time a teenaged Hercules befriended a Zack.
  • Whether hilarious or not is up to you: Galatea is voiced by Jennifer Aniston, who was dating Tate Donovan at the time. So their relationship going downhill is Life Imitates Art. And Galatea becoming clingy also reflects how on Friends, Donovan's character decided to break up with Aniston's Rachel because she was trying to get their relationship more serious too fast.
  • In "The Spartan Experience", Agamemnon is voiced by Patrick Warburton, and looks and acts very similar to Mr. Barkin from Kim Possible. Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle worked on both shows, so it's possible they took inspiration for Barkin from this character.
    • This also wouldn't be the last time he'd voice Agamemnon.
  • Hades' Villain Song being called "My Town". In other words, Hadestown.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many fans of the movie who hate the show still watch it from time to time solely for the reason that James Woods reprises his role as Hades for the entire series.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Aphrodite and Cupid may hate the theme music that plays whenever she appears, but viewers disagree.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • They didn't bother to use Mechanikles, an exiled Greek inventor, during the Aladdin: The Series crossover episode (he could easily be the Evil Counterpart to Daedelus). However, they did include Mechanikles as a cameo in "Hercules and the Hero of Athens," piloting a huge mecha.
  • One episode introduces Triton, Poseidon's son and Hercules' cousin, though a completely separate character from King Triton from The Little Mermaid. The show could've have had a Little Mermaid crossover by having the character be a younger version of Ariel's father, especially since later materials would posit King Triton as Poseidon's son. The closest we got to a crossover being Ursula's cameo in "Hercules and the Bacchanal".
• Unconventional Learning Experience: For all its mangling and bowdlerizing of Greek myths, this cartoon was sufficiently grounded in research on ancient myths and Greek history (moreso than the movie) that viewers, especially international viewers who have no grounding in Western culture, learnt a great deal about Ancient Greece, learning names and stories of Prometheus, Orpheus, Medusa by unpacking references to the Trojan War, and references to Greek City States.

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