Episode Guide: 412- Hercules and the Captive Women
First shown: 9/12/92Opening: Gypsy wants to watch the movie and Joel agrees
Invention exchange: The lawn baby, the womb-mate
Host segment 1: “Good-natured” brawling
Host segment 2: Crow’s “history” of Hercules
Host segment 3: The bots’ lame Hercules action figure
End: Laying the Hercules movies to rest, letter, Frank being chased by mower
Stinger: “Hercules! Help me!”
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• This is a sneaky episode. I remember not liking it and thinking it’s the least funny of the sword-and-sandal outings, but on this viewing I warmed to it quite a bit. And I’d forgotten that it includes the classic line: “Today is dedicated to Uranus.”
• And I’d also forgotten that this is the landmark episode in which Gypsy watches a portion of the movie along with J&tB. Joel’s confidence in Gypsy is admirable, but let’s note for the record that, sadly, Crow and Tom’s instincts were correct. Gypsy is not down with the street.
• As we tune into Deep 13, Frank is noisily singing the “I sing whenever I sing whenever I sing” song from “Giant Gila Monster.”
• Joel says “Zatharatu” when he means to say Zarathustra. They keep going.
• Despite all the hoopla to the contrary, this is NOT the last of the Hercules movies.
• As Tom sagely notes: “This would really be exciting if I knew what was goin’ on.” All the excitement about Gypsy in the theater takes place when the movie tries to set up the plot, with the result that I never did really figure out what the heck is going on in this movie. Part of it has to do with the strange plot break that takes place after the first commercial. Before the commercial, there are portents of danger and Herc is tossin’ thrones around. After the break, Herc wakes up on...