Callista first appears in Disney's 1998 television series Hercules: The Animated Series as a child who is spoiled rotten and capricious.
Hercules: The Series[]
"Hercules and the Kids"[]
Hercules volunteers to take the kindergarten kids of Prometheus Jr. Academy on a field trip. She is not thrilled with the idea that Hercules replaces their teacher. She cries when Hercules announces the cancellation of the trip, but to calm down and make him happy, he gives. Once outside, she is agitated with Brutus, Alcides and Philip then asks to Hercules to kiss her dollbearing the likeness of Aphrodite. She required to do so him under penalty of whims and after done, she exults. This is her who force Hercules to tell a story that, ultimately, will terrorize her. When they are all lost, she sobs and believes see a monster, actually a lizard, and is comforted by Hercules, while the true monsters, a giant spider and a giant dragonfly, are in front of them. Hercules escapes with the kids and they hide for shelter in a small cave, and there the Callista's mother misses her. Hercules comforts her again. Alex suggests that he and his classmates sing a song to cheer them up. Then Alex gets an idea on how to get home. On their way back, Callista loses her Aphrodite doll somewhere and goes to look for it running into the monsters. Hercules comes to rescue her and gets injured but still manages to get her back to the others safely. Then they escape both, Callista asks to Hercules to go back to recover her doll, but Hercules refuses and is sorry, because they cannot return to near the danger. As she is the vagaries, he gives. He fought their pursuers and took over the doll, but gets injured but still manages to get her back to the others safely. As he begins to cross the bridge to where Alex and the others are he and the giant spider are too much weight, Hercules throws Callista and he falls with the spider. Herc's uncontious and the giant spider ties Hercules up in webs as the giant dragonfly goes for the kids. Following the plan, it adjusts the teeth of Philip to the mouth of her doll. It is suggested later that she has a crush on Alex. The kids try to untie Hercules but the knots are too strong for them to untangle, Alex then uses a sharp piece of rock to free Hercules. After Herc fights the monsters he then thanks Alex for quick-thinking, and he is no longer Alexander the Geek but Alexander the Great. She acclaims this Alexander the Great with the rest of the class.
Future[]
As a follower of Artemis, Callisto, who Hesiod said was the daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, took a vow to remain a virgin, as did all the nymphs of Artemis. But to have her, Zeus disguised himself, Ovid says, as Artemis (Diana) herself, in order to lure her into his embrace. Callisto was then turned into a bear, as Hesiod had told it:
...but afterwards, when she was already with child, was seen bathing and so discovered. Upon this, the goddess was enraged and changed her into a beast. Thus she became a bear and gave birth to a son called Arcas.
Either Artemis "slew Kallisto with a shot of her silver bow,"perhaps urged by the wrath of Juno (Hera) or later Arcas, the eponym of Arcadia, nearly killed his bear-mother, when she had wandered into the forbidden precinct of Zeus. In every case, Zeus placed them both in the sky as the constellations Ursa Major, called Arktos (αρκτος), the "Bear", by Greeks, and Ursa Minor.
According to Ovid, it was Jupiter (Zeus) who took the form of Diana (Artemis) so that he might evade his wife Juno’s detection, forcing himself upon Callisto while she was separated from Diana and the other nymphs. Her pregnant condition was discovered some months later while bathing with Diana and her fellow nymphs. Upon this, Diana was enraged and expelled Callisto from the group, and subsequently she gave birth to Arcas. Juno then took the opportunity to avenge her wounded pride and transformed the nymph into a bear. Sixteen years later Callisto, still a bear, encountered her son Arcas hunting in the forest. Just as Arcas was about to kill his own mother with his javelin, Jupiter averted the tragedy by placing mother and son amongst the stars as Ursa Major and Minor, respectively. Juno, enraged that her attempt at revenge had been frustrated, appealed to Oceanus that the two might never meet his waters, thus providing a poetic explanation for their circumpolar positions.
The stars of Ursa Major were all circumpolar in Athens of 400 BCE, and all but the stars in the Great Bear's left foot were circumpolar in Ovid's Rome, in the first century CE. Now, however, due to the precession of the equinoxes, the feet of the Great Bear constellation do sink below the horizon from Rome and especially from Athens – so Ursa Major gets to cool her feet and legs in the sea, in spite of Ovid; however, Ursa Minor (Arcas) does remain completely above the horizon, even from latitudes as far south as Honolulu and Hong Kong.
