"Hercules and the Aetolian Amphora" is the forty-fifth episode of Hercules that first aired on February 12, 1999.
Plot[]
Hercules substitutes as narrator, telling of how someone has been stealing from the River Lethe in the Underworld, and Hades wants Pain and Panic to get the water back. Meanwhile, the sons of Ares, Fear and Terror, have been punished for overfeeding their war dogs, and can't go to an Orpheus concert.
Hercules meets Megara, a girl who says that her grandmother's Aetolian amphora has been stolen. Hercules, attracted to her, gladly helps, but when they reach the centaur who's been holding it, he tells them that he sold it to Fear and Terror (who plan to use the water to make Ares forget he punished them). Hercules and Meg go to the Temple of Ares and get the amphora back, but while Hercules tries to hold off Ares' sons, Meg ditches him with the amphora. She is kidnapped by Pain and Panic, and Hercules finishes his story.
A lady he's been telling his story to tells him about Meg's capture and despite her betrayal, he goes after Meg, and Fear and Terror follow him. A fight ensues for the amphora, and Meg tells Hercules that she liked him from the beginning. They almost kiss, until Pain and Panic accidentally spill the water from the amphora on them. Forgetting how they met each other, they go their separate ways.
Cast[]
- Tate Donovan as Hercules
- Susan Egan as Megara
- David Cross as Fear
- Toby Russ as Terror
- Bobcat Goldthwait as Pain
- Matt Frewer as Panic
- James Woods as Hades
- Sandra Bernhard as Cassandra
- Diedrich Bader as Adonis
- Jim Cummings as Centaur
- Jay Thomas as Ares
- Roz Ryan as Thalia
- Robert Stack as Bob the Narrator
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- This episode is notable for being one of the few rare appearances of Megara in the television series with her only other appearance in "Hercules and the Yearbook".
- Megara's line "Are you always this articulate?" is a reference her line when Hercules tries to introduces himself in the film.
- This episode marks the only times in the franchise where cartoon sound effects are used on Meg, a normally more dignified character.
- Hercules narrates the episode as a mystery film noir. His placement on a parkbench in Sparta before being pointed in a specific direction by a Spartan woman is a reference to the film Forrest Gump.
- Its revealed that Megara knew Adonis before meeting Hercules. As a result, many fans believe that Adonis is the reason she sold her soul to Hades, however this has never been confirmed.
- Meg calls Hercules "Wonder Boy" for the first time, chronologically speaking.
- This episode also includes an encounter with a centuar, chronologically before the encounter with Nessus; both centaurs are voiced by Jim Cummings.
- The episode reveals that Meg and Hercules once met as teenagers and that they had special water poured on them which erased their memories of each other, in a way to avoid a continuity error with their introduction to each other in the film.