Hercules: Zero to Hero is a 1999 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. The film is a direct-to-video follow-up to 1997 animated feature Hercules. It was released on August 17, 1999. The film serves as a package film combining three episodes of Hercules: The Animated Series as flashback segments.
Plot
The film briefly gives Hercules' history after defeating Hades (who off-screen succeeded in getting out of the River Styx and gave up his quest for the rule of Olympus), in which Hercules marries Meg and revisits his teenage years. In particular, it shows an adolescent Hercules's enrollment and the beginning of his adventures at the Prometheus Academy, a school for gods and mortals, which Hercules supposedly attended during the time when he was training to be a hero with his mentor, the satyr Philoctetes.
Voice cast
The following characters appear as they did in the corresponding episodes that the film packaged.
Tate Donovan as Hercules
Susan Egan as Megara
James Woods as Hades
Corey Burton as Zeus
Robert Costanzo as Philoctetes
Frank Welker as Pegasus
Bobcat Goldthwait as Pain
Matt Frewer as Panic
Paul Shaffer as Hermes
Eric Stoltz as Theseus
Richard Simmons as Physedipus
Eric Idle as Parenthesis
Sandra Bernhard as Cassandra
French Stewart as Icarus
Diedrich Bader as Adonis
Jodi Benson as Helen of Troy
Michael Dorn as Minotaur
Paddi Edwards as Atropos
Brad Garrett as Cyclops Head #1
Wayne Knight as Cyclops Head #2
Cheryl Freeman as Melpomene
Bill Fagerbakke as Orthus
Kathie Lee Gifford as Echidna
Releases
Hercules: Zero to Hero was first released on home video on August 17, 1999.
Reception
Michelle Erica Green of LittleReview gave the film a rating of B+, writing that while the film "lacks the dazzling visuals of the feature film upon which it is based...it's hard not to be charmed", adding "the characters are all clever and original despite their mythic origins". Conversely, Antagony & Ecstasy gave a scathing review, writing that as the film "was assembled of four episodes of the Hercules cartoon that had already aired in 1998 and 1999", it was "perhaps the single grubbiest cash-in of [all the direct-to-video released]", adding "Zero to Hero was already going to be at such a low level of accomplishment even relative to other DTV projects".
In a review, Vern Perry of the Orange County Register described the Disney formula as "Just give 'em what they like. And keep it up.", noting that's what the company has done with these two 1998/1999 releases. He added that this film benefited greatly from the return of some of the original voice cast including Tate Donovan and James Woods.
See also
List of films featuring Hercules
References
External links
1999 animated films
American children's animated adventure films
American children's animated fantasy films
Hercules (franchise) Disney direct-to-video animated films Direct-to-video interquel films 1999 films 1999 direct-to-video films 1990s American animated films Disney Television Animation films DisneyToon Studios animated films Animated films based on classical mythology 1990s English-language films