Casting A Saturday Morning Favorite! by Dave Goode

 

Saturday mornings back in '66 and '67 were very cool if you were a comic book loving kid*. Aside from cartoon shows featuring comic book stand-bys like Superman and the Fantastic Four you also had new characters created just for TV. Birdman,the Galaxy Trio,Mighty Mightor even a Super President. At the top of my list was Space Ghost. A sort of Batman in outer space. But running a close second was The Herculoids. The show was created and designed by Alex Toth for Hanna-Barbera Productions and featured the adventures of Zandor, the Tarzan-like ruler of the jungle planet Amzot (later renamed Quasar) and his allies the Herculoids.

The Herculoids were 5 alien creatures. There was Tundro a rhino/triceratops hybrid that shot "energy rocks" from his horn. Zok was a space dragon who could not only breathe fire but could shoot laser beams from both his eyes and tail. Gloop and Gleep were two protoplasmic shape-changers who were able to absorb and deflect energy rays. And then there was my favorite Igoo,a great stone ape who I couldn't help but imagine being brought to life in a live-action Herculoids movie by Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen could have taken care of bringing the Herculoids to life.But who to cast as Zandar and his wife and son Tara and Dorno???

Truth be told Zandor and his family always reminded me quite a bit of Tarzan,Jane and Boy from the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies from MGM and RKO. In fact Zandor was originally going to be called Zantor (Which is Tarzan spelled sideways...sort of). So if I'm casting an alien Tarzan in the 1960s my first choice for the role is Ron Ely who portrayed Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle hero on television.

When I first thought of casting a Herculoids movie the first actress I thought of to portray Zandor's wife was Marissa Mell who became a cult figure appearing in Italian B-Movies in the 60s including DANGER:DIABOLIK.

 

As for Dorno that becomes a bit more difficult. Jay North would have been 16 in 1967. A wee bit too old to play Dorno. So maybe Tommy Norden who played the younger brother on FLIPPER.

 

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editor's note* If you were a kid growing up in the early 1980s, you might recall the Herculoids on Saturday mornings. They were featured, along with Space Ghost, in new adventures on NBC's Space Stars. For many of us "monster kids", this was the gateway into the world of HB superheroes.