1.16 - Down and Out in Academy Hills

« Previous Episode

Next Episode »

Title Down and Out in Academy Hills Episode # Season 1, Episode 16 First aired October 10, 1998 Directed by Andrew Merrifield Written by Michael Edens Summary The guys rescue a drowning man who turns out to be really good at making stuff.

FoxKids Spoilers

• Out for an afternoon of fishing, Iolaus, Jason, and Hercules rescue a drowning man who literally falls from the sky into the water. The man turns out to be Hercules' half-brother, a god named Hephaestus, who is metalsmith to the gods. Hephaestus unwittingly endangers the lives of all of the cadets when a jealous, revengeful giant, who is searching for him, pays the academy an unexpected visit.
• A mystery man who literally fell from the sky is rescued from drowning by Hercules, Jason and Iolaus, who soon discover that he has a relatively close connection to Hercules.

Synopsis

To Be Added

Characters (in order of appearance)

• Hercules
• Jason
• Iolaus
• Hephaestus
• Cheiron
• Lilith
• Kora
• Arges

Places

• The Pond
• Cheiron's Academy
• Kora's Inn

Mythology

• Centaurs
  

Trivia & References

Pop Culture References and Greekisms - The title "Down and Out in Academy Hills" is a reference to the 1986 movie "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" starring Nick Nolte, Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfuss. The film is about a rich but dysfunctional couple who save the life of a suicidal bum.

Pop Culture References and Greekisms - In this episode, Hephaestus invents an espresso machine for Kora, and uses it to make himself a cappuccino.

New Guy - This episode is the first time Hephaestus is introduced.

Aired Out Of Order - Although Hephaestus was seen in the earlier episodes 1.08 Keeping Up With the Jasons, 1.10 Cyrano de Hercules, 1.13 Forgery, and 1.15 Ares on Trial, this is supposed to be the first episode the boys meet him in.

Reality Check - In this ep, Kora makes a new drink with special beans from Ethiopia. But the story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee, did not appear in writing until 1671 AD and is probably apocryphal. From Ethiopia, coffee was said to have spread to Egypt and Yemen. The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen (source), so it's doubtful that she could have found anyone selling the beans back in Ancient Greece.

Guides, Scripts, Transcripts, & Reviews

• Down and Out in Academy Hills Transcript
• Whoosh.org's transcript.
• [ Whoosh.org's Episode Guide]
• [ IMDB's Episode Guide]
• [ TV.com's Episode Guide]
• Watch the full episode online at Hulu.com.

« Previous Episode

Next Episode »