SYNOPSIS:
Synopsis by Liz Sheppard
A young girl (with the strangest hair
style I have EVER seen) is watching a dance contest. Some snotty
blonde girl picks on her, telling her that she could never dance
in the contest because no guy would ever be dumb enough to be her
partner.
Later in life, Althea (the girl with
the weird hair) bumps into Herc and drops her necklace. He finds
her among a group of people signing up for the dance competition.
She, once again, gets picked on by the blonde. Ocea (that's the
blonde) says that no one's crazy enough to dance with her. Then
Herc comes by and says that he will be her partner. The
magistrate (who is Ocea's uncle) comes by and is glad to see that
Hercules has entered his contest, simply because he knows they
don't stand a chance.
While walking along, Herc returns
Althea's necklace to her. It belonged to her mother before she
died. They go to her house, and her father is not exactly
thrilled to see Herc. He puts Herc to work for payment to stay in
the barn. Althea watches a topless Herc move logs around. She
feeds him lemonade and watches him drink. Hey, I watched him
drink too, it was great. They discuss why she lied to her father
about the contest and she promises him to tell her father the
real reason why Herc's there before the contest.
While in the barn, Althea shows Herc
some really scary dance moves and they figure out they need some
help. Ocea whines to her uncle about him letting Herc and Althea
in the contest. She thinks that even though she has won for three
years, that she can't win now. He tells her that Herc can't learn
how to dance because he told all the dance teachers not to teach
him. Herc and Althea search for a teacher, but can't find one.
Then they run into Widow Twanky, their new dance teacher. Twanky
starts singing about dancing (kind of scary).
Twanky puts Althea's hand to Herc's
heart to feel its beat (but I think she was more interested in
his chest). They search for beats in everyday life and start
dancing. Bad people peek through the window and see this.
The magistrate and Herc have a little
talk about him becoming a judge, but Herc still wants to dance.
The magistrate is concerned for Althea's "well being" but Herc
still wants to dance. Dance baby, dance. Back in the barn, Althea
confesses her love for the big guy, but he tells her that it
isn't love she's feeling.
On a bridge, thugs from the magistrate
cut the rope to the bridge, but Herc and Althea escape. This
adventure makes them late to Widow Twanky's place, and she's not
happy about it. She admires Herc's biceps, so they're off the
hook. She teaches them to twirl. Eventually, Althea gets it, but
Herc refuses to twirl. Twanky "pretends" to be Iolaus (hmm, no
comment) and they start fighting while dancing and twirling and
flying and good stuff like that. Herc and Althea then, kind of,
get married and learn the "Twanky Twittle" and other various
dance moves.
Althea feels that dancing isn't in her,
and Twanky tells her that her mother was a dancer. Twanky taught
her mother and her father an illegal move that got them kicked
out of the contest forever. Althea runs to her father and
confronts him with his lies. He refuses to let Althea dance
because he feels that her mother died of a broken heart.
She runs back to Twanky's place, and
finds her tied up. The magistrates thugs show up and tries to
give her some good luck (break a leg). Of course, Herc the Hero
saves the day and throws the bad guys out the window. They untie
Twanky and she dresses them in funky clothes.
At the contest, the father wishes
Althea good luck. Herc and Althea show up, quite dramatically in
fact, and do their dance thing. The magistrate tries to stop them
by sending thugs to get rid of them, but Herc beats them up while
dancing (and without a hair getting out of place). They win the
contest, naturally. The magistrate still tries to cheat, but Herc
tells him otherwise. Everybody dances. Happy ending.
I feel like watching Dirty Dancing. I
wonder why...
TALES OF THE HERCAVERSE
01-14-99. From the WHOOSH #26 (11/98) interview with Eric Gruendemann. "I'll tell you one I loved on HERCULES is one that Michael Hurst directed called AND FANCY FREE (67/408), the dance episode. I like the shows that break new ground and I will say this, it took me about two years of solid convincing to get Rob
Tapert to agree to put Michael Hurst in drag on our show. I feel it's one of my personal triumphs that we were actually able to do that. Keep an eye out because Widow Twanky will be back this season. I particularly liked that episode and I thought Kevin was marvelous."
01-14-99. From Bret: The wig Lucy wears in the dance scene between her and Ares in THE BITTER SUITE looks remarkably like (if not identical to) the same wig Willa O'Neill wore when she danced with HERC in ...AND FANCY FREE.
01-14-99. From KSZoneW. Atlantis:
Cassandra's house was the same one shown in sevral episodes. In HTLJ's "Judgement Day" it was Serenas house. In XWP's "Destiny" it was Niklios Healing House. It was also in HTLJ's "Beanstalks and Bad Eggs" as the house of Alyssa. It was also used in HTLJ's "And Fancy Free" as the house of the digruntled father of Althea.
01-14-99. The following is from a transcript of the Hollywood Spotlight chat on 12/09/98 with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
Storm1 asks "what was your favorite episodes on Herc so far??"
Alex/Bob says "I think Fancy Free. I have to say that Faith & Resurrection
turned out to be episodes we were pretty proud of."
02-01-98. At the Burbank II Con (01-17-98), Brad Carpenter (out-going Director of
Marketing), stated that the Widow Twankey was adapted from Michael Hurst's mother who has a Northern
English accent.
01-09-98. The pantomime that Michael Hurst created The Widow Twanky in
was in a production of Pinnochio.
11-16-97. From Marilyn Beck's column
from 11-12-97: "TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC: Michael Hurst, who
plays Kevin Sorbo's sidekick, Iolaus, on Hercules: The Legendary
Journeys, has previously directed episodes of that show as well
as Xena: Warrior Princes. Still, he says helming the special
segment airing the week of Nov. 17 was, well, a Herculean effort.
The episode, titled 'And Fancy Free,' is like an homage to
Strictly Ballroom, with Hercules et al dancing -- instead of
fighting -- to save the heroine 'Dancing takes up such a lot of
time to film,' says Hurst. 'Also, we did a big production number
and spent three days just on that sequence.' Hurst is also
playing Twanky, Hercules' dance teacher, in the episode. 'My
makeup was a big deal, so I had to be there two hours before
shooting, plus directing. . . . It was exhausting, but
exhilarating!'"
11-11-97. Sharon Delaney at the Valley
Forge Convention (10-04-97) said that "And Fancy Free" had Herk
ballroom dancing, Michael Hurst's role was one that he did while
in NZ for a kid's show, and a young teenage girl has a BIG crush
on Herk.
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of ...AND FANCY FREE.
DISCLAIMER
The Widow Twanky, once again, on top
of the dance world with the success of the Hercules Hustle, was
not harmed or tripped during the production of this motion
picture.
