This article is about the character from Hercules. For the character from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, see Echidna.
Echidna is a recurring character of the Disney animated series Hercules. She is the "Mother of All Monsters" of every horrifying creature to appear in the series. She is also the wife of the monstrous Titan, Typhon.
Background[]
Personality[]
She is very motherly to her monstrous children. Echidna also is vicious and strict, attempting to destroy Athens with her entire family as Hades commands her to do so.
She cares for her children but is often tired and overworked.
Physical appearance[]
Echidna appears to be enormous with brown and green scales and a body of a dragon for a hindpart (much like the centaurs). She has horns, cat-like eyes, sharp teeth, and large, dragon-like wings. She also contains a stinger at the end of her tail and mane around her neck, similar to a lion.
Appearances[]
Hercules: The Animated Series[]
"Tremble before mighty Echidna!" In the episode "Hercules and the First Day of School", Echidna emerges from the ground as the two-headed cyclops Orthos attempts to eat a delivery boy, which was considered "junk food" in her eyes. Echidna chides Orthos, putting the two heads on a diet by eating royalty or at least a hero. This inadvertently puts Orthos at odds with young Hercules when he challenges them to battle. Although they initially dismissed him because of their mother's instructions for their diet, Orthos changed their minds after Hercules says he's a hero-in-training. After Orthos brushes Hercules aside, for being "stale" and a nobody, the two-headed cyclops go to Prometheus Academy instead, vying to eat Adonis, the Prince of Thrace.
In the episode "Hercules and the Return of Typhon", Echidna was Typhon's mate prior to his defeat and eternal imprisonment by Zeus, and so seeks revenge by wreaking havoc on Athens with their latest son Ladon. To prove himself to his father, who defeated the Father of All Monsters, Hercules challenges the Mother of All Monsters. Echidna initially "feeds the baby" by throwing Hercules into Ladon's mouth, only for the baby monster to spit the hero-in-training out. They continue to fight, with hero-in-training struggling against the mother of all monsters, only for Hercules to accidentally release Typhon. When Hercules reappeared with Zeus, Typhon throttled his enemy with Echidna and Ladon, nearly succeeding until Hera once more intervened and threw a lightning bolt into his nostril, forcing all three monsters to flee.
In "Hercules and the Parent's Weekend", after Hercules saves the parents Ladon kidnapped, Echidna tries to feed Hercules to Ladon, only for them to escape. Echidna chases after they all escape, only to be stopped in her tracks by Zeus' lightning bolts striking two rocky formations to incapacitate her.
In the episode "Hercules and the Big Games", Hades visits Echidna and has her gather her entire family to attack Athens. Meanwhile, Hercules is winning every event and enjoying being a hero (or sports hero, as Phil calls it) – until Ares remembers, in a manner similar to anti-doping, that he is a demigod, and only mortals can compete; hence, half his points are taken off. But when Echidna and her family arrive, Hercules puts aside popularity to be a "real hero" and save the day. After her children are defeated, Echidna herself engages Hercules, making things more difficult for the young hero until Ares and Athena work together to defeat her.
Trivia[]
- Echidna was cast with TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford. Typhon, Echidna's husband, was cast with Gifford's then-co-star Regis Philbin.
Gallery[]
