Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Herculoids: "Mekkor" (1967)

In The Herculoids (1967) segment called “Mekkor,” an army of small flying robot machines land on Azmot and, under the direction of a buried command unit, begin to take out the indigenous opposition. 

Protected by force-fields and armed with freeze rays, these mechanical invaders incapacitate Igoo and capture Tara.   Fortunately, Zot and Zandor find the army’s “hidden power source” -- or the command unit -- and cripple the enemy once and for all. 

When Dorno asks what will become of the dormant machines, Zandor replies: “They’ll stay where they are.  Someday the forest will claim them all…”

Dorno gets a funny line of dialogue in “Mekkor.”  He sees the diminutive alien robots and notes with astonishment: “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

Except, of course, Dorno and the other Herculoids just repelled an invasion by similar small aliens in the previous episode, “The Pod Creatures.” 

Other than that (recent) encounter, he’s never seen anything like these robots before, I suppose.

Once more, “Mekkor” reveals almost no background about its particular story.  Why have the robot aliens landed on Azmot?  Why did they choose this location for an  invasion?  What is there, on that wild planet that they could possibly want or need? 

“Mekkor” might have worked better as a story if a line or two of dialogue established that Azmot is home to some vital material, substance or ore that the aliens need to mine or collect to survive. 

Instead, “Mekkor” depicts another unprovoked, unmotivated attack on Azmot, and another campaign that the Herculoids successfully and quickly repel.  The most interesting aspect of the tale is Zandor’s final line, which establishes the primacy of nature over technology, a recurring theme in this Hanna Barbera Saturday morning program. 

Nature will survive, endure, and even encroach.  Technology will soon become…trash.