Animated Hero Classics

"Animated Hero Classics" was an Edutainment animated series released from 1991 to 2005. As the name suggests, it was a series of animated biographies of various famous figures in history, such as Louis Pasteur, Joan of Arc, Pocahontas, and Florence Nightingale.

Tropes:

• An Aesop: Many episodes make it a point to add one, either in the characters’ dialogue or in the Award-Bait Song. They usually fall into believing in one’s self or being brave.
• Age Lift:
  • Joseph Meister was nine when he received the rabies vaccine and made a full recovery. The animation depicts him as a young teen.
  • Surprisingly averted with Pocahontas, who first appears as a young girl and slowly ages throughout the episode.
• Ambiguously Christian: Several figures mention God or make references to praying in their respective episodes, but many times this is the farthest it goes.
• Animation Bump: While the animation is never poor, the quality often shifts throughout the same episode. Most of the time the animation has flat colors with minimal shading, then suddenly there will be a shot that looks like it came from a Disney film. These moments are usually reserved for action sequences or quiet character moments.
• Artistic License – History: In real life, it was Joseph Meister’s mother who brought him to see Louis Pasteur. In the animation, Joseph is brought to him by his father, and his mother is never seen nor mentioned.
• Annoying Arrows: Averted; Joan of Arc is seriously wounded when an arrow strikes her in the chest, as she was in real life. She survives, but it's clear she's in agony and must force herself to keep going so as not to dissuade the troops.
• Award-Bait Song: Each episode had at least one of these, often repeated during the end credits.
• Based on a Great Big Lie: The episode about Pocahontas depicts the popular myth that she saved John Smith from being killed by her father.
• Bloodless Carnage: Averted with Joan of Arc; when she pulls the arrow out of her chest, blood trickles down with it.
• Deuteragonist: Helen Keller’s episode is just as much about her teacher Anne Sullivan as it is her.
• Downer Beginning: Helen Keller’s episode opens with her happily enjoying a day out with her parents, only to suddenly become feverish and unresponsive. In the next scene, a doctor informs her heartbroken parents that the fever has left her blind and deaf.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Helen Keller’s hands are held under water running from a pump while Anne spells "water" into her hand. After a few seconds of resisting, Helen suddenly freezes, blinking a few times (and showing the audience her eyes for the first time since the prologue) and spells "water" back to Anne.
• Happily Ever Before: Joan of Arc’s episode ends with her army victorious in battle, not mentioning how she would later be arrested and burned at the stake as a heretic.
• The Hero Dies: The Pocahontas episode ends with Pocahontas dying of smallpox on a ship en route to North America, leaving her father, husband, and young son.
• Historical Hero Upgrade:
  • John Smith is portrayed as one of the few good-hearted men in Jamestown and showed sympathy to the Powhatan tribe, which is the opposite of what many accounts describe.
  • The series portrays Christopher Columbus as an intrepid explorer who wanted to prove the world was round.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Lodovico delle Colombe is portrayed as jealous rival of Galileo who wanted him to be put to death as a heretic, eventually forging evidence for his trial, and being disappointed he only got house arrest. In real life, while he and Galileo were rivals due to their oft-opposing theories, there’s no evidence of the level of villainy shown in the cartoon.
• Narrator: A narrator closes out almost all of the episodes, mostly to describe what the focus figure accomplished after the episode’s events.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Chief Powhattan is shown to have outlived his beloved Pocahontas, and is seen scattering petals over the side of the ship in mourning.
  • Louis Pasteur's assistant believes the reason he is working so hard to create vaccines is "for the sake of his daughters." When the person he's talking to expresses confusion, saying he only has one daughter, his assistant sadly states "He had four."
• Religious Edutainment: The series was sometimes classified as this, due to some of the historical figures either being very devout (such as Joan of Arc) or being at least partly responsible for a religion’s survival (the Maccabees).