Legendary Journeys Podcast

One of the side projects from the Hercules & Xena Wiki is a new podcast. Legendary Journeys the Hercules and Xena Podcast dropped its first episode today. The hosts (one of whom is yours truly) are going to watch the entire Hercules/Xena franchise in chronological order and discuss two episodes each week.

In today's episode (Episode 0: First Steps), Scott and Beth discuss the origins of the Xenaverse in Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and then move on to discuss the development of the Action Pack films at Universal.

A new episode will drop every Monday.  Listeners can leave comments and questions on the blog at  Hercules & Xena Wiki, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Legendary Journeys Book Club

For many years, I have been an administrator over at the Legendary Journeys Hercules & Xena Wiki.  We've just started a side project; a Hercules and Xena book club!

Join us on Goodreads where, each month, we will read a Hercules or Xena novel and discuss.  We are beginning this month (September 2017) by reading Timothy Boggs' By the Sword.  This is available in its original mass market form or for Kindle.

Marg, the Princess Warrior

To celebrate Canada Day I wanted to highlight Marg Delahunty, the Princess Warrior.  Here in Canada we have a long-running political satire/sketch comedy show called This Hour Has 22 Minutes.  In the 90s, Mary Walsh originated this hilarious character who still makes the occasional appearance.

Only in Canada would a comedian have such unprecedented access and leeway. Marg Delahunty was frequently a visitor at Canadian parliament and she had interviews with two sitting prime ministers, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper.

Her costume is clearly modelled after Lucy Lawless' Xena: Warrior Princess which I have covered here and here.

Marg has even been a force for political activism, campaigning actively against former Prime Minister Stephen Harper with the Marg Brings Change campaign.

Happy 150th birthday, Canada! and long live Marg, the Princess Warrior!

Xena's Costume on Display

Today on Twitter, producer Rob Tapert shared the news that one of Lucy Lawless' hero Xena costumes will be on display at the Christchurch Arts Centre from now through October.  When production ended in 2001, Pacific Renaissance donated one of Xena's costumes, complete with sword, chakram, whip and saddle bag; and one of Gabrielle's costumes, complete with sais to the Museum of New Zealand.

In this short video from 2011 we get up close with the costumes in the museum. I've grabbed some screenshots that show some great details on Xena's costume.  The host notes that Xena's boots are quite large. That's because they were built on top of running shoes for comfort.

The exhibition is called We Could Be Heroes: the gods and heroes of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. More information can be found here.

Xenomorph: Warrior Princess

Kevin Sorbo's Hercules Costume

The Prop Store of London has a complete Hercules costume worn by Kevin Sorbo during the production of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.

So many of the Hercules and Xena costumes were sold off in little bits and pieces so it's rare to find one that's so complete including even the gauntlets and boots!  The listing at Prop Store indicates this was used in the season five Xena episode "God Fearing Child" and it may have been.  But there's a sewn-in costume tag dated December '97 which mean it was probably first used in season three of Hercules.

Xena Costume Patterns

Here are some more treasures from the eBay auctions of shed11costumehouse in New Zealand.  These pieces come from the private collection of Jane Holland who was the Xena: Warrior Princess costume designer for seasons 5-6 after Ngila Dickson left to work on The Lord of the Rings.

These are actual reinforced patterns for pieces of Xena's iconic armour!  If someone wanted to make a replica there's no better place to start than the original source material.

As I said about the earlier auctioned pieces, these are amazing pieces of history from the show.  They deserve to be carefully archived and now they can be.

Gabrielle Costume Elements

shed11costumehouse is a reliable eBay seller from New Zealand.  Recently, they auctioned several costume elements that come from the private collection of Jane Holland who was the Xena: Warrior Princess costume designer for seasons 5-6 after Ngila Dickson left to work on The Lord of the Rings.  These pieces provide great insight into the construction of the costumes.

First, a hero Gabrielle bodice worn by Renee O'Connor.  This piece is great because it has a sewed in label indicating it was worn by Renee.  Countless copies of this piece were made for stunt use but it's rare that a hero one pops up.  The rarity is reflected in the price; this sold for over $2000!

Second, Gabrielle's gauntlets and necklace.  Replicas of these are highly sought after so it was no surprise that the necklace sold for more than $600 and the gauntlets sold for more than $700.