The show features the efforts of Ares, the god of war, played by Kevin Tod Smith, who attempts often to destroy his younger half-brother to win over Zeus' good graces.

Strife's mother is Discord, goddess of retribution (Meighan Desmond), who acts more level-headed and power hungry than her counterpart on more than one occasion.

He makes friends with the future king of Corinth, Prince Jason (Chris Conrad) and a thieving former member of a bandit group named Iolaus (Dean O'Gorman), who was sentenced to train at the academy as an alternative to prison for his crimes.

Other characters of interest include Kora, the innkeeper who (unknown to Hercules and his friends) is a devotee of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt.

This saved tremendous amounts of money and time allowing the series to be shot on a shoestring budget, but with maximum on-screen dollars.

[citation needed] Principal photography took place in New Zealand while post-production elements including visual effects and music were all edited and integrated together in Los Angeles.

Ian Bohen played Young Hercules in the pilot movie and was offered the part, but opted not to move to New Zealand where the series would shoot principal photography.

In fact, the early production days of Young Hercules saw many of its crew leave to work on the then little known Peter Jackson sensation, Lord of the Rings.

To train for the role, Ryan took intense martial arts classes by the same trainer who taught Lucy Lawless and Kevin Sorbo.

[citation needed] It was known to be only superficially faithful to Greek mythology, as was its predecessor; it uses similar characters, but in a variety of stories, some of which contain anachronisms.

Although ratings on Fox Kids were strong for the season (2nd top-rated live-action series below Power Rangers), Young Hercules was not renewed.