Alongside her husband King Zandor and her son Prince Dorno, Queen Tara is one of the leaders of the Herculoids, a pulp sci fi team of wondrous beasts and their human companions. The Herculoids was a popular animated Saturday morning television series in the 1960s; though its plots were formulaic and uncomplicated, the series more than made up for it with charm, verve, and creativity!
The Herculoids all reside on the faraway planet Amzot (renamed Quasar for unknown reasons when the series was brought back a decade and a half later).
When fighting with the Herculoids against alien menaces, Tara uses a slingshot to hurl exploding energy rocks at aggressors. Although the series focused most on Zandor, Tara was seldom depicted as a damsel in distress, which was a rare thing for 1960s television, and more than once, it was she who rescued Zandor rather than the reverse.
Queen Tara was often consulted by people in need on their home planet. She lacked Zandor’s considerable knowledge about galactic politics and technology and contacts in the galactic space agencies, enabling her questions to function as expository devices for the storylines, but she had a greater understanding of the Herculoid beasts, and they in turn were particularly protective of her. All of this has led to fan speculation that she had raised the Herculoids herself until she met a space patrol officer named Zandor, married him, and bequeathed on him the title of ‘king’. Tara is also memorable for being one of the few Saturday morning cartoon mothers to prefer that her son refer to her on a first-name basis.