With heavy heart, Hercules’ master brings story to British TV

PEABODY – Mark Dolan is on a global quest for the world’s biggest animals and the search has taken the British television host to Peabody and one-time world’s biggest dog owner John Flynn.Flynn – who is no one’s idea of small – is preparing for an upcoming weight-lifting competition where he will attempt to lift a quarter-ton when Dolan tracked him down in Warriors Gym.The Brit and his film crew wanted to talk to Flynn about Hercules, the 282-pound English mastiff he owned. The giant canine’s weight earned it a coveted listing in Ripley’s Believe It or Not and garnered its owner television talk show appearances in 2001, including the Today show.Hercules died in 2006, but unexpected news of his passing did not deter Dolan and his Firefly Productions crew from interviewing Flynn, a Lynn resident, about his one-time best friend earlier this month.The Firefly crew filmed Flynn in Warriors, a floor in a former industrial building near Peabody Square crowded with heavy weight machines. A picture of Flynn hugging Hercules occupies a prominent spot on the gym bulletin board.”This is a hard-core power-lifting gym,” said Flynn’s friend Frank Quirk.Flynn told Dolan about Hercules’ oversized doghouse and the sadness he felt after his friend’s death.”Kelly’s Roast Beef used to sell five-pound beef ends that I would mix with his dry food and feed it to him. It saved me hundreds of dollars,” Flynn said as Dolan and his crew filmed and recorded him.Dolan said Flynn and Hercules’ story is the kind he has been seeking over the last year as he prepares four pilot episodes for airing this summer on Britain’s Channel 4 television.The show will feature its gangly, bespectacled host traveling to Germany and Britain in search of massive pets. At the end of the episode Dolan will reveal if the late Hercules or some other domesticated gargantuan is, indeed, the world’s biggest.The four, one-hour episodes will air this summer and can be viewed on demand in America through channel4.com, under the 4oD section. Other episodes feature Dolan hunting in Nepal and Inner Mongolia for the tallest woman, the smallest man and hairiest man.Dolan plans to mix humor with heartfelt interviews in hopes of luring viewers on both sides of the Atlantic to the show.”What we’re really doing is celebrating the subjects of the film,” he said.Dolan found contenders for the show’s title in California and Arizona, but show producer Sheena Cameron said Flynn’s personality as much as Hercules’ size made him a good subject for the show.”Just by speaking to him on the phone it was clear he is charismatic,” she said.