Season 1, Episode 2; English; 8 min.

In this episode, Wakko, Yakko and Dot (aka Wakkicus, Yakkicus and Dotticus) are Greek gods who decide to take a vacation from Mt. Olympus and get some rest from all the smiting of mortals they’ve been doing. They slide down and get settled in relaxing on a Greek island, when suddenly a boastful Odysseus and his crew appear and decide to “soak those nerds” with their ship. His antics provoke the trio to return to Olympus and set in motion a plan to punish him by keeping him from reaching Ithaca. They agree to plague him with monsters and thereby break him down, starting with the Sirens. These Sirens are Justin Bieber lookalikes that sing a song called “I’m Gonna Eat’cha,” which the sailors seem to enjoy. The gods then smash them down to the Underworld, which Odysseus mistakes for “Aegean Ninja Warrior,” a show he loves and attempts to compete in. The gods then transport him to the island of the Cyclops, a huge Donald Trump inspired monster who turns Odysseus into his new loofah. Odysseus finally surrenders to the gods, begs for forgiveness and gets flushed back home. The trio want to destroy the Cyclops but say they cannot, because the Romans meddled and made him a demigod, “Or was it a demagogue?”

More:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7833880/

https://animaniacs.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_2_(Reboot):_Warners_Unbound/How_to_Brain_Your_Dragon/Suffragette_City

8 min; dir. Tex Avery; USA

This Bugs Bunny cartoon, which seems to have drawn much of its inspiration from the Oscar-winning 1935 Disney short “The Tortoise and the Hare,” also retells the famous Aesop’s fable. Cecil Turtle makes his first appearance in this short (he will appear in the 1943 sequel, “Tortoise Wins by a Hare”), accepting a ten dollar bet that he cannot beat Bugs in a running race. Cecil then enlists his cousins to trick Bugs along the path by posing as him at various points and appearing to be one step ahead. The turtle then crosses the finish line ahead of Bugs and awaits his arrival. Bugs pays him the ten dollars and he distributes them to his cousins, who acknowledge that it is a possibility that Bugs was tricked.

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortoise_Beats_Hare

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034305/

https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/Tortoise_Beats_Hare

In this episode, Scrooge McDuck and his nephews take a trip back in time to ancient Greece, after receiving a letter from Donald Duck, who is stationed on an aircraft carrier in Greece. Scrooge is excited by what he sees in the background of the accompanying photo Donald sent, which seems to show the remains of the lost Colossus of Ithaquack. Spurred on by the prospect of finding treasure there, Scrooge and the boys travel to Ithaquack. The story then cuts back to antiquity and to the troubled reign of King Homer, who has gone missing and whose subjects are lamenting both this fact, and the fact that he doesn’t hold a candle to their old king, Ulysses, Homer’s uncle. As it happens, Homer has run away out of fear at being overthrown by the witch Circe. She casts a spell to make him disappear to a distant time, but it goes awry and instead whisks Scrooge and company back to 1100 BC. They rescue King Homer and vow to help him confront Circe, while she gets enraged at the error she’s made and vows to cut the island off from the outside world.

This scene takes many of its cue from the legendary Harryhausen film, Jason and the Argonauts, as Scrooge’s boat sails between the legs of the Colossus (as with Talos in the film) and then is crushed between the clashing rocks that are brought together through Circe’s magic. The group washes up on the shore of King Blowhard, who sneezes chronically due to his allergy to the flowers on his island. He tells them about Ulysses’ visit long ago and about his sunken ship, then uses his sneeze to raise the ship in exchange for Scrooge’s removal of the flowers from the island. They repair the ship and set sail, and immediately pass by the Sirens’ island. They sing an alluring song about money that compels Scrooge to jump in the water and to narrowly escape being eaten by the monsters, then they pass by the whirlpool and the monster Yuckalinda (a Scylla surrogate).

Meanwhile, Circe has imprisoned Homer’s wife and queen, Ariel. She casts a spell that turns Ariel into a pig and turns her into an Ariel. She then tricks Scrooge and Homer as she welcomes them home and determines that Scrooge is not a magician. She reveals herself and then turns Homer and Scrooge into pigs. The nephews discover the pigs and rescue them by taking Circe’s magic medallion and breaking it. This turns her into a pig and the others into ducks and dogs again. The spell that whisked them back in time then reappears as a tornado and whirls them back to the present day. Donald spots them in the water from the aircraft carrier and rescues them, and the episode concludes with a conversation about “growing up to be like Uncle Scrooge” and how it is ok to grow up to be yourself.

Episode 41 from this season of Duck Tales, “The Golden Fleecing,” also features a Greek epic tale, that of Jason and the Golden Fleece.

More: https://ducktales.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Sweet_Homer

Japanese; 11 episodes; dir. Toshifumi Kawase; Kazuya Monma

Watch with subtitles here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoPHg54LaRJUKgKGWcKg1MwSxyKlx8WsW

This TV series, which aired on Fuji TV and features both 3D and 2D animation, was based on the two manga series Kentō Ankoku Den Cestvs (1997-2009) and Kendo Shitō Den Cestvs (2010-present), both written by Shizuya Wazarai.

The story told is that of Cestvs, a 15 year old boy, orphaned and enslaved in Rome in 54 CE, who has been trained as a professional fighter by Zafar and who seeks to obtain his freedom by winning one hundred battles. He comes to the attention of the young new emperor Nero, who solicits the support of both Cestvs and his fellow slave fighter Ruska. There is also a storyline that includes a fighter from Pompeii named Emden who seeks to win over Sabina, the richest woman in Pompeii, through his abilities in the arena.

More: https://myanimelist.net/anime/43763/Cestvs__The_Roman_Fighter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestvs:_The_Roman_Fighter

9 min. / Russian / dir. Ivan Aksenchuk

This film was produced by Soyuzmultfilm as a promotion for the 1980 Olympic Games. It traces out the history of the Olympic games, imagining them as a “grand relay” through the ages, with the torch passed down from ancient Greece to the modern USSR.

The film begins with figures coming to life on a Greek amphora. Paris abducts Helen and the Trojan War breaks out. The battle rages as the gods watch from Mt. Olympus, and grow ever more agitated with the violence. Zeus finally intervenes by hurling down a tripod between the armies and thereby transforms their murderous combat into peaceful athletic competition. Various ancient events are showcased, and then the flame within the tripod begins to guide the viewer through the centuries. The torch is extinguished as the ancient era comes to an end (we see temples turn to ruins) and finally a man in the 19th century picks up the extinguished torch and brings it back to life. This is Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern games.

From there each modern Olympiad is listed and its location is portrayed in a relevant artistic style with accompanying music from the era, as the torch continues to be passed. Small panels show the athletic events as they would have been practiced in that time, or later, they feature live-action footage. The years in which there were no Olympics because of the World Wars are also mentioned. The film concludes with live shots of the Moscow cityscape interspersed with scenes of the animated torch bearer, as he runs through the city and with a final scene of Misha the bear, the Olympic mascot, standing on the podium celebrating a gold medal win.

The film features no dialogue or voice over, just Russian text displayed on screen at various points.

8 min.; dir. Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones

A colorized version from 1967 can be viewed here: https://archive.org/details/porkysheroagencyredrawn

This delightfully bizarre short begins with a young Porky Pig reading a bedtime story from a Greek myths book. He’s apparently reading the story of the Gorgon, who turned everyone she looked at into stone and was only prevented from changing every Greek into a statue by a vanquishing hero. He falls asleep wishing he could be a hero and dreams of being transformed into Porkykarkus, apparently a nod to the stage persona Parkyakarkus that was used by comedian Harry Einstein – this is one of many topical references that are stuffed into this short. Porky is hired by the Emperor Jones to sneak into the Gorgon’s statue factory, where she uses her “marvelous photographic eye” to petrify her subjects, and to steal the “bring-em-back-alive” syringe that she wears around her neck. We see the Gorgon, a lanky old lady in an Egyptian-ish headdress and a parody of a popular 1930s radio character called Lizzie Tish, hard at work. Porky dawns the appearance of a idealized male statue to trick and seduce the Gorgon, and he is able to retrieve the needle. He the sets out on the run, turning statues back into living men and women, and even animating a temple (a “Shirley Temple”) along the way. He is apprehended the Gorgon, who orders him to open his eyes, but he awakens at that moment only to realize it is actually his mother, rousing him from sleep.

This description does not do justice to the wild creativity on display in this cartoon. It is a must watch, with cameos by the Three Stooges, Popeye’s arms, the Discoboulos, and the creators themselves.

More: https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/Porky%27s_Hero_Agency

Seven episodes; 10 min. each; Romania (no subtitles); dir. Luminiţa Cazacu

The “Penelope and Odysseus” series is made up of seven episodes that take on the story of the heroic couple from a comical feminist perspective in a precious visual style. The films include:

1976 Condiţia Penelopei (Penelope’s Condition)

1977 Penelopa și cele 9 muze (Penelope and the 9 Muses)

1977 După amiezile Penelopei (Penelope’s Afternoons)

1979 Penelopa în templul artei (Penelope in the Temple of Art)

1980 Maratonul Penelopei (Penelope’s Marathon)

1980 Penelopa și Scufița Roșie (Penelope and Little Red Riding Hood)

1981 Penelopa și uriașii cei răi (Penelope and the Wicked Giants)

In each film, the long-suffering heroine of the Odyssey is depicted as “the embodiment of calm and patient, gentle and forgiving femininity,” as she deals with different challenges typically faced by women in contemporary society — e.g., male prejudice, professional achievement, jealousy, the rigors of fashion, stress and the many demands on women’s time — though she always forgives Odysseus’ transgressions. The films treat these issues in a humorous way, often tinged with light irony and sarcasm, which is introduced by off-screen commentators (famous Romanian actors Toma Caragiu and Octavian Cotescu).

Part of the films’ humor also derives from the juxtaposition of elements of modern civilization, such as electric appliances, appearing in the ancient setting (a la The Flinstones).

More: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelopa_%C8%99i_Ulise