This 1967 Franco-Belgian animated feature film is based on the first volume of the celebrated comic strip series Asterix the Gaul by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). (Before being published as its own volume in 1961, the story appeared as a serial in the children’s magazine Pilote in 1959-60.) This was the first of ten animated Asterix features (see below for a complete list), including Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion, which will be released in Decmeber of 2018. Asterix the Gaul was produced by Dargaud, publisher of the Asterix comics, largely without the input of Uderzo and Goscinny, who were unsatisfied with the final product. This spurred them to become involved with later Asterix film adaptations, which are generally agreed to have  improved production values and which also received better reviews.

The story told in Asterix the Gaul is essentially one of French resistance to Roman occupation of Gaul circa 50 BCE. The Gauls of the village of Armorica use a magic potion made by the Druid Getafix to become invincible . The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, want to obtain the potion for themselves and finally subdue this corner of Gaul, but they are thwarted by the courage and guile of the hero Asterix and his sidekick Obelix. In later films, the heroes travel to different lands and time periods, where they undertake a variety of adventures that are loosely based on historical settings, figures or events.

Much like The Roman Holidays, the portrayal of the ancient world in the Asterix comics and films might be termed “historicizing” since it depicts “realistic” Gauls and Romans (as opposed to mythological creatures and characters), going about their daily lives. However, what these cartoons actually depict is a hybridized fiction, a vision of the ancient world as seen through modern eyes. These kinds of “historicizing” depictions became much more common in animation in the late 1960s, which was a period of dramatic social change and of experimentation in the arts.

In the case of Asterix, the motif of resistance to Rome recalls the resistance to the Nazi occupation of France in WWII, though it may also reflect the African resistance to French colonial rule during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Through its engagement with the ancient past, Asterix the Gaul may have engendered a sentiment of restored national pride and/or served to assuage French guilt over the effects of colonization, even as the seeds of the uprisings of May 1968, which questioned traditional French values and protested American style consumerism and imperialism, were being planted.

This Canadian/American series consists of 128 five-minute episodes that were produced by Adventure Joe Oriolo (co-creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost) and Cartoons for Television, Inc. The Mighty Hercules aired for three years, from 1963-66, usually in a block with other cartoons or back-to-back in a thirty minute block. The show is very loosely based on the mythology surrounding Hercules but with some very odd features, such as his Centaur sidekick Newton who constantly repeats himself, and Daedalus, who is portrayed as an evil and crafty wizard. Hercules helps out mortals in danger, often in the kingdom of Calydon, with the help of his magic ring, from which he derives his superpowers. Both the 1940s cartoon series, Superman, and the live-action sword-and-sandal films from this period starring Steve Reeves (and others) as Hercules, are clear influences on this simple yet enduring series (which features a very catchy theme song).

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

Fantasia was Disney’s third animated feature. It was made up of eight animated vignettes which were set to classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. This project emerged from the production of the “Silly Symphonies” shorts in the 1930s which similarly paired story with music, but Fantasia went beyond these humorous stories to create an immersive experience.

The fifth segment of the film is the 22 minute “Pastoral Symphony” by Beethoven, which depicts a mythical Greco-Roman world of colorful centaurs and “centaurettes” engaged in heteronormative romantic displays (see also Winsor McCay’s 1921 film, The Centaurs). These tender and erotic depictions of male and female Centaurs in love is unusual. Not only are female Centaurs a rarity in ancient sources, the ancient male Centaurs are usually portrayed as uncivilized and sexually aggressive (see the Centauromachy). There are also cupids, fauns and pegasi frolicing in a natural setting and a festival in honor of the wine god Bacchus in the second half, which is interrupted by Zeus, who creates a storm and throws lightning bolts at the participants before growing tired and going to sleep.

Interestingly, the scene was originally set to Cydalise et le Chèvre-pied by Gabriel Pierné, but the music was replaced with sections of Beethoven’s sixth symphony — a change that the conductor Stokowski disagreed with.

The pagan-inspired vignette also received its fair share of controversy: the female centaurs were originally drawn bare-breasted, but because of the Motion Picture Production Code, they had to be redrawn with garlands around their necks. Additionally, there were black female centaurs depicted in the original cut with “braided ‘pickaninny’ hair” who served as attendants of the white female centaurs. These racially insensitive figures were edited out in the 1960s.

One of Disney’s several early engagements with ancient material in the musical shorts series produced from 1929-39. “The Golden Touch” tells the story of King Midas, though in a medieval setting. Other myth-based Silly Symphonies shorts include “Playful Pan” (1930), “King Neptune” (1932) and “The Goddess of Spring” (1934). Most famous, however, are those based on Aesop’s fables, including “The Grasshopper and the Ants” (1934) and “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1935) which won an Academy Award.

9 min./ USA / dir. Wilfred Jackson

One of Disney’s Silly Symphonies, this classic film follows the plot of the myth of Persephone, yet its imagery evokes a Biblical-style Hell with its Satanic main character. It features operatic singing and jazz-inflected music throughout. Its production was important to the creation of Disney’s first feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as it allowed animators to develop their skills in designing human figures.

The first of a number of early Disney cartoons I will explore here…