PBS; one-hour special

The Sesame Street characters get locked inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art overnight while looking for Big Bird in this one-hour special. The narrative centers on an Egyptian prince named Sahu whom Big Bird and Snuffy meet in the Egyptian art exhibit. He seeks to be reunited with his parents in the form of a star but cannot answer the question posed to him each night by a demon: “Where does today meet yesterday?”

After discovering the answer is “a museum,” Sahu summons Osiris and undergoes the “weighing of the heart ” ceremony of the deceased (see second video). His heart is too heavy, but Big Bird intervenes, and Sahu is reunited with his parents as stars in the sky.

In the midst of this narrative the other characters explore the many exhibits of the museum. Oscar the Grouch discovers a gallery of Greek and Roman statues in their broken and fragmentary state. He sings “Broken and Beautiful” as a celebration of their beauty — the most beautiful trash he’s ever seen — and their value to him.

More: https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Don%27t_Eat_the_Pictures

68 min; Jiri Tyller, director

A joint production by DEFA-Studio für Trickfilme (East Germany) and Krátký Film Praha (Czechoslovakia)

1986’s Die Irrfahrten des Odysseus (or “The Wanderings of Odysseus,” also known by its Czech title Odyssea) is a little-known Czech feature film that was released by DEFA, the state-owned film studio of East Germany, with a soundtrack by the Dresdner Philharmonie.

While it does not strictly follow the Homeric text, it offers quite a close adaptation, with the elements arranged in a “straightened plot” (i.e., no flashbacks) that covers a lot of ground but also moves along ploddingly at times. This is largely due to its distinctive “cut-out” animation style, which is artsy and eye-catching but also unnatural in its limitation of bodily movement and facial expression. Martin Lindner notes that while the film has elements that might appeal to a youthful audience (e.g., a focus on Telemachus, little graphic violence), it doesn’t really succeed as such because it is too condensed (2008: 49). He goes on to note how the film ends on a strange note, not with a happy scene of familial reunion, but with a segue from Odysseus’ killing of the suitor Antinous to a montage of Greek vase paintings and a voiceover meditation on the undying wisdom of the ancients, which adds to its “somber” air.

More: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363704/

https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filmsuche/die-irrfahrten-des-odysseus/

60 min.; Japan (aka Manga Aesop Monogatari, though not to be confused with the TV show of the same name!)

Director: Norio Hikone; Production: Toei Animation

From Anime News Network: “Aesop is a trouble-making young boy who finds himself in another world filled with creatures he never believed to exist, such as fairies and talking donkeys. He sets off to find a way back to the normal world. On his journey he befriends many classical creatures from well-known fables and encounters many trials, each teaching him a valuable lesson.”

14 min.

Season 4, Episode 9 (1st half)

Gargamel fashions a giant wooden Papa Smurf statue that he intends to hide inside. He plans to have the Smurfs to find the statue and take it back to their village as a gift honoring their leader. Brainy falls for the ruse, but the Smurfs end up encountering many challenges in moving the statue to the village. After bouncing against sharp rocks and rolling down a hill, the statue falls into a river, where it is found by Bigmouth who adopts it as a toy doll. The Smurfs are able to retrieve it and present it to Papa Smurf, who expresses his suspicions about it. Gargamel and Azrael then jump out and try to grab some Smurfs, but they manage to push the villains back into the statue, tie a rope around it and abandon it in the forest, where Bigmouth finds and adopts it yet again.

More: https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/The_Trojan_Smurf

4 min.; dir. Klaus Georgi

This avant-garde short, produced by the East German state run studio, DEFA: Studio fur Trickfilme, takes an “eco-socialist” approach to the story of the Sirens, best known from Homer’s Odyssey. The lure of the Sirens’ song is shown growing less powerful as the centuries pass. Modern modes of transport befoul and ultimately overwhelm the dread creatures.

5 min., Directed by Evelyn Lambart, Canada

Summary from the National Film Board of Canada: “In this animated short, Evelyn Lambart uses her well-known style of animation – paper figures and brightly colored backgrounds – to revisit Aesop’s tale of 2 mice with vastly different lifestyles. Ultimately, the film suggests it is far better to live simply and in peace than to live in luxury amidst danger.”

7 min.

Three female statues (Karyatids) make an effort to keep together what remains of an ancient Athenian temple consumed by time and looting.

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1986, also awarded a Cristal at the 1985 Annecy Festival

Director/Writer: Nicole Van Goethem (Belgium)

More: https://www.awn.com/animationworld/greek-tragedy-women-animation-and-classics-annecy-2015

 

No subtitles, 9 minute short, stop-motion animation

Directed by Yulian Kalisher, Screen writer K. Kedrov for Soyuztelefilm. Intended as first in a series, but no more were made.

Astrological telling of the hero’s birth, focus on the conflict between Hera and Alcmene, and ends with a poem on the greatness of man.

More:

http://www.omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey/item/225

Fyodor Khitruk, no subtitles, 19 min.

From IMDB: “This is a somewhat ironic, but very informative story about the origin, development and decline of the Greek Olympiad tradition, set out with the help of an off-screen commentary read by Z. Gerdt. Ancient history is described in great detail and exciting. In the graphic decision, artists were guided by the ancient Greek monuments, first of all – vase paintings, stylized for them and characters, and decorations, up to imitation cracks. In the film there are a lot of full-scale shots, and in particular it is interesting to frame the photographs of the bas-reliefs of the Pergamon altar shot by Yuriy Norshtein. The film ends with documentary shots of the opening of the Olympics-80 in Moscow.”

See also: The 1981 film “O Sport – You are Peace!”, a documentary about the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, for which much of the animation featured here was originally produced, but not used.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1519367/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/dec/10/fyodor-khitruk