Oho. After writing all those reviews on Agatha Christie books (it can get a bit boring after a while), it was time for something else, so I had a look on Dooyoo to dig around and see what I could find. And buried in the children's tv section I found this little gem. With only one review by good old Marcel Beren way back in 2001. So now here's my ha'peth's worth.

Anyone who has read my profile will know I'm very fond of an 80s television series called The Mysterious Cities of Gold, amongst others. Ulysses 31 was in a similar vein.

Way back in 1997 I started using the net on a regular basis. I was in my first year at uni - not exactly a student's busiest year - and spent a lot of time browsing the net coming across all sorts of stuff. I was sadly thrilled when I came across a video clip of the opening sequence of Ulysses 31. In German! (which I still have). Feeling suitably nostalgic, I looked for other series on the net and found many little websites all devoted to their favourite series. Mr Benn, Bagpuss, Thundercats, Dangermouse, Look and Read, you name it. I was so interested I even built my own little website, now long defunct. My interest lasted three years or so during which I managed to get plenty of these classics on video to enjoy.

However, as someone once said, you tire of nostalgia very quickly and my interest waned. But I still have an innate fondness for some series and Ulysses 31 is one of these.

Ulysses 31 was one of those brilliant cartoons shown on TV in the early 80s. You remember, we're talking Mysterious Cities of Gold, He-Man, Transformers, you know the drill. Originally produced by DIC (remember them?) and TMS back in 1981, it was from the makers of the aforementioned Mysterious Cities of Gold (I'll call it MCoG to save me typing). Only one series was made consisting of 26 * 20 minute episodes.

So what was it all about? I'll use the intro from each episode to give
me a hand...

"It is the 31st Century. Ulysses killed the giant Cyclops when he rescues the children and his son Telemachius. But the ancient Gods of Olympus are angry, and threaten a terrible revenge.

"MORTALS! YOU DEFY THE GODS. I SENTENCE YOU TO TRAVEL AMONG UNKNOWN STARS. UNTIL YOU FIND THE KINGDOM OF HADES, YOUR BODIES WILL STAY AS LIFELESS AS STONE..."

Confused? Yes, thought you might be. It's a highly original idea - loosely telling the stories of Greek Mythology, but in the future. A little more detail:

Ulysses is captain of the Odyssey, a giant starship travelling from Troy to Earth. Accompanying him are his son Telemachius and little robot friend Nono. En route to Earth, Telemachius is kidnapped by worshippers of the giant monster Cyclops, to whom they intend to sacrifice him. He meets Zoltrians Numinor and his younger sister Numi, who are also prisoners. Ulysses and the crew manage to rescue them, killing the Cyclops in the process, but, as you read above, the Gods punish Ulysses, sentencing him to endless wandering through space. The way back to Earth is wiped from the computer's memory; and the crew are put into comas, their lifeless bodies left floating in part of the ship. Ulysses is left with only his son, Numi and Nono for company.

And so begins the saga. 26 episodes, each telling it's own story.

Vengeance of the Gods (Episode 1) tells the story of the Cyclops as described above. Luckily I've managed to get eight episodes on video (see below for more details), so my thoughts are based on these eight.

At a time when originality is sorely lacking on television these days, watching Ulysses 31 is like a breath of fresh air. Ulysses is clearly based on Odysseus, a character in The Iliad and The Odyssey, both written by ancient Greek poet Homer. The Iliad deals with the wanderings of Odysseus after the siege of Troy; similarly, Ulysses leaves the planet


Troy and wanders through space lost. The Cyclops is based on the Cyclopes, a race of one eyed giants also described by Homer.

Let's take another example 'The Eternal Punishment' (5) which tells the story of Sisyphus, eternally condemned by the Gods to roll rocks into a giant chasm. When Ulysses arrives, Sisyphus falls into the chasm and discovers a giant automated factory creating these rocks for him to endlessly process... this is almost exactly based on the Greek myth of the same character, condemned to push rocks up a mountain even though they rolled back to the bottom. A brave attempt for a cartoon series - there's none of the usual cartoon 'fluffery' - and it's simply what makes it brilliant.

I could go on forever really. 'Mutiny on Board' features Poseidon's battle cruisers; 'The Seat of Forgetfulness' is based on Hades' trap for Theseus and Pirithous; the Gods' weapon ships are called Tridents; there are characters called Circe (Odysseus' wife in The Odyssey), Cronus (Kronos). Then there's the Lotus Eaters... the island of Lemnos...

Ulysses looks quite the Greek hero, long hair and beard to match. He's the best character by far. The children also have large parts but don't work quite as well. Whereas in MCoG, it is one of the series' strengths (indeed, the children are the focal point of the story), it's one of the weaker aspects of Ulysses 31. Many series of the time use children as the main characters (and still do), presumably to give someone for the children to identify with. Whether or not this was a good idea is dubious, but some of their actions and dialogue are pretty ropey to say the least ("What a super cake!").

The series ended with 'The Kingdom of Hades' which, if you remember, is the place mentioned in the Gods' sentence. Unfortunately I've not seen this episode; presumably it wraps the series up - a very r
are thing to happen for a cartoon as most series just come to a dead stop with no resolution (Thundercats, He Man). It's rather a shame that Ulysses 31 ended so soon, especially as other series went on much longer but don't have the same nostagia factor today.

Another running theme with many 80s series was the comedy character. In Thundercats you had Snarf; MCoG gave us bumbling sailors Pedro and Sanchez; Ulysses 31 offers up Nono, a small red tin robot with a funny voice. You know the kind of thing. Rather fond of him when I was younger but a bit irritating today.

Ulysses also had this nifty little sword that looked suspiciously like a lightsabre. And it was made in 1981... hmmm...

When watching you notice that the characters speak oddly fast on occasion. They also utter sudden exclamations for no reason. This may have been due to the translation. A problem with foreign anime is the language barrier; in the original language, more words/syllables appear to be used compared to our own language, hence the problem that occurred when the series was redubbed in English - the actors had to say something if the characters were speaking on screen which led to the above oddities. A shame as this sounds odd in places. This is just a surmise so if anyone knows better you're welcome to say so :)

The series disappeared after the 80s, though there was a brief repeat season on Channel 4 in the 90s. Unless you had satellite TV you didn't have a hope. Apparently a film version of the series was rumoured (aren't they always) with Barry Gibb(!) of the Bee Gees in the title role. Totally unbelievable of course but thought I'd throw that in.

Videos of the series were released during the late 1980s. The first 16 episodes were released on eight tapes by RCA Columbia Pictures in 1989 but unfortunately are no longer available. They were re-released two years later but again have been deleted. If you're lucky you mi
ght come across some in charity shops. They are also available on eBay, but beware, some volumes can sell for high prices and burn a hole in your pocket. You can also buy pirate VCDs of the whole series on the same site.

DVD and video boxsets of the series have since been released, but only in Europe and of course not in English. Darn! They're both priced at 29 Euros 90 each. Try www.manga-distribution.fr if you really want them.

And Phillip Schofield used to call it Useless Knees, you know.


The episode list:

*1 Vengeance of the Gods -------- *14 Song of Danger
*2 The Lost Planet ------------------ *15 Before the Flood
*3 The Black Sphere ---------------- *16 The Magic Spells of Circe
*4 Guardian of the Cosmic Winds - 17 Lost in the Labyrinth
*5 The Eternal Punishment --------- 18 At the Heart of the Universe
*6 Flowers of Fear ------------------- 19 The Hidden Truth
*7 Mutiny on Board ------------------ 20 The Magician in Black
*8 Secret of the Sphinx ------------- 21 Rebellion on Lemnos
*9 The Seat of Forgetfulness ------ 22 The City of Cortex
*10 Trapped Between Fire and Ice 23 Calypso
*11 Cronus, Father of Time -------- 24 Strange Meeting
*12 Temple of the Lestrigones ---- 25 The Lotus Eaters
*13 Phantoms from the Swamp --- 26 The Kingdom of Hades

* = released on video

The series is well represented on the web. A few choice cuts:

The Kingdom of Hades
http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~torgerk/ulysses31/

The Odyssey
http://membres.lycos.fr/vuillard75/ulysses31.h tml

The U31 Info. Resource Centre
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/networki ng/282/

Thanks for reading :)