Ulysses 31

A friend and I were talking about the Iliad and like many in their late twenties and thirties, we remember that great 80s Franco-Japanese animé series Ulysses 31. It was was one of my favourite programmes when I was a kid - I was about 10 or 11 when it was shown by the Beeb - and I used to look forward to watching it every Thursday afternoon. I like to think that it got me interested in Greek mythology, although that could have been due to Tony Robinson's Odysseus: The Greatest Hero of Them All . Does anyone remember that? I remember being most disappointed when I discovered that there were no spaceships in Homer's version.

For those of you unfamiliar with the programme, it is a sci-fi reworking of the Odyssey. It tells that story of a 31st century descendant of the original Ulysses (the Roman name for Odysseus) who kills the Cyclops in order to rescue his son Telemachus. However, this angers the ancient Greek gods and Ulysses and the gang are banished to roam a hitherto unknown area of space called Olympus. Here they encounter all manner of strange people and creatures just like Ulysses' illustrious ancestor (whom he meets in one episode!) and try to find their way back to Earth. Ulysses is dealt a double blow when most of his crew are put in a kind of suspended animation by the vengeful Zeus, which leaves him with only Telemachus, a telepathic blue-skinned humanoid girl called Yumi, the annoying little robot Nono and the ship's computer Shirka for comapny.

I downloaded the first episode and the magic was still there, so I decided to buy the complete series on DVD. I won't be getting much study done for a couple of weeks! I quite like the cheesy synth rock theme tune except for that bit at the end about Nono, although it sounds good in French, German and Italian!