Wednesday, June 22, 2016

It Should've Been on a Saturday: Ulysses 31 (1981)

Ulysses 31 takes a hero from Greek mythology and updates his story to the far future. Specifically, the 31st century.

It is also one of the first series produced by DIC, but it took six years, or so Wikipedia claims, before it landed here in the US. Supposedly, the series was included in the Kideo TV syndicated package released in 1987, which, as memory serves, allowed for other failed DIC properties, such as Wolf Rock TV and Hulk Hogan's Rock & Wrestling, to gain new life. Unfortunately, no station in my market picked up the block. Somehow, I seem to recall Nickelodeon picking up the show, not just in Australia, but here in the US. However, I've never seen it, so there won't be a rating.

Here's the intro:

2 comments:

Goldstar said...

"Kideo TV" was indeed a syndicated kids' program block that ran in the mid 1980s and was produced by DiC. The block ran for 90 minutes and consisted of three half hour animated shows. "Kideo TV"'s original lineup consisted of Rainbow Brite, Popples and Ulysses 31, but Ulysses 31 was dropped from the lineup after a single season and was replaced with reruns of The Get Along Gang which originally aired on CBS in 1985 (I believe). Then Rainbow Brite was dropped (with no new episodes produced for the block's 2nd season) and replaced with another series based on a line of dolls, Lady Lovely Locks, thus making Popples the only show to be on the lineup for the block's entire run of 2 seasons.

funny thing; images of Ulysses 31 and Rainbow were still seen in "Kideo TV"'s intro even after both shows were removed from the lineup. I guess DiC didn't feel the need to update the intro. Maybe they just didn't care at that point.

hobbyfan said...

I remember Popples also airing on Nick, but that, along with Rainbow Brite and Lady Lovely Locks will eventually land here, too.