Screenshot from the episode with Homer’s homecoming Odysseus (fair use)

(8) THE SIMPSONS –

D’OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?:

TALES FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, SEASON 13 EPISODE 14 (2002)

The Simpsons did it.

Yes, it’s a good gag from a South Park episode (“Simpsons Already Did It”) but in the case the Simpsons did Homer’s Odyssey.

I mean, it was probably inevitable, given the name of its (adult) protagonist (and indeed, they used the title Homer’s Odyssey for another episode which did not adapt the epic).

And they did it pretty well – remarkably so as it was not even a whole episode, but one of three segments of an episode. Even so, it hit the main comedic satire or parody beats  of the Odyssey through a modern lens, with too many classic lines from which to choose.

If I have to choose, it’s a close call with Penelope musing whether Odysseus is the same “magnificent physical specimen as when he left” (complete with a photograph of a muscular fully-haired Odysseus), but I’d go with Odysseus blowing off Penelope after twenty years of war and homecoming.

“Quit suffocating me, I’m going to Moe’s”.