Psychological Odysseys in Children’s Television

Abstract This chapter examines three television episodes that were based on the Odyssey from long-running animated children’s shows: “Home Sweet Homer” from DuckTales, “Truman and the Deep Blue Sea” from Martha Speaks, and “D.W. Tale Spins” from Arthur. These episodes replace Odysseus with a young stand-in, often a child character who is one of the series’ secondary protagonists. Odysseus himself is either absent or acts as a mentor figure for the young stand-in. While the child stand-in undergoes the real or imaginary perils experienced by Odysseus in the Odyssey, they also undergo a journey of sociopsychological growth. The Odyssean monsters they encounter and the setbacks they experience become expressions of the child stand-in’s psychological challenges. Through overcoming them, the child stand-in also makes progress toward resolving their own social or psychological obstacles.