OdysseusReturn2.0101_Wishbone

OdysseusReturn2.0101_Wishbone

"Homer Sweet Homer" (acknowledged adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, in Wishbone, children's comedy-drama, episode 5, aired 12 Oct 1995 on PBS, written by Stephanie Simpson and directed by Ken Harrison.

Wishbone, the bookish Jack Russell Terrier, recalls episodes of The Odyssey, as the kids strive to save Oakdale’s tree-filled park from ruthless real-estate expansion of Suitor Development Corp. Suitor’s dastardly agent plans to cut down all the trees and put up a parking lot; especially the most venerable specimen in the middle of the park is important to Wishbone’s owners. In the end, civic action persuades the city council to reverse a variance and stops Suitor’s development before the first tree is cut.
Odysseus’ nostos, recalled by the well-read canine protagonist, metaphorically informs the episode’s primary plotline.

But for my money, Penelope’s involvement in the episode is the most intriguing part. Before the stringing of the bow, Wishbone reveals his plot to Telemachus and urges him surreptiously: “Don’t worry. I’ve talked to your mother. Ha!” Penelope is informed to steer the plot.
Then, athe episode’s end the camera focuses on the bark of the saved tree, then dissolves into bark of the same tree over the bed where Wishbone-Odysseus is explaining his adventure to Penelope. She reclines against the tree trunk. (Cf. Od. 23.176-209)

Upper image at right is a photograph of Wishbone Odysseus in a crested lorica, a Wendy’s kids meal toy acquired by RTM in 1995, © Wendy’s International Inc.; lower image is a screen shot from the ripped youtube video.

Wishbone’s narrative includes several interesting moments, especially from a dog’s POV: Calypso is specifically keeping Odysseus as her “pet”. Viewers, as is common in the series, have to suspend belief here, especially where Wishbone is Penelope’s husband and Telemachus’ father. Telemachus thinks the dog in a hooded robe in the hall is some ordinary beggar; but, when the dog calls him son, Telemachus recognizes him as “Dad! Where’ve you been?!” As for mythological adaptation, the narrative explains visually what the writers imagine is meant by shooting an arrow through twelve axes, one of those old scholarly questions pertaining to the Odyssey. (Od. 21.76 διοιστεύσηι πελέκεων δυοκαίδεκα πάντων; cf. 2.0100_Seelig Group)
When the kids go before the city council, Joe’s mother is dressed in a distinctly Grecian sort of frock and opens her comments with an etymological explanation of the word “’ecology’ derived from Greek ‘oikos’ the word for home.”
A side-vignette in the episode allows viewers to hear Homer’s proem (Od. 1.1-3) twice in Greek. The episode is the first of the bookish series to treat a work of literature that is not by an English or American author.
Wishbone, the bookish Jack Russell Terrier who enacts plots from Sinbad to Mr Darcy to Ivanhoe, is played by the animal actor Soccer and voiced by Larry Brantley
Some information on this page derived from Wikipedia.
Four of fifty Wishbone episodes are built upon overtly classical mythological narratives:
5 “Homer Sweet Homer” — Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey (12 Oct 1995)
34 “Hercules Unleashed” — Hercules from the myth of Hercules and the Apples of the Hesperides
36 “The Entrepawneur” — King Midas from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (27 Nov 1995)
50 “The Roamin’ Nose” — Aeneas from Vergil’s Aeneid (4 Dec 1997)
First came Tom Sawyer (episodes 1 and 2), then Oliver Twist and Romeo Montague (episodes 3 and 4).