{"id":552221,"date":"2026-07-16T06:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552221\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T06:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:41:09","slug":"the-odyssey-cast-turns-homer-into-a-60-second-tonight-show-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552221\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Odyssey’ Cast Turns Homer Into a 60-Second ‘Tonight Show’ Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

It took Homer 12,000 lines to tell The Odyssey<\/a>. It took The Tonight Show exactly one minute.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, midway through its weeklong takeover tied to Christopher Nolan\u2019s upcoming film, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/a> premiered a pre-taped musical number featuring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, and Lupita Nyong\u2019o racing through the epic poem\u2019s greatest hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe teamed up with the cast to recap the whole story in exactly one minute,\u201d Fallon told viewers before introducing the clip.<\/p>\n

What followed was a fast-moving rap-style recap that opened with a roll call of characters before moving into the story itself: \u201cAfter the Iliad \/ Hid in a horse \/ Won the war \/ Yeah, I\u2019m serious.\u201d Other lines included \u201cItching for Ithaca,\u201d \u201cPsych out a Cyclops \/ And crater his cranium,\u201d and a wink at the poem\u2019s meter: \u201cWe could be Homer \/ The way we go over \/ The story in six feet \/ Call it hexameter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The segment covered Odysseus, Telemachus, Penelope, Athena, Calypso, the Cyclops, Circe, Hades, sirens, suitors, Scylla, Charybdis, and the long trip back to Ithaca\u2014give or take a few thousand lines.<\/p>\n

The bit aired as part of Tonight\u2019s weeklong push for The Odyssey, which had Tom Holland booked Monday, Matt Damon Tuesday, Zendaya Wednesday, and Lupita Nyong\u2019o Thursday. The show is also keeping the film in rotation next week, with Travis Scott scheduled for Tuesday, July 21; John Leguizamo on Wednesday, July 22; and Nolan himself on Thursday, July 23.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time in recent memory that Fallon\u2019s show has gone big for a heavily anticipated pop-culture release. Last December, Tonight staged a monthlong countdown tied to the final season of Stranger Things.<\/p>\n

The Odyssey number also joins a longer list of Fallon cast-song segments built around major movies and TV events. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande did a stylized character rap for Wicked in 2024, followed by a larger Wicked: For Good cast number in 2025. Tom Cruise and the Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning cast joined Fallon and The Roots for an a cappella version of the franchise\u2019s theme. The Super Mario Bros. Movie cast performed a medley of Nintendo themes. The Avengers: Infinity War ensemble sang \u201cThe Marvel Bunch.\u201d And the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens performed an a cappella John Williams medley with Fallon and The Roots.<\/p>\n

Watch The Tonight Show\u2018s Odyssey cast recap at the top of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took Homer 12,000 lines to tell The Odyssey. It took The Tonight Show exactly one minute. On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7245,73968,93,61,60,3721,127124,72226,98032,16180,83194,25213,8144,282,15117],"class_list":["post-552221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-charlize-theron","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jimmy-fallon","tag-jon-bernthal","tag-lupita-nyongo","tag-matt-damon","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-the-odyssey","tag-the-tonight-show-starring-jimmy-fallon","tag-tom-holland","tag-tv","tag-zendaya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}