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Trivia / Asterix

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    Overall 
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: The most profitable French comic book property by far, from the comics themselves to live-action films, animated films, video games, a theme park... and of course The Merch, with notably the ubiquitous mustard glasses (that can be used as regular glasses once emptied).
  • Fandom Life Cycle: Stage 5 in the Francophone countries (mainly France and Belgium), Stage 3 bordering on Stage 4 in the rest of Europe, and a Stage 1 everywhere else.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: If you don't live in France, good luck trying to find any (older) media in the franchise outside of the main comic books on sale. The older films along with the Gamebooks were hit hard by this (they've had re-releases on DVD in France).

    Comic Books 
  • Accidentally-Correct Writing: A few cases:
    • Albert Uderzo received a mail congratulating him for his perfect depiction of the antique roadstead of Brest. He had actually drawn it without doing any research.
    • When angry, Romans are prone to launch themselves into incredibly vulgar tirades shown by Symbol Swearing. Ancient Romans could be incredibly vulgar, and modern Romans are actually infamous in Italy for just how many swearwords their normal speech includes.
  • Died During Production: Writer René Goscinny died in 1977, while Albert Uderzo was drawing the parody of Waterloo battle part of Astérix chez les Belges (Asterix in Belgium). From this point on, the rain starts (and it remains overcast until the end of the album). Uderzo continued the series as both writer and illustrator until 2009, and would eventually pass away himself in 2020. The animation studio they created, Studios Idéfix, closed down in 1978 after Goscinny's death, having produced only two films.
  • The Catchphrase Catches On:
    • The expression "Il est tombé dedans quand il était petit." ("He fell into it [the magic potion] when he was little.") is now standard in French to designate something you got an interest to from a very young age.
    • Obelix's catchphrase "These [group of people] are crazy" is very commonly used in Denmark. In fact, it's not uncommon to say "Those Romans are crazy" even when talking about a completely different group. Italian dub also has a case of Bilingual Bonus, since it can be translated in "Sono Pazzi Questi Romani", whose capital letters form S.P.Q.R., a very common Ancient Roman motto (and the motto of the city of Rome to this day).
  • Completely Different Title: A few English titles miss the original title (Asterix and the Discord > Asterix and the Roman Agent, The Odyssey of Asterix > Asterix and the Black Gold) or the Pun-Based Title (Le tour de Gaule > Asterix and the Banquet).
  • Creator Backlash: Albert Uderzo named Asterix and the Great Divide as his least favorite entry in the series, due to not yet having much of a handle on how to create the books entirely by himself. It's not known if René Goscinny specifically disliked any story, though he reportedly didn't think too much of the earlier entries in the series (at least, prior to Asterix and Cleopatra, which was his personal favorite of all the stories he worked on).
  • Creator's Favorite Episode: Asterix and Cleopatra for René Goscinny, and Asterix in Corsica for Albert Uderzo.
  • Executive Meddling: An odd instance with regards to Dogmatix; Goscinny and Uderzo's publishers had been pressuring them to introduce a Team Pet from early on, but they weren't initially interested in doing so. For Asterix and the Banquet, the duo included a literal Running Gag in the form of a dog who follows Asterix and Obelix around for most of the story, unnoticed by them until the third-to-last panel. Eventually, Goscinny and Uderzo got a note from their publishers complimenting them on the new "pet" they'd introduced, and also some fan mail it had already got. This resulted in the duo deciding to just roll with it and develop the dog into a proper character for the next story, Asterix and Cleopatra.
  • Franchise Killer: The album Asterix and the Falling Sky was lambasted by both fans and critics in 2005, and Uderzo made Asterix and Obelix's Birthday: The Golden Book only because the series needed a Milestone Celebration for its fifty years in 2009. It took until 2013 to see a new adventure, Asterix and the Picts, by a new team of creators this time (Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad).
  • Long-Runners: The comic books have been around since 1959 and the animated movies since 1967 (with Roger Carel having voiced Asterix from 1967 to 2014), and the Parc Asterix operates since 1989.
  • No Export for You: An Asterix album that has yet to see the light of day in English-speaking countries; Asterix et ses Amis. It's also the only post-'77 and pre-2013 album not to be written or drawn by Uderzo; it was actually created by many other European writers and artists (except for Stuart Immonen, who's Canadian) as an 80th birthday present for Uderzo. It also has more than a few cameos from other comic book characters, which is probably why it hasn't been translated; nobody wants to deal with the headache of pleasing the various licenses.
  • Official Fan-Submitted Content: The French name of Dogmatix, "Idéfix", was chosen through a contest Goscinny and Uderzo organized for the readers of Pilote magazine when the dog became an Ascended Extra.
  • Outlived Its Creator: Goscinny died in 1977, and Uderzo kept writing stories on his own afterwards in addition to drawing, and passed the torch to the duo of Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad in 2013. Asterix and the Griffin (2021) is the first album released since Uderzo's passing in 2020.
  • Reality Subtext: The appearance of Thompson and Thomson in Asterix in Belgium is, on its face, a cute cameo and a reference to one of the most famous Belgian comics of all time. Then you learn that Hergé hated Asterix for surpassing Tintin in popularity and most of the work he did late in his life (such as the Animated Adaptation) was an attempt to outdo Goscinny and Uderzo out of jealousy. The latter two made a respectful reference regardless.
  • Sequel Gap:
    • The stories were usually produced on an annual basis up until Obelix & Co., before Goscinny's death put Asterix in Belgium into Development Hell for a couple of years. After Uderzo decided to continue the series alone, the books were released once every two years up until Asterix and Son, after which it slowed down to one book every four or five years all the way until Uderzo's retirement. Since then, the new creative team have produced one book every two years.
    • Six years between the second and third live-action films, four years between the third and the fourth, and ten years between the fourth and fifth.
  • Write Who You Know: Mrs. Geriatrix was based on Uderzo's wife.

    Animation 
  • Disowned Adaptation: While they weren't involved with it in any real way other than providing the story that was adapted into it, both Goscinny and Uderzo really, really didn't like the Animated Adaptation of Asterix the Gaul and made sure to have creative control over further adaptations.
  • The Other Darrin: Given that the older animated films have been made since The '60s, there is a lot of voice actor turn over. Especially in non-French dubs. The major exception for a long while was Roger Carel as Asterix, until his retirement and eventual passing.
  • Production Posse: For his Asterix CGI animated films, Alexandre Astier assembled a voice cast with many regulars of Kaamelott (his father Lionnel Astier, Franck Pitiot and others).
  • What Could Have Been: There was talk of making an actual animated series adaptation of the comic book series (which would be very fitting considering how it is one of the biggest names in European comics, plus Tintin and Spirou & Fantasio had at least two animated series each), but Albert Uderzo always refused. However, about one year after Uderzo's passing, Netflix was seemingly allowed to produce a series.

    Live-Action Films 

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