History WesternAnimation / TheTwelveTasksOfAsterix

* BigLittleMan: One of the tasks is to fight Cilindric the German. Asterix and Obelix are taken to an arena where there's an enormous pair of doors...which open to reveal a very short judo expert.

** Caesar's group of councillors features Brutus, who constantly plays with a knife. Caesar remarks: "Stop playing with that knife, you'll end up hurting someone!", ironically referencing how Brutus was the leader of the senators who stabbed and killed the historical Caesar.

** Asterix pulls a large one during The-Place-That-Sends-You-Mad sequence.

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: Spoken verbatim by a Roman soldier after the Gauls thrash them in the beginning of the movie.
-->'''Soldier:''' "Join the army," they said. "It's a real man's life," they said.

** Cylindric the German is apparently a master of ''judo'' or ''jujutsu'' and claims that he had learned his fighting technique in his journey far, far away. However, those martial arts were created in the 19th and 16th centuries respectively, and the action of both comic books and movies invariably takes place in 50 BC. On top of that, Cylindric is wearing a modern ''keikogi''.

* BigEater: Obelix as usual, except he goes to the extreme this time, eating a boar with fries, a flock of geese, several sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a whole school of fish, an ox, a cow and veal ("because to separate ze family... zat would not be right!"), a huge mound of caviar (with a single piece of toast), a camel, ("and before we start on ze main course") an elephant stuffed with olives... and considering it all ''starters''! A little later in the movie, he's implied to ''[[EatTheEnemy have eaten]]'' some kind of EldritchAbomination that no one could ever defeat, offscreen.

* DrivenToMadness: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Place That Sends You Mad"]], which is a tall bureaucratic building filled with absent-minded, lazy and selfish employees that makes it impossible to ensure proper public services.

* EldritchAbomination: The Beast. [[spoiler: Obelix is so hungry he manages to ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutChthuluhu eat it]]'']].

** Venus is also wearing nothing whatsoever...

* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
** After Ceasar tells off Brutus for playing with the knife, we cut to Ceasar in close up and keep hearing the sound of Brutus playing with the knife, until we hear a meaty thudding noise. The next camera shot shows Ceasar continuing his speech with Brutus back in frame and one of Brutus' fingers has been bandaged up.

* GuileHero: Asterix wins a few of the tasks by manipulating his opponent. For example, he tricks Cylindric the German into teaching him martial arts and defeating him in the course of the "lesson", distracts Iris the hypnotist by asking him if his glowing eyes are good for reading in bed and lures him into hypnotising himself instead, and turns the tables on the Place That Sends You Mad by asking for a permit that doesn't exist.

** Caesar's group of councillors features Brutus, who constantly plays with a knife. Caesar remarks: "Stop playing with that knife, you'll end up hurting someone!" ironically referencing how Brutus was the leader of the senators who stabbed and killed the historical Caesar.

** Near the end of the movie you can notice the sign "Via Asterixa" (this is a reference to Roman road "Via Latina").

--> '''Iris''': Repeat after me, "I am a wild boar, a wild boar!"\\
'''Asterix''': You are a wild boar, you are a wild boar.\\
'''Iris''': That's right! ''(Eyes short out as he cackles madly)'' I am a wild boar! ''(Snort, snort)'' A wild boar!

* InelegantBlubbering: Upon seeing the crowd laugh at the Gauls having turned the fearsome GladiatorGames into a circus as we know it, the lanista bawls that "they've ruined the circus."
** Manekenpix, when Obelix manages to eat all the food in his kitchen.

* LiteralMinded: When the duo is at the Place-that-sends-you-mad, Obelix reads Roman numerals as if they were letters.

* NeverMyFault: The Place that Sends You Mad is partially built upon this trope, and also why Asterix is able to defeat it. Everyone working there is unhelpful because they have a job to do, and only that job, and thus the onus is on '''you''' to be able to navigate it. But when Asterix makes up a fake permit and circular, none of the departments will take responsibility for not knowing about it and go off to blame someone else, getting them involved in the chaos (and subsequently never working out that Asterix made it up, which they would have done if they worked together as a team).
* NeverSmileAtACrocodile: Well, a river full of crocodiles would be a threat to everyone else, but eventually Asterix and Obelix prefer falling into it than crossing an invisible tightrope - in which the crocodiles end up hanging from!

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: In universe example. After Obelix rebuffs the priestess on the Isle of Pleasure for having no wild boar to eat, the girls turn on him and rather than the suave voices they originally had, actually have horrible chav-like voices.

* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: The Roman ghost does this when Astérix tells him to be quiet.

-->'''High Priestess:''' Push off! {{Get out}}!\\

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:At the end Julius Caesar loses all the power and starts a new life as a farmer... which means no death by stabbing for him!]]

** While on a rampage, Obelix breaks the arms off of the famous statue of Venus de Milo.

* BigDoor: To undertake the task of fighting Cylindric the German, Asterix and Obelix are taken to an arena where there's an enormous pair of doors... which open to reveal a [[BigLittleMan very short judo expert]]

** The monsters/ghosts Asterix and Obelix encounter in the cave of the beast are all drawn and animated in a much more artistic and surrealist style (not unlike the animated passages in ''[[Music/TheWall Pink Floyd – The Wall]]'') than the rest of the movie.

** The way Asterix outsmarts Cylindric the German also counts.

* NoodleIncident:
** Obelix mentions having tasted crocodiles before, and not caring one bit for this meat -- too stringy.
** Also the lair of The Beast. We never see what it was, or how they defeated it. Just the boys emerging on a city street, and Obelix apparently having eaten it.

* NoodleIncident: Obelix mentions having tasted crocodiles before, and not caring one bit for this meat -- too stringy.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Despite the AnachronismStew mentioned below, one of the biggest sources of jokes in the movie, The Place That Sends You Mad, is ''not'' part of it. Modern viewers will obviously identify with the frustrations of a vast bureaucracy, but ancient Rome was in fact one of the first empires to deal with these kinds of problems, especially considering that this was long before modern communications or even a reliable postal service.

* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:As the Gauls ace the final task, turning the whole thing into little more than a circus, the ringmaster is left a sobbing wreck. Caesar, while quiet, makes a face that speaks volumes to what is going on in his mind and that he has pretty much just given up at that point]].

-->Deep Voiced Bird: '''''SAMBA!'''''

** Near the end of the film, Obelix calls attention to how far OffTheRails the plot has gotten in regards to real history, as he asks Asterix if they are really the rulers of Rome now. Asterix responds that they are in a cartoon, and as such "everything goes" and they can do what they wish. So Obelix wishes himself to be back at the Isle of Pleasure.

** The narrator asks the audience: "Who doesn't know the Gauls?", whereupon several hands in the cinema audience rise and cover the screen. The Gauls for their part look depressed that the audience doesn't know who they are.

* SadlyMythtaken: During the aforementioned scene of Caesar telling the story of Hercules, the last labor is stated to be "freeing Theseus from the Underworld". While Hercules did free Theseus from the underworld, that was not the actual labor; the labor was kidnapping Cerberus the guard dog of the Underworld. In the Polish dub, this is corrected and Caesar mentions this deed (even though, it doesn't match the image on the pottery).

* BigEater: Obelix as usual, except he goes to the extreme this time, eating a boar with fries, a flock of geese, several sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a whole school of fish, an ox, a cow and veal ("because to separate ze family... zat would not be right!"), a huge mound of caviar (with a single piece of toast), a camel, ("and before we start on ze main course") an elephant stuffed with olives... and considering it all ''starters''! A little later in the movie, he's implied to ''have eaten'' some kind of EldritchAbomination that no one could ever defeat, offscreen.

* ThemeTune: Despite Gérard Calvi returning to compose the score, the theme from ''WesternAnimation/AsterixTheGaul'' and ''WesternAnimation/AsterixAndCleopatra'' was not reused, a [[https://youtu.be/4D7N6O0NJX0 new one]] was composed. It was never reused in following films, setting ''The Twelve Tasks'' further apart among the early animated films of the franchise.

* TheUnReveal: We never see the Beast from the Cave that Caius Tiddlus warns Asterix and Obelix about. All we learn is [[spoiler:that Obelix thinks it was "tasty"]].

** Obelix is served a boar with fries, with the cook noting it's something he found (potatoes came from the Americas).

** One of the victims of The Place That Sends You Mad suffers from a NapoleonDelusion, others seem to pretend being a steam train.
** The old hermit atop the mountain who starts talking like if he was in a washing powder commercial. And while we're there, washing powder itself.

* BigEater: Obelix as usual, except he goes to the extreme this time, eating a boar with fries, a flock of geese, several sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a whole school of fish, an ox, a cow and veal ("because to separate ze family... zat would not be right!"), a huge mound of caviar (with a single piece of toast), a camel, ("and before we start on ze main course") an elephant stuffed with olives... and considering it all ''starters''! A little later in the movie, he's implied to ''have eaten'' what appears to be some kind of EldritchAbomination that is only shown offscreen and that no-one was even able to defeat.

* BizarreTasteInFood: Most of Titans' Chef's menu, at least in the quantities used.

* FreakOut: Obélix briefly goes completely bonkers during the A-38 permit task, to the point where ''his pants'' run.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3031575144_1_2_qlcq0j9j.jpg]]
%%[[caption-width-right:300:some caption text]]

* BizarreTasteInFood: Most of Titans' Chief's menu, at least in the quantities used.

* SupernaturalIsGreen: The ghosts encountered in the 11th task are green.

-->'''Asterix:''' Did you see that?
-->'''Obelix:''' Yes. He's flying low; we'll have rain.

* HeroicWillpower: One of the tasks is visiting an Egyptian hypnotist who tries to make Asterix believe he's a wild boar. While other clients were easily hypnotized, Asterix remains cool and unfazed and distracts the hypnotist by asking him silly questions which break the man's concentration. Eventually he is so confused that Asterix makes ''him'' believe he is a wild boar, whereupon the hypnotist leaves the room grunting on all fours. Thus the task is fulfilled and Asterix and Obelix keep moving.

%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Near the end, the entire village (with the exception of Asterix and Getafix) appears to be this...

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* CallToAgriculture: [[spoiler:After Asterix and Obelix complete successfully the 12 tasks and the Gauls take control of Rome, Caesar retires and becomes a farmer with Cleopatra. Interestingly enough, farming was amongst the better regarded jobs in AncientRome.]]