The Sorcerer's Apprentice poem's story is alluded to in several episodes of the fairy-tale drama "Once Upon a Time", especially in "The Apprentice". A variation of the Dukas piece also plays in certain scenes. The apprentice himself is a recurring character, while the sorcerer is shown to be Merlin. The "Fantasia" version appears in the video game series "Kingdom Hearts", with the sorcerer Yen Sid serving as an adviser to the heroes, teaching Mickey, Sora, and Riku the Keyblade skills needed to guard the universe from his former friend Xehanort's plan. A world based on the "Fantasia" version also appears throughout the series,
The Traveller (poem) modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. The novelist William Black, on the other hand, while highly praising the poem's mellifluous qualities, admitted that "the literary charm of "The Traveller" is more apparent than the value of any doctrine, however profound or ingenious, which the poem was supposed to inculcate". More recent academic criticism continues to assert the poem's claims to respectful attention. Arthur Humphreys considered it "a true and thoughtful poem"; Boris Ford noted "the judicious tone, the unruffled movement, the urbane and fluent control of the couplet", which "established him as a