Goldberg wrote in 1929 that the libretto "seems to have no specific ancestry... neither in his burlesques nor in his ballads... had Gilbert played with the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology." However, Gilbert did write a series of humorous sketches parodying the Greek myths, mainly the heroes of the "Iliad", for the illustrated magazine "Fun" in 1864, and "Pygmalion and Galatea", which he produced just before "Thespis", was a more serious treatment of Greek mythology. Jane W. Stedman points out that "Thespis" "looks backward to French "opéra bouffe"", but it is "fundamentally a Gilbertian invasion plot in which outsiders penetrate and affect a given society, often for the worse." She compares the theatrical company in "Thespis" to the politicians that remodel fairyland in Gilbert's 1873 play "The Happy Land" and the Englishmen who reform the island nation of Utopia in "Utopia, Limited" (1893). Elements of "Thespis" also appear in Gilbert and Sullivan's last opera together, "The Grand Duke" (1896), where a theatre company replaces the ruler and decides to "revive the classic memories of Athens at its best".