Samurai Jack always struck me as a 90s-modern, anime-and-Kurosawa-film-influenced update of another animated classic, Thundarr the Barbarian. The premise is quite different, but the vibe of "quasi-solitary warrior wandering through a ruined future, righting wrongs" is very much in force.
Except that Thundarr, while having some great weird and zany plotting, took itself seriously, while Samurai Jack is a parody, an homage, and also _really beautiful_ compared to the extremely lumpy animation that seemed cool in the 80s (and I watched it on Saturday mornings back then, so I should know).
