Fantasy used to be just for nerds and gamers. Dragons, sorcery, quests: all that belonged in dark, poorly lit basements, around a plastic table where you and your friends-by-proxy donned personas, rolled dice, and pretended. That’s hardly the case anymore. If you’re not up to date on the latest goings on of Westeros or Westworld, or familiar with the adventures that took place in Mordor and Hogwarts, then why even bother? And it (arguably) doesn’t matter that you didn’t read the source material.
Perhaps we have 80s cartoons to thank for this mainstreaming of fantasy, at least in part. Escapism came in many forms back then, from shape-shifting robots to holographic pop singers and a never-ending supply of anthropomorphic animals. For the nerds (myself included) who didn’t feel enough connection to the formulaic good guy/bad guy shoot-ups of G.I. Joe and company, they had their needs catered to in a variety of shows set around magic and fantasy lore.
It’s not hard too imagine that those same kids raised on a steady diet of magical weapons, heroes, and battles fought in Eternia and Thundera are now at the creative helm of many modern fantastical narratives we enjoy today. Of course, for every He-Man there were dozens of failed attempts to capture the same fantasy fan base (to say nothing of merchandise sales).
Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Defenders of the Earth, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, and Captain N: The Game Master—to name just a few—may have niche fan bases but they were hardly beloved pop cultural phenomena on the scale of He-Man or ThunderCats. Based on the familiar trope of a band of do-gooders fighting evil through various mystical scenarios, many of these shows were unceremoniously cancelled early, with few home video releases available for future generations.
One of these mostly-forgotten gems of Saturday mornings that I recall particularly fondly is Dungeons & Dragons.
Produced by Marvel Productions, the cartoon first premiered in 1983 and ran for 3 seasons, ending in 1985 with a total of 27 episodes. It follows six children who are magically transported through an amusement park roller coaster ride (why not?) into the world of, you guessed it, dungeons and dragons. This was all explained in the opening credits, a feature sorely missed these days. Come on people, a little plot expo wouldn’t kill you!
As with its source material, the hugely popular tabletop RPG invented by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (Gygax consulted on and co-produced the series), the children are each assigned a role to play, with a specific skill set and weapons that will help them in their quest to get home.
Hank, the eldest (with surfer Ken doll blond locks), is the ranger, armed with a powerful bow and arrows. Bobby, the youngest, is the barbarian, complete with Viking helmet and a Bamm-Bamm Rubbles-worthy club. Presto (real name Albert) is the magician and resident bespectacled, fumbling nerd. Sheila, Bobby’s older sister (despite differing hair colors) is the thief with a cloak of invisibility. Spoiled brat Eric is the cavalier with a resilient shield, but no sword for some reason. Finally, there is Diana, the token character of color, sporting a fur bikini and javelin/vaulting pole, which makes her the acrobat.
They are accompanied by the obligatory cute factor in the form of Uni the unicorn (yup), a Bambi-eyed My Little Pony knockoff who, despite coming from a world chock-full of talking animals, can only whinny, whimper, and occasionally bleat out a warning or incantation.
The children are guided through their journey by the Dungeon Master, a figure so blatantly based on Yoda it’s a wonder George Lucas didn’t sue. While he doesn’t speak in the same screwy syntax, he does converse in riddles, appearing and disappearing as he sees fit. Dungeon Master often promises the reward of getting the party back home but ends up teaching them a PSA-style “valuable lesson” more often than not, with the possibility of escape from the Realm of Dungeons and Dragons put off until their next adventure. His powers seem limitless so it’s often a wonder the kids don’t just pin Dungeon Master down and demand he return them home. Have they never seen The Wizard of Oz?
While every episode has its fair share of villainous antagonists, none are greater than the main man himself: Venger. Resplendent in floor-length gown, bat wings, and singularly phallic horned head, he gives off a distinct drag queen-does-Voldermort cosplay vibe. Venger must capture the children and steal their weapons in order to grow his own power and take over the realm. Makes sense.
Episodes are fairly routine and formulaic, with occasional variances. The children are teased by Dungeon Master with a new path to their prize (going home), but first they must complete a task that involves traveling the Realm, battling various dangers, and making moral decisions. They repeatedly come so close to returning to their own world, it’s patently ridiculous—but in the end they always decide to stay behind at the last minute, either to help a friend they made along the way or defeat the monster du jour.
For a children’s show airing between commercials for cereal and Care Bears, Dungeons & Dragons dealt with some pretty frightening stuff. Many of the secondary villains, often lifted from the original game, were downright terrifying!
Bloodthirsty spider queens, multi-eyed monsters, slime creatures, and demons hiding in the shadows were all ferociously rendered—none more than Tiamat, the hydra-headed queen of dragons. This bundle of nightmares had multiple heads, each capable of breathing out a different element (fire, ice, gas, etc.) and served as not only a common enemy for the children and Venger, but also as a chance to unleash jump scares on the kids, both on screen and at home. Tiamat’s distorted, screeching voice may sound a little corny today, but at the time it put Skeletor’s nasal whining to shame—thank god I had my Teddy Ruxpin blanket to protect me.
Death itself was not taboo. In a semi-infamous episode, “The Dragon’s Graveyard,” the children actually contemplate “destroying” Venger in order to finally get home. They stand up to Dungeon Master and demand that he explain how it can be done. By teaming up with Tiamat, they lure Venger to the titular desolate graveyard (shown initially with zero backing music, another rarity in this kinds of animation) for what is essentially a final showdown of good versus evil. Heavy stuff.
Let’s see them do that on G.I. Joe! (Yeah, yeah they “killed” Duke in the movie but that’s a different story—no one ever pulled a gun on Cobra Commander to essentially put an end to it all.) Apparently, CBS’s Standards and Practices had a field day with this plotline, nearly shelving the episode entirely. I can’t imagine a script like that would get a pass today.
Like many other cartoons of its era and genre, the series was cancelled without a definitive conclusion. Fortunately, the original screenwriter, Michael Reaves, published the final script, titled “Requiem,” on his website for all to see. It was even a bonus extra on the (now out of print) first edition DVD collection, performed as a radio play. Without spoiling anything, it offers answers to the lingering questions brought up in the series, reveals some surprising secrets, and presents the children with one last chance to go home…in exchange for completing just one more final quest.
Unlike other semi-fantastical shows like Transformers and Smurfs, Dungeons & Dragons seemed to lack the mass popularity I’ve always felt it deserved. There was barely any merchandise generated (who wouldn’t want a Uni plush toy?), no spinoffs, and you may be hard pressed to find anyone who remembers the show clearly enough to provide details beyond “those kids wandering around with a unicorn.” Online, its fandom is definitely present in the the ways you’d expect: there’s fan fiction, fan art, and the occasional cosplay costume on Instagram.
But when compared to its contemporaries, Dungeons & Dragons feels like the forgotten bastard child of 80s animation. It’s the Black Cauldron of its day (which is kind of fitting, since there’s even a moment in “The Dragon’s Graveyard” where Venger conjures up a skeletal army of the dead, bearing an eerie similarity to The Horned King.) So why doesn’t it have more of a following?
Along with the nostalgic praise online, the show gets its fair share of scathing criticism, mainly from actual D&D players who dismiss it as a poor imitation or watered-down version of their beloved game. While I have no personal experience playing D&D, I wonder if these criticisms shed light on what hurt this show: it suffered from an identity crisis.
When it comes to adaptations, it helps to either stay true to the spirit of the source material or veer boldly off into a new own path—not try to have it both ways.
In a sense, this conundrum seems to reflect the choices faced by the protagonists each week. The children continually had to choose between the familiar and the unknown—to constantly decide whether or not to go home or stay and fight the battles in this new, fantastical world.
Today, with the mainstreaming of geek culture, the fantastic has become the familiar. Comic book adaptations mean box office gold, critics be damned. Nostalgia seems to fuel sub-par remakes and lazy re-imaginings of beloved characters. Every over-hyped new fantasy project is faced with a ready-made legion of expert naysayers, detractors, and minutiae-obsessed fact-checkers.
Adaptations can be great, but it’s easy to lose focus on the importance of facing new challenges and creating new narratives. Whether you loved Dungeons & Dragons, never watched it, or thought it was derivative nonsense, the key question at the heart of the show still stands: do you take the easy path or forge your own way? I’d like to think that there are six kids out there still searching.
Reneysh Vittal is a writer, editor and cultural critic. His work has appeared on VICE, Narratively and The Rumpus. Read more work at his website and follow him on Twitter @ReneyshV
I was a kid in the 80s and I loved this show so much. Episodes like City at the Edge of Midnight and Child of the Stargazer stayed with me for years. They were genuinely scary. I invested in the dvds and have been showing them to my son who loves them too. It’s shows like this and Ulysses 31 I think that sent me down the road to being a fantasy fan.
Ps watch the shows again as an adult and see that most of the time Eric was right.
Clearly Eric dumped his sword to get extra stats on his shield and his stamina. He doesn’t need to be on the offensive when there are so many meatshields…er…I mean, fellow players around to do that. He just needs to survive the longest and then get a bigger share of the loot if the other more proactive players died during the encounter.
I did play RPG games, although mostly it was a home-brewed system with a group who came from multiple other systems and the focus was more on anarchic fun than anything else. We loved the GM against the players style of adventure planning, but not in a srs biznis way. I liked this cartoon though. I didn’t realise it was from Marvel though, missing a trick to get it into the MCU (maybe via Doc Strange). I would go to a movie based on this, as long as they didn’t sideline the female characters.
Oh, and I thought Eric was right a lot of the time and that if the group had perhaps listened to him more then they would have got home. But more importantly, more loot and XP too.
Edit: I do want to take issue with one point of the article. Diana never felt like a “token” person of colour in the group. To be the token means that their ethnic origin is heavily played up and often othered, and that never felt the case at all. She was a fully integrated member of the party who just happened to be a person of colour and I think that is an important distinction. She would have been a token if she’d been in Eric’s role as the contrarian and stereotype holder (he is clearly the entitled white boy, even if he does have a point alot of the time), but she wasn’t. That is just my opinion though.
I remember this show fondly (and have the fancy DVD set that came with the characters statted out for D&D), even if I kind of preferred Thundarr and the first season of Flash Gordon.
One thing that bugged me — when the show aired, I remember they’d run a block of maybe four new episodes (one per week), then immediately rerun those same four episodes over the next four weeks.
I also loved the show, largely because I was a D&D player, even at that young age. In those days, you never knew definitively if a show was cancelled, it just stopped airing, but in your idealistic little kid heart you could tell yourself that they just moved times to somewhere you didn’t realize or the season was over and they decided to try something new out, and I vividly remember seeing an erroneous ten-second advertisement that must have been mistakenly aired even though the show was off, and holding onto that hope that it was coming back for at least a year.
It eventually did come back years later… not new episodes, but it ran on Fox for a while something like a decade after the fact, which got me my first taste of the suck fairy/nostalgia goggles. I mean, I still liked it, but it was with a bit of a cringe at the bad production values.
Still, I have fond memories, and it’s one show I would love to see a modern day reboot. I actually think the writer’s wrong, they COULD get away with stuff like the Dragon’s Graveyard, and a lot more these days, especially since the Death of Network TV Saturday Morning Cartoons… all cartoons necessarily have to be on cable or Netflix or something, and they still censor of course, but their standards can be looser. The 80s and 90s were the heyday of over-concerned parents after all (Spider-Man wasn’t even allowed to throw a punch!).
I actually, just as a “for fun” did my own “pitch” on how a modern reboot of the franchise might go (three different versions, actually) if anyone’s interested.
Like most children’s fair in general, there was a subversive and nuanced underpinning to the series, whether by design or by accident I am not sure. Some people can grok it and some people don’t, for whatever reasons. I suspect part of it’s non-appeal is the actual lack of substantive action within the show. Mostly, they kids are running away from the bad guys because only Bobby is immature enough to think some untrained kids can take on Tiamat and Venger. That means the kids are pretty smart and have a sense of self preservation that most of the RPG crowd lack when playing a D&D style game. (There are other styles of course, but it was not called the World of Runerquest or Tunnels & Trolls). Such a sophisticated story wrapped in kid’s television likely did not have enough appeal to the masses and while that is okay for a niche entertainment like an rpg, it does not work for TV.
I dare say, for me, that the through line of the story had more to do with a Moorecock kind of story than Tolkien. It was a battle of good and evil yes, but it was more a battle of Order and Chaos. Again, this is something that may have flown over the heads of a lot of people, because it had to be implicit as opposed to explicit. The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon (animated series?)did not have much of a chance at the time, but the work that was done on it was superb. It made I think good choices and compromises for the time and told pretty good or even great stories based on those choices. Of course it is not perfect, but the show holds up and is a classic in my opinion.
And I think someone could get a PhD exploring Eric’s personal story and his growth trough those stories, especially if you included the last unaired one.
As for Diana being described as the token person of color, while I understand the time and the context of such, I think that sells her very short. Diana has her own agency, is the second most mature member of the party, is an accomplished gymnast with medals, and gets a real relationship along the way, albeit a short one in union with the theme of the show. All in all she was a thoughtful addition to a show about a game that did not always include people of color in its marketing.
So yes, this show is a classic and deserves recognition. Among my friends I am pretty alone in thinking it needs a sequel (not a reboot). Most feel the PTB should leave t alone, but as a Netflix show this could thrive and be sexy, mature, and still fun for kids just getting into gaming.
Side Note: As animated shows/movies based on D&D this one beats the hell out of the Dragonlance animated movie.
“Friends by Proxy”?
You demonstrate only that You Know Nothing, Jon Snow.
I don’t know about “The Dragon’s Graveyard” not being possible today: the last few episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender were heavily concerned with the possibility of killing Firelord Ozai. The Legend of Korra resolved season 1 with a murder-suicide between antagonists, season 3 involved several on-screen deaths (two of which were delivered by the show’s heroes), and season 4 showed the effects of PTSD and another heroic sacrifice.
Transformers Prime included the onscreen deaths of Cliffjumper and Hardshell (killed by one of the human kid sidekicks no less), and Arcee’s clear intent to kill Starscream in retaliation (foiled not due to mercy, but because they needed him alive at the moment).
Even Steven Universe has confronted death head-on, both via Steven’s mother and by Bismuth and Jasper’s willingness to kill (instead of disabling) in combat. It’s also talked about war crimes and physical/emotional abuse, though those stem mainly from the villains.
I was already an adult in college when these aired, but I somehow managed to see several episodes and liked what I saw. (Which was a major change from the way I viewed most 80s Saturday morning animation.) In a lot of ways, it felt like it was what Quag Keep was supposed to be, but fell short of.
Shout out for Thundarr the Barbarian! Ariel was the bomb!
I remember watching this show, there was truly some enjoyment to be had there. I also remember being disappointed by some of the “dumbing down” (mainly exhibited in the characters of Bobby and Uni, who combined to make the Westley Crusher of the show). Another interesting point, at least for my generation, is that resident sour-pus and contrarian Eric was voiced by none other than Don Most, otherwise known as Ralph the Mouth of Happy Days fame.
I loved this show when it was airing. I was actually just wondering whatever happened to it — good to know about “Requiem”.
As I understand it, one reason for the proliferation of science fiction and fantasy Saturday morning cartoon shows during this era had to do with network Standards & Practices. There was a prohibition against “easily imitated” violence. That led to shows that could feature “non-realistic” weaponry such as ray guns, or, in this case, weapons made of “light” rather than actual edged or pointed swords, arrows, etc. (in the 1960’s, by way of contrast, JONNY QUEST showed characters wielding recognizably authentic pistols and rifles).
I think this would be great fodder for a Rewatch! I loved this show and was always upset when it was pre-empted on a Saturday morning for some stupid sports thing like the local regional basketball tournaments and stuff.
I was in college and got a birthday present from a friend – all of the episodes on VHS. Keep in mind this was long before Amazon.com (it was actually before webpages, though the Internet did exist). He ordered them via USENET – I assume there was something like alt.net.old.recorded.cartoons or something. Some guy had all of the episodes that he had recorded straight from the TV (and, in most places, had even paused the recording to cut out the commercials!) and my friend had purchased copies for himself, then made copies for me as a present.
They were awesome. I’d not seen them for years, so rewatching them was really a trip. Even seeing some of the old commercials (where the guy had forgotten to pause) was funny/interesting. Old Levi’s and Twizzler commercials is what I mostly remember.
I have to chime in with the others and say I never viewed Diana as a “token” anything. She fit into the group better than Eric and, to some extent, Presto. She was always capable and smart and not, unlike Sheila, “bogged down” by always worrying about another particular member of the party.
Bobby/Uni together formed Gilligan – every time they had a real chance to get off the Island, those two combined to screw it up.
Hank’s bow was so much better/versatile than any of the other weapons. The invisibility cloak was never used to its full potential. The club might have been good in someone else’s hands, but Bobby just swung it around annoyingly. Presto’s hat was theoretically the most powerful, but for whatever reason ended up being a joke instead of useful most of the time. Eric’s shield was nice for defense, but that’s it. Diana’s staff allowed her to vault things and fight with it.
But the bow. The bow was:
a light source
a weapon
a grappling hook
a bridge-maker
a shield (Hank would shoot Venger’s incoming bolts)
So yeah. I’m thinking the rest of the party got screwed when they rolled for weapons.
Why did Venger need their weapons of power? The Dragon’s Graveyard showed TONS of different weapons of power – in theory Venger could have gone there anytime to gather them.
I read the original writer’s theoretical last episode several years ago, and really enjoyed it. I recommend giving it a shot.
It seems there is a real fondness for this show here among the reader base, perhaps a limited run rewatch series might be in order?
@13 I think I know why Hank got such a good deal on his bow though, he took charisma as a dump stat to get it. Like a lot of party leaders, in this show and in general in kids tv (and in a lot of gaming groups too), he was just a bit generic and cardboard.
I remember having just read Joel Rosenberg’s “The Sleeping Dragon” which came out the same year and wondering if this show as a kids version of that book. The timing, however, was just too close for either to have been stolen from the other.
The show was slightly better than nothing, but it appeared to be run by someone who had only heard of D&D second or third hand (EGG might’ve been there at the creation, but I dunno about later). I know blood and gore isn’t Saturday cartoon fare (the “cleaner” deaths on Jonny Quest notwithstanding), but Eric’s lack of a weapon was stupid, Captain Cardboard’s bow had plot of the day powers, Sheila was underutilized, “Presto” was basically a random spell generator- hey, if they had been done right, they could’ve had much more interesting encounters.
And Diana, 16.6% of the party, was kickass.
But D&D had to contend with two issues then. One was the undeniable dork representation among players, but there was also urban legends taken seriously of players acting things out with deadly results. This may have affected viewership.
On a tangentially-related note, if you want to see what the Dragonlance movie should have been, track down the anime Record of Lodoss War (which I believe was actually based on the writer’s RPG campaign).
This show has many fans in Brazil. It came to Brazil in the 1980s, way before RPGs did (the first ones came in the late 1980s, but the boom in Brazilian RPG industry came in the mid-1990s). I see many cosplays of these characters in anime/RPG conventions I go to. I think a movie that showed how the series ended would get a lot of viewers here.
Regarding the lack of blood in the show, the show creators said this actually provided a good challenge to them. They had to invent ways for the kids to use their weapons to defeat their enemies other than directly attacking them (not that this didn’t happen sometimes), and was a good exercise in creativity. It was a good way to avoid boring fights where all everyone does is strike at each other until one falls.
I loved this show. Own it on DVD now (along with Dogtanian and Mysterious Cities of Gold – together the three greatest cartoons of my childhood). Bobby annoyed me as child and I always wanted Sheila to be more kick-ass. But I loved it regardless.
@13: I disagree. If you watch the entire series, you will get treated to scenes where each weapon/item truly shines in the hands of its wielder. During these moments, the uses are intuitive and well-timed, driving home the fact that each character deserves the item they were given. But if every episode had strings of these perfect moments, there would be no tension, no realism in their chance for failure. It would cease to be fantasy, instead becoming a cartoon of over-the-top Monty Haul campaigns. That would have gotten old, quick.
“Friends by Proxy”?
WTF is THAT about?
I loved this cartoon but found it paled against Record of the Lodoss War anime (both the OVA and TV series). Record showed what the cartoon could have been if there had been less meddling. There is a story that it was thanks to Pulling’s BADD (a right wing blame D&D for things it wasn’t at fault at) was the real reason the show got canned.
This show was so loved in S America a car commercial actually featured all the main characters. The kids are actually given a way home through the magic car ride. Its on the internet.
“Abandon bird!”
Bow was OP.
But yeah, I hear of Lodoss as “what D&D wants to be”, and Slayers as “what D&D actually is.”[1] I almost never hear about the actual D&D cartoon.
[1] Though supposedly Lodoss is based heavily on the writer’s actual campaign.