Yesterday’s riff on Medieval weaponry got us thinking about one of of our favorite Saturday-morning shows of yore: the cartoon version of Dungeons & Dragons. To be totally honest, we were never really big on the game behind the series—guess we suffer from that whole lack-of-imagination thing, and thus needed moving images spoon-fed into our brains. But the cartoon was far from dreck—in viewing some clips this morning, we were struck by the sophistication of the acting and plotting (if not the animation itself). Children being spirited away by horned monsters to become salt-mine slaves? Very Temple of Doom, albeit without the infamous “heart scene.” We shudder to think about how we might have developed differently had the writers gotten their way and made the show several notches darker.
Norm De Plume // Jul 8, 2009 at 4:14 pm
One of the first pieces of art that really hit me on an emotional level was the episode of Dungeons & Dragons wherein Bobby the Barbarian met and fell in love with a girl from Earth. I was 10, but when she and Bobby went their separate ways at the end, I’m not ashamed to say I cried like a baby. I guess I dreamt that one day I, too, would meet a girl who accepted me despite my tendency to wear fur underwear and a horned helmet.
Brendan I. Koerner // Jul 8, 2009 at 4:23 pm
@Norm de Plume: If you haven’t already, you should def. check out the last link in the post. It leads to an account from one of D&D’s writers ’bout how they tried to make the show even more heartfelt/bittersweet/challenging, but were eventually overruled by their corporate overlords.
For the most part, I realize now that most cartoon fare from my youth was really low-quality–you’ll never convince me that the writers of He-Man cared about anything other than selling toys. But D&D was different.