1983 9:30 on CBS: DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

The Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon that debuted at 9:30 on CBS in 1983 was a historically significant milestone for Saturday Mornings on many levels, and I hope I can keep my thoughts collected/organized enough to convey the importance of this cartoon to you.

First of all, it was a milestone for the team at Marvel Productions. Since their inception just over a year ago, their cartoons fell in to two categories - Marvel Super Heroes, and Hanna-Barbera Rejects. When they made animation for established Marvel super-hero properties it was a huge hit, but when they tried to make original stuff like the other big names of Saturday Mornings we got forgettable stuff like "Pandamonium" and "Spaghetti & Meatballs". Dungeons & Dragons was their first non-comics property to become a HIT, consistently winning in the ratings for it's time slot for its first two seasons against shows such as Pac-Man and The Smurfs!

Second, it was a milestone in Voice Acting. This show had a star-studded cast full of folks who were actually on prime-time television shows at the time! Willy Ames from "Charles In Charge" (as well as movies and other TV shows at the time), Donny Most ("Ralph Mouf" from Happy Days) and Adam Rich (from "Eight Is Enough"), all considered to be "real actors", provided lead character voices for this show (Hank, Eric and Presto). Unlike other celebrity voice acting in cartoons, this was a real novelty to have professional actors providing voices for characters that they didn't already play on another show - the cast from Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy provided the voices for their animated counterparts, but never for original characters like this.

Third, it was the first (and as far as I have been able to tell, the ONLY) cartoon that the National Coalition on Television Violence (BOOO! HISS!) demanded that the FTC run a warning during each broadcast stating that "Dungeons & Dragons had been linked to real-life violent deaths". Their demand was ignored, but it had the effect of many scripts never even making it to the storyboard stage. As a result, the orders for new episodes each season kept dwindling - 13 episodes the first season, 8 for the second season, 6 for the third season. Basically, they starved the audience away :(

Fourth, this show had one of the best legends of all the Saturday Morning Cartoons, namely a fabled FINAL EPISODE that never aired but many kids SWORE they had seen it. The final un-produced episode would have revealed that the latter is Dungeon Master's corrupted son, and would have explained that the children were brought into the realm to help redeem Venger and restore balance. Want to read it? It's right here AND they even made an audio play of it for the deluxe DVD release of the full series so go pick that up if you're interested!

Comments

[deepseasiren.livejournal.com]

THIS REMAINS ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE CARTOON SERIES. I could watch it even today. Thanks for letting us know there's a DVD set of this!! And yeah, I wondered what the hell happened to the final episode...I was so disappointed they didn't air it!!

[overcommitter.livejournal.com]

The finale was never filmed, but they did have a viewmaster reel for it......unless I'm not remembering that correctly.

[man-of-snows.livejournal.com]

This was my number one favorite cartoon as a child. So much so, a friend bought me the entire DVD set of it a few years ago when he saw it at...HALF PRICE BOOKS!

Great cartoon

[tim silvers (from livejournal.com)]

This is often one of those overlooked 80's cartoons. The show is amazing, with great voice acting, as you mentioned, plus terrific animation and storytelling. It is too bad that the show only saw 27 episodes in its run. The early DVD set is the best, but difficult to find, and expensive on the back market. The Mill Creek sets have all of the episodes, which look great, but you don't get the nice packaging and extras.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Not much to say here, other than this show is near and dear to my heart. :)

-TG