Dungeons & Dragons is a Saturday morning cartoon that does not seem to have had the syndicated success that some of the other cartoons of its era enjoyed, but was certainly an interesting show. At least to my and my brother. I'm sure some if its popularity with us was due to the fact that our favorite babysitter happened to be familiar with the whole D&D scene and even ended up leaving us his multi-sided die collection (He left us with 4-, 8-, 12-, and 20-sided dies).
The premise of the show was that a group of kids were on a Dungeons & Dragons ride at an amusement park (don't ask me why an amusement park would have a D&D ride) and somehow got teleported over into the real realm of Dungeons & Dragons with each kid being assigned to a certain character class (Ranger, Thief, Acrobat, Barbarian, etc.)
Their main goal always was to return home again, but each week they needed to achieve some other objective either as a step towards their return home or as some kind of side quest that resulted from their desire to help everyone in their path or avoiding one of their several antagonists. Each week the Dungeon Master popped up and gave them some cryptic advice on how to try to get home next, only to disappear just as magically.
One of their enemies were Venger, a fairly evil looking dude who looked like the bad guy in Legend but with only one horn.
Another was Tiamat, the 5-headed chimera dragon with different heads that each spit different bad things (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Acid, and Toxic Gas).
I distinctly remember one episode where the kids managed to make it back to the amusement park, but one of their friends had been turned into a Merman of sorts, so they returned back because they didn't want him to have to remain a merman in the real world.
3 comments:
I wonder if you remember it because you were relieved that they finally got home, and then it was all ruined. I can imagine that a kid would really identify with that.
Oh, I'm sure that I was pretty sad for them. They finally made it back but they couldn't stay because their own friend had been turned into a fishman, so they went back to try to get him cured and then get back.
Out of curiosity, why do you say a kid would really identify with that?
I just mean that I think kids have a lot of fear about being torn from what they consider home. I did at least. I was always irrationally terrified of dying or my parents divorcing, and there's a lot more of a real possibility for that type of thing really happening now. So I could see a kid watching a cartoon where someone has finally made it back home and feeling really relieved for them. make sense?
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