Today's Video Link

The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show was on CBS Saturday morning for three seasons starting in September of 1983. I had a lot to do with selling it to the network including writing the pilot and working out the format and characters. Then I went on to other things and left it to others, some of whom did some very fine work on it.

Whenever I mention it here, someone always writes in to ask me if it's true that it ended after three seasons because parents' groups were protesting its violent content and/on demonic imagery. No, that is not true. The protests were mild and the program ended, as most shows do, because the folks at the network did not think its ratings justified another season.

Someone also usually writes to ask if there was ever a "last" episode where the kids escaped the D&D world and got back to their own…and occasionally, someone writes to swear they saw such an episode on CBS. No, no such episode was ever produced. One of the writers on the series later wrote a script for such an episode but it was not produced until years later as a fan-funded venture. I do not endorse it and I wish they hadn't done that…but if you like it, fine.

The show is still fondly remembered and is rerun a lot in some countries. It's popular enough in Brazil that the folks who sell Renault automobiles down there spent a lot of money to make this commercial with actors (and CGI) bringing the animated characters to life. It probably had a larger budget than was spent making one or more seasons of the cartoon show and it's very well done. In fact, it's a better "ending" for the series than the fan-funded one…