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Television Media

'Dungeons and Dragons' Returns! 142

Posted by emmett from the cavalier-and-acrobat dept.
dane23 writes: "Saw this over at AICN. Looks like my favorite Saturday morning cartoon from childhood is returning to TV. 'Dungeons and Dragons' is going to be run on the Fox Kids channel this summer. Times are 11:00 Eastern and 10:00 Central and Pacific." I saw this when I was watching cartoons yesterday, and I immediately called all my friends that remembered the original. I can't wait. Now only if they would bring back "Pole Position" and "Lazer Tag Academy."
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'Dungeons and Dragons' Returns! More

'Dungeons and Dragons' Returns!

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  • Mom!! How did you find me!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ,.,.

  • AD&D (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I not play D&D when I was young. I play Go Fish. Glad they never made cartoon of that. Very boring.

    Sergio

  • Script of the final (never aired) episode (Score:3)

    by tamyrlin ( 51 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @02:57AM (#1114524) Homepage
    A quick search at yahoo revealed a couple of Dungeons and Dragons fansites. At least one of them had a link to this site which should be interesting to you. It has the script of the last episode that was never produced:
    http://www.mindspring.com/~michaelreaves/D&Dpref ace.html

    And btw, If I was a moderator I would moderate you down to (Score:-5 Spoiler...) :)
  • Anyone remember the movie, `Mages and Monsters'? Tom Hanks did a pretty good job playing an obsessed roleplayer going to far with his character, grin. Kind of reminds me of some people I know.
  • I pretty much just remeber the scene where he walks down an alley and some guys try to mug him, but through his eyes you see a monster standing there and he stabs the guy. Haha.

    There was another movie that was almost the same thing: Kids get way into roleplaying and go overboard, parents freak out. Blah Blah.

    I guess I would rather have my kids getting obsessed with roleplaying/muds then discovering some syringes and a dead hooker stuffed somewhere in their room.
  • I am who I am. Why should I care about what people think of me? I'll talk about MajorMUD in a club or bar and I really don't care what people say. I talk about Linux in public within earshot. Oh no! And you know what? I don't care if it makes *you* look bad either. Nya nya nya!
  • Oh, that one was below the belt. But come to think of it now, you are partially right on the Darwinian theory... Basically all the club-trash would want to avoid me, thus resulting in me less likely of getting an STD that night. Whereas a girl that really found me attractive wouldn't be such a sociopath about who she likes or sleeps with. Thus, all the self-conscience people who watach what they say in public just so they can get a chance to pass on their genes is more likely to catch something bad and die off sooner, and people like me would eventually find someone they really like anyway.
  • Just a guess, but I bet that you would find the same percentage of crazies that you would find in the general populace... but nobody ever does any metrics like that, since you get more attention just saying "D&D is from the devil!"

    Being geekly gamers, on the first gaming day of each year we used to roll 6 d10s to determine whether that year we would become mass-murderers, devil-worshippers, etc. Not sure of the exact rolls for most stuff, although I think getting 3 sixes made one a devil worshipper.

  • D&D! (Score:1)

    by mholve ( 1101 )
    I always liked Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (first edition) as a role-playing game. It was the most advanced (or certainly the most thourough) RPG ever. I still have all the stuff. I even wrote a small program in Turbo C that generated chars on the fly with all the values. Simply print-n-play.

    I remember "back in the day" when the media/parents tried blaming D&D for their kid's behavior. Pretty interesting. As such, it should be interesting to see the sping they put on this show in light of that. Will it be watered down? Will it be Pokemon'ed?

  • Melee? (Score:1)

    by mholve ( 1101 )
    Sounds familiar... I remember an add-on package for AD&D from Ice... Ice-something. It was pretty crazy and was a little overboard even for AD&D rules - but it took into account weapon weight, training, etc. Totally realistic, if combat was your schtick, but not terribly playable.
  • does anyone remember a show called something like:

    "Deep Space High" or something like that? It was on during the 80's. It was a cartoon about a high school in space with all of these aliens, and their was this dog that looked all cute and cuddly, but when you walked up to it it was ferocious and huge. You walked away and it was fuzzy and cute again. I know that isn't much detail, but that's about all i can remember...

    / k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films [homepage.com] /

  • Most anime is different from American television. Even if the anime show is toyetic, the cartoon is deep; I've been watching Gundam Wing and amazed at the detail for a story that is basically advertizing mech units. Dragonball Z is the same way; sure, that show has a problem with making a 20 minute battle last 40 episodes (or so it seems), but characters and interactions are deep.

    Of course, there is no real comparison in American TV. *Maybe* Gargoyles, but I'm pretty sure Disney put out the toon before the toys. *Maybe* the earlier GI Joe and Transformers seasons, but this is somewhat a stretch.

  • Half the problem in getting the non-HB 70s and 80s toons is the rights. As pointed out, DIC is sitting on a lot of them, including Inspector Gadget (although I believe Nick got the rights to this.). Filmation is also sitting on the 'other bunch' of them, including The Real Ghostbusters (that is, *not* the one with the gorilla), and CN being a smaller cable network, doesn't quite have the funds to afford these. Of course, internal politics between Turner and WB doesn't help to a great extent. CN's been rather slow in getting WB, and only now will CN be the only network allowed to run the classic Looney Tunes.

    However, the other half of the problem is that the people at CN are HB worshippers, including the flagship of the HB universe: Scooby Doo. Right now, CN airs 33 hrs a week of Scooby Doo. Yes, 33 hrs. It's understandable that right now in the teenage group, Scooby Doo is nice and retro but it's getting old way too fast; I suspect that the slow speed that the live action Scooby Doo movie is being put out (the one that Mike Myers is involved) will be on the edge of the lapse of interest in Scooby Doo, and it will run into trouble because of that. But in any case, a network that shows 33 hrs of Doo means that they have to sacrifice a lot for other shows. Many cartoon enthusiasts are upset at how CN is being run today. Sure, in a matter of time things will flatten out, but it's the waiting that's killing everyone.

  • Why is D&D coming back? Answer obvious... (Score:4)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @02:12AM (#1114535)
    Ok, so FOX kids is placing an old D&D in prime kid advertizing space (mind you, I like the cartoon). There's at least 3 good reasons for this:

    There is a D&D movie scheduled to come out this November. No real details on this.

    TSR has released on CD ROM most of the stuff for 2nd edition (If I remember what I read in GAMES magazine right). Also, unrelated, 25 years of Dragon magazine is also out on CD rom similar to the MAD collection a while back.

    Finally, the 3rd edition of AD&D is soon to be released.

    Now, while I do like the cartoon, to push the blatent commercialism makes me sick, especially since at the beginning of the 90s, we were moving away from so-called "toyetic" cartoons ("toyetic" meaning to be centered around the commercialism for a toy; He-Man was a prime example of this). But now, toyetic cartoons are back, Pokemon leading the way, but followed by Max Steel on Kids WB and other such shows. This type of entertainment is not enjoyable, and doesn't have the same corniness and fun that those mid-to-late 80s cartoons had.

    If FOX kids was just bringing it for no good reason I would praise them, but this is blatent commercialism.


  • >Digimon and any other cartoon are for fags!!

    So sayth the the lover of teletubbies...
  • The same thing will also never come true for my other wish, that of mtv bring back all of it's 80's content to be shown late nights when they dont have anything on and could actually score some ad cash from all of us 'kids' remebering our "big hair" phase.

    It's bad enough that MTV hardly plays videos except for maybe during ``120 minutes'' (from what I hear). We don't need MTV playing music videos only during what radio industry critics refer to as ``ghetto'' hours.


    --
  • Fiend Folio, Dieties and Demigods (the blueish cover wth I believe Odin on it), Manual of the Planes... Not sure about the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides though. They sound familliar but they've been put away for a long time now. :-)

  • I'm not sure if I have the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides though. They sound familliar but they've been put away for a long time now. :-)

    My dad was the same way. He never saw use in all this fantasy playing. I'm not really sure if there was use in it, but it did do wonders for my creative writing and visualization skills!

    I think the hardest part of being a DM was creating original scenarios that actually were challenging and about as realistic as you could do in a fantasy world. I didn't worry too much about weight restrictions and the like (I just used common sense) but often enough the players would get seriously injured or died because the players didn't really follow my original thinking.

    It's tough work bringing together a half dozen people and trying to create a world big and detailled enough to keep them occupied for a weekend. :-) They'd left on more than one occassion complaining of nightmares a few days later. Demonic puppets (the wooden dummy kind) haunt me to this day. :-)

  • Demon on the DM's Manual? Must be very first release of the 1st edition.

    I have, in mint condition, the reprint of all of the 1st series of manuals. These are not the shitty 2nd edition ruleset, with rewritten rules for THAC0 and the like, but a reprint of the 1st edition.

    What's all there... Player's Handbook, DM's guide (the one with the warlock in the green robe), Monster Manuals I, II and III, Unearthed Arcana and three or four others which were a little more specialized (one of them was for orient-centric adventures and characters, can't remember the name of this one). I believe there was also a Diety manual. God I miss AD&D.

    My friend's brother was a fanatic about it and, being 8 years older than the rest of us, got us hooked. Of course, all my friends hated being DM, so I did it. If I look around hard enough, I'm sure I'll find maps of my cities, forests, character and NPC sheets, plot outlines... And my dice. I gotta find my dice. :-)

  • Aw! (Score:2)

    by jjohn ( 2991 )
    You killed my elf!

    :-D
  • Actually, it was called Galaxy High... It was a CBS cartoon [don't know who produced it] but was on during the same era of the Teen-Wolf Cartoon.

    I think I can still remember most of the chars and the theme song...

    Oh man... not on a monday morning
  • The lost cities of gold, Ulysses 31, Inspector gadget, The sunken worlds (I'm not sure this is the actual American title?), and Jayce are all the work of a French company called D.I.C, lead by Jean Chalopin. They're probably still holding the rights to those cartoons.. I am actually pondering buying rights of one of them, in a couple years if what I'm doing right now works out as expected.

    There are rumors of a follow-up series to the lost cities of gold (they still had 6 to find :), and a movie being made out of Ulysses 31..

    I'm not a particularily nostalgic person, but my friends and I keep talking about the fact that there were *really* good cartoons in our childhood such as the ones above, with well thought-out plots and characters; I'm 24 now, but I surprise myself remembering the title songs :) Today it's Pokemon. Ah well, as long as children enjoy it, it's all that matters :)
  • Yes, The Lost Cities of Gold is that cartoon with esteban, zia and tao (the little kids) and mendoza (the adult) .. And I forgot the other ones; with all that Inca and Aztek technology driven by the sun; the great condor (the giant bird made of gold), the solaris (the sun-driven boat), etc. At least it taught children about those south-american civilizations, even if it extrapolated a little bit what they could have done :)

    Btw, the whole series is available on VHS (no DVD yet, stupid people!). In Europe anyway :)
  • Hehe, and she was the typical female cartoon/movie character (as in, not as the same as real life, take note): getting kidnapped, trapped, imprisoned, or in big danger some way or other, so that the male heroes had to go rescue her :) Did you have that sequence after each episode, with some voice-off explaining some details of things they found in the episode? We had that in France..

    I'm surprised of the popularity of those cartoons (ulysses 31, lost cities of gold, inspector gadget, jayce..) btw. Before going to the US a few years ago I never thought they had left the French ground :)
  • I remember wishing I could have one of those phone/medallions and have to escape from school at a moment's notice. Yeah, G-force was great. Of course Robotech aired here shortly after and that became my new cartoon obsession later in high school. Still have a big glossy poster of Rick Hunter in my closet somewhere.

    Speaking of Jayce and the wheeled warriors, I had the biggest crush on Flora.

    Of course all of the Saturday morning americanized anime gets blown away by NGE, Lain, Slayers, etc. :)

    -P
  • Heh. If you like Gundam Wing, you should seriously look at some other anime series. Evangelion and Escaflowne for starters. Maybe Lain as well, though it's kind of wierd and creepy.

    As for good American shows, Gargoyles (well, for a year or two), Batman and while it's Canadian, ReBoot (particularly seasons 2 and 3).
  • That would be Ganiax's "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water" which _is_ incredibly good, though I honestly don't recall the whole series being translated and easily available in the US. Streamline was doing it half-heartedly at about the time that they went to hell.

    It's kind of similar to their later series, "Neon Genesis Evangelion" but not so exceptionally strange.

    Now, does anyone remember a French cartoon that was on Nickelodeon years ago, called "Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea"?
  • Now what's really sad is that the later episodes of "Gummi Bears" were very good - the whole quest for the lost Gummi civilization thing.

    I have no idea, but I suspect that a fair number of the writers went on to do Gargoyles.
  • eh, Danger Mouse was superior to Count Duckula in so many ways though. I still can't help but smile when I think of "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God"
  • Meh. ADV needs to release it on DVD if they want me to buy it. (I do buy fansubs on tape, but I'll only buy commercial DVDs.)

    And they _really_ need to not go around calling commercial tapes Fansubs, when they're NOT. It's confusing as hell. Call 'em Subs for Fans, if they really have to be distinguished at all.
  • The same thing will also never come true for my other wish, that of mtv bring back all of it's 80's content to be shown late nights when they dont have anything on and could actually score some ad cash from all of us 'kids' remebering our "big hair" phase.

    At the very least, bring back Remote Control [imdb.com]! This was 70's nostalgia before it was cool (even back then, I loathed it. Freakin' Brady Channel...). You figure MTV would try this again in the wake of Millionare (why not? Everyone else is doing it). I guess it's because it doesn't appeal to 15 year old girls...

    Maybe Comedy Central could revive this next to Win Ben Stein's Money. =)

  • You too huh? I think I have every hardcover book ever released for the 1st edition. Let me see if I can list them all here, just for fun:

    Players Handbook
    Dungeon Masters Guide (green robe one, not the even more ancient efreet/City of Brass one)
    Monster Manual (original cover)
    Monster Manual II
    Fiend Folio
    Dieties & Demigods (original cover)
    Unearthed Arcana
    Oriental Adventures
    Wilderness Survival Guide
    Dungeoneers Survival Guide
    Greyhawk Legends
    Dragonlance (forget the exact title of this one)
    Manual of the Planes (not 100% sure if this is the right title)

    My dad kept telling me to throw them away! Never I say. :)
  • Please please please bring back Fraggle Rock! God I miss comming home from school, and hoping the old guy gets eaten by his muppet dog.
  • Two points: A) There is more to the world than the US, WhoTF cares if some cartoon is returning to US screens? /. has been getting American-centric recently, but this is borderline offensive. 2) D&D blows - it's dreadful. Give me Record of the Lodoss Wars any time.

  • A D&D Movie is in production. See D&D's new owners' website [wizards.com].

    It stars Jimmy, the young photographer from 'Lois & Clark', and one of the chicks from Sliders, as well as Jeremy Irons (obEvilBritActor, bad guy in 'Die Hard with a Vengeance').

    D.

  • The series never really ended since the last episode (of the season) was never produced. Michael Reaves, one of the shows writers, put up the last episode's transcript that he wrote for the show. It's really a pretty interesting read and tells a lot about venger.

    You can also take a look at one of the best D&D (the cartoon) web sites here. She has some original "choose your own adventures" under the books link along with a bunch of other cool stuff.
  • The series never really ended since the last episode (of the season) was never produced. Michael Reaves, one of the shows writers, put up the last episode's transcript that he wrote for the show. It's really a pretty interesting read and tells a lot about venger.

    You can also take a look at one of the best D&D (the cartoon) web sites here. She has some original "choose your own adventures" under the books link along with a bunch of other cool stuff.

    (sorry about the double post with broken links)
  • last episode's transcript [mindspring.com]
    show related website [geocities.com].
    "choose your own adventures" [geocities.com]
    (still sorry about the tripple post with broken links)
  • Kind of reminds me of me when I was younger :) IIRC that was one of Tom Hanks first movies...he couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 when it was filmed. Unfortunately I also seem to remember my parents seeing it, and afterwards setting me down for a long talk on why "roleplaying games are evil" and how I should always avoid that "awful Dungeons And Dragons game" bacause it was satanic.

    The funny thing is, I really don't think she ever put two and two together...she actually used to make my friends and I lunch when we had our weekend-long "DND" games :) She thought "DND" was a creative storytelling game that promoted imagination and creativity, but Dungeons And Dragons was a devil worshippers game full of evil incantations and brainwashing. If she only knew...
  • Wow...a Dungeons and Dragons episode script...that takes its setup from the Book of Job. And to think they say that D&D is anti-Christian...

  • Mazes & Monsters? (Score:3)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @09:30AM (#1114562) Homepage
    Completely fictional. Or rather, based off a completely fictionalized version of what happened to the kid who allegedly "snapped". He snapped, yeah, but it had more to do with drugs, and less to do with D&D. D&D did not figure in his snapping, nor did he go around thinking people were monsters.

    URL: http://mypage.direct.ca/c/crm114/dallas.html [direct.ca]

    I believe this to be a tolerably accurate summary of the issues in that case.


  • Yoda allways reminded me a little of the Dungeon Master.
    That was one cool show, another stand out I remember and wouldn't mind seeing again is Thundar the Barbarian.
    or how about Darkstar, or even The groovie Ghoulies, or How about those live shows like Jason of Star Command or even Space Academy?
    There's too many good shows just sitting in a vault somewhere just collecting dust.
  • Thats really hard to say.
    Actually since no one in human history has ever actually talked to a cartoon and asked it's opinion about things like homosexuality, politics, religion ect...
    it's really hard to say just what cartoons are really for or in favor of :)
  • Children of the Sun,
    See your time has just begun,
    Searching for your ways
    Through adventures every day.
    Every day and night
    With the condor in flight
    With all your friends in tow,
    You search for the Cities of Gold.

    aaah-ah-ah-ah-aah
    Wishing for the Cities of Gold
    aaah-ah-ah-ah-aah
    Someday we will find
    The Cities of Gold.

    do-do-do-de-do
    aaah-aah-aah
    do-do-do-de-do
    Cities of Gold
    do-do-do-de-do
    Cities of Gold

    aaah-ah-ah-ah-aah
    Someday we will find
    The Cities of Gold...

    ******************
    I will never get this damn
    tune out of my head....

  • I can't recall much of the words, but that tune is still stuck in my brain after like 10 years!

    We're the pirates upon the high seas
    and we do such incredible deeds
    blah blah blahblah blah blaahhh blablahhh
    yo ho ho
    yo ho ho

    I'm trippin'!

  • Where have all the other cartoons gone? (Score:3)

    by Anime Man ( 20993 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @12:38AM (#1114567)
    Now that D&D will be coming back to the small screen, I can only pray that someone is smart enough of is rich enough from a software IPO to buy the rights to The Lost City Of Gold. That cartoon was a masterpiece in almost everyway.

    You had great writing (a rarity among 80's 'toons or any for that matter) that really made you think that these people were real and that were multi-dimentional.

    The main story and even the episode plots were brilliant. I remember after each episode wishing that I was there with the kids and run arround the backyard of my grandparents house pretending.

    And another great thing about the series was the fact that it was a very beautifuly animated. It was in that Anime style of the 80's that we all love (or hate). The action scenes from what I remember were very vivid in colors and style.

    But what really bothers me is that i've only met a hand full of people that remember the show. But all of them loved it and would give their right testicle to see the series again.

    I kinda wish Cartoon Network would shell out some dough for the series and all of the other cool 80s cartoons we grew up on (so far they have a nice spectrum of the 70s so I wont go into that) and have "80's Weekends" or even late nights. They could pull in so much money from the advertisers from all of us geeks that would actually watch it faithfully (look at Toonami and how big and profitable is became).

    But internal politics at CN (as always with all Tunner owned channels) and many other reasons will make sure this dream never come to fruition.

    The same thing will also never come true for my other wish, that of mtv bring back all of it's 80's content to be shown late nights when they dont have anything on and could actually score some ad cash from all of us 'kids' remebering our "big hair" phase.

    Anyways thats it for my bi-annual posting to /. . I mainly never post because i already know my posts will never get read let alone a score of 1 or more and that there has never been a topic that has gotten me out of 'lurker mode'.

    Anyways comments would be nice, but money and/or food would be better. Thanks.
  • The trouble is, there IS a bit of truth to be found in this fear. The film Mazes and Monsters was supposedly (loosely) based off of a real-life event (students ran live-action roleplaying games in the university's steam tunnels, one snapped). I've met a rare handfull of people who might be candidates for more such movies. For a very, very small few there might be some kind of danger. But then, I would question whether it is DnD or something else that has put them in that state of mind.

    Just a guess, but I bet that you would find the same percentage of crazies that you would find in the general populace... but nobody ever does any metrics like that, since you get more attention just saying "D&D is from the devil!"

    For me and thousands of others, role playing games have been (and sometimes still are) a constructive and enjoyable form of entertainment.

    I hear you. :)

    Cool story about your relatives.
  • Being geekly gamers, on the first gaming day of each year we used to roll 6 d10s to determine whether that year we would become mass-murderers, devil-worshippers, etc. Not sure of the exact rolls for most stuff, although I think getting 3 sixes made one a devil worshipper.

    d6s increase the odds. :)
  • Heh... I saw an ad for this yesterday when I was smoking pot and watching DigiMon. Which they promptly interrupted for that god damn Elian Gonzales bullshit. I'm fucking sick of that little kid interrupting my damn TV shows. What's the big deal, anyway?
  • Maybe I've not yet had enough caffeine this morning - and this is bound to get moderated down (and might even cost me some karma too), but:-

    [mild rant]
    I find it crazy that /. run this story (which, let's face it is about a cartoon series on TV), yet only a couple of weeks ago /. kicked up such a fuss about NOT wanting to run a story on the falling prices of tech stocks.

    I don't even own a TV (and ain't done so for some years now) - which (I know) makes me have a slightly different world-view and value-set to most geeks - but this is not the D&D Role-Playing Game that we used to play, it is just a cartoon......

    And whilst not many of us own tech stocks, when the whole tech industry looses so much (perceived) market value in such a short space of time it could affect our lives....
    [/mild rant]

    (Maybe I'm just getting old...?)

    fRoGG

  • New from /.

    Slashdot TV guide.
    Bringing you the latest crap programmes that are being broadcast on television stations on the other side of the planet.
  • I was complaining more about the US-centricity of the post (and or /.).

    So if I posted something about "Spaced" (possibly one of the best surreal comedies with a Sci fi link) being repeated on UK Play on Sundays at 11pm, would it get posted?

    Nooooo. It's not a US station.
    Yes /. is based in the US, but it is not only for US things.
  • I posted this last time this movie came up in a discussion too, but that was months ago..

    http://www.broadcast.com/video/ ListenPages/ma/3471/ [broadcast.com] for an online version of the movie (RealPlayer G2 and Windows Media Player only).

    Being a roleplayer I find the movie (and the book it was based on) lousy from a factual point of view, but it's amusing none the less.

    Adam

  • Doyle was the high school star
    Everybody said that he'd go far
    But he wasn't very good in the classes he took
    No, he just wasn't interested in his books

    Aimee was the smartest girl in school
    Not very popular, not very cool
    Two kids will be chosen from Earth
    To go to school at Galaxy High

    Travelling millions of miles in space
    To go to school in a far-off place
    Aimee is the sweetheart, Doyle's got a lot to learn
    Here at Galaxy High

    (Galaxy High! Galaxy High! Galaxy High!)

    Thank you for the spark of recognition here so I could relieve my brain of that useless bit of theme song. Now if you'll please tell me when my important appointment is today (I believe the theme song memory blocked out anything reasonably short-term), I'd be grateful.


  • I was shocked to open the story and not find a 15 page phycho-geek-analasis on why geeks like D&D. :)

    On the light note, I must admit that between Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and the Dukes of Hazard, they must of been my favorite childhood shows. I also remember how excited I was to see the first PacMan Cartoon! (Geez, waking up at 6:30am to watch cartoons!!) .. is it any different to stay up till 3:00am hacking on a fun project.. probably same feeling. :)

  • Oh man, do I feel old!? The cartoons I remember growing up with were of the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner variety. Ugh. I never even SAW any of these "D&D" and "Lazer tag" cartoons.

  • You want the really simple answer?

    Try here [netscape.com]

    Of course this only makes sense if you know that TSR was bought by WOTC a while back.

    --
  • I've been watching GW too. I thought I had it figured out and then everybody changed sides, now (like the pilots) "I'm not sure who I'm fighting for anymore." Regardless I have added a Gundam F-91 model to my toy shelf at work. For a plastic snap-together model the thing is pretty cool, and way more poseable than my dinosour Megatron and QuakeII action figures...

    I'll disagree with DBZ being any sort of "deep" though, the action is fun, but the characters are pretty shallow.
    --

  • OFFTOPIC: Hello?! Mountains?! (Score:4)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @04:47AM (#1114581) Homepage Journal
    Times are 11:00 Eastern and 10:00 Central and Pacific."

    Dangit, I live in the "Mountain" time zone. Nobody ever tells us when stuff is on. It's discrimination and it needs to stop now. (Either that or do the obvious thing and just post it on the Net and I'll watch it when I dang well please)

    --
  • Ah, damnit, now someone had to go and make Shadowrun look stupid, as if the product couldn't do it by itself, despite the attempts of the players.

    What a drekhead.
  • Wait... a second...
    Inspector gadget was french?

    Ahrrrg... I always knew something was worng with it back in what.. 83 or so when I watched... I figured itwas Canadian.... Maybe Austrailian.. or something similar.. But French!!!! No!... That simply cannot be.. Arg.. my Whole view of reality was shattered... I mean... It tooks me a few years to figure out that Danger Mouse Was British... (Yes I was a slow child..)
  • But what really bothers me is that i've only met a hand full of people that remember the show. But all of them loved it and would give their right testicle to see the series again.

    Count me as one of those.. None of my friends seem to remember this show, but I do.. Fondly enough that I wondered to myself, "Hey I wonder if that Disney movie is based on the show.. maybe I should go see it.."
  • I remember the pamphlets my grandparents sent me from their church. All about the evils and dangers of "Dungeons and Dragons". Pretty much chock-full of misinformation. And a good life lesson - even those we know and trust can be mislead by their good intentions.

    Thankfully, my parents also showed enough concern to take a look at the games I was playing. Although they weren't wholey thrilled at them (being a bit more "mature" in subject then they liked), they did note that it didn't do any harm. Eventually, they were more concerned that I would upset my grandparents than DnD ruining my life.

    Its actually rather interesting how the anti-DnD crowd could manipulate fears. I met my future inlaws and wife on a local MUD. My inlaws were big puzzle and adventure game fans. Yet a couple of years later, my mother-in-law had attended one of these "education seminars" at the local school and began voicing concern over role playing games. I was shocked. Here was a paper-and-pen version of what she herself had enjoyed for as long as I knew her. And yet she was concerned for the safety of her own daughter (not the one I married). I had a long discussion with her and eventually her own experience kicked in and the paranoia droped down a few notches.

    The trouble is, there IS a bit of truth to be found in this fear. The film Mazes and Monsters was supposedly (loosely) based off of a real-life event (students ran live-action roleplaying games in the university's steam tunnels, one snapped). I've met a rare handfull of people who might be candidates for more such movies. For a very, very small few there might be some kind of danger. But then, I would question whether it is DnD or something else that has put them in that state of mind.

    For me and thousands of others, role playing games have been (and sometimes still are) a constructive and enjoyable form of entertainment.

    For hundreds of "professionals" and morally charged do-gooders activities like role playing (and Quake as a different example) is an unknown - best get it all with the same brush.

  • Taste is an individualistic thing. We all like different things. And perhaps nostalgia plays a strong role. To each their own. Having said that... I hated the DnD cartoon.

    Oh. I was plenty excited about it when I had first heard that they were creating it. I awaited eagerly for a Sat. morning rendition of a cherished hobby. Warriors, magic users, elves, and dwarves... battling horrific creatures found crawling the dank passages of a dungeon or perhaps narrowly escaping an ambush of Orcs in a dark forest. Adventure. Puzzles. Fantastic tales and amazing, treasured artifacts. All the stuff of good Fantasy.

    That's not what the DnD cartoon delivered.

    What we got was a popular commercial property shoe-horned in to the typical American cartoon formula: regular kids get dumped in to a strange world, are each given a unique power, and fight a bad guy for whom all the events in this strange world seem to revolve around.

    Homogenized action-figure selling fun. As much story line and complexity as He-Man.

    Oh. Boy. How. Exciting. And. New.

    And what a waste of the "Dungeons and Dragons" name.

    One can only hope that the DnD movie due out won't fall in to Yet Another Formula.

  • And as for books, check out the Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, by Elizabeth Moon.
    I've read a book or two of the series. Good stuff. It might be noted that Elizabeth Moon was an officer in the US Marines. Her books seem to reflect some of her military experiences coupled with a fairly well done "realistic" fantasy setting.

    Highly recommended.

  • YES!!! Danger Mouse rocked! I used to have a tape of DM shows... can't find it though :(

    Crikee![sp?]

    Ender

  • That show simply kicked @$$! In my area it was on for about three weeks until the "new" Voltron came out (the one with the *vehicles* not the *lions*).

    Oh, and nobody could lay the smack down like Thundarr! I'm still trying to remember his sidekick's names. There was the wizard and Umlok (?). Dang, what WERE they?!
  • Heh, I'm 22 and still love toons :-) :-) Man, I remember Darkstar! Holy cow...am I showing my age? I was just thrilled when YTV, around 1990, had all these old cartoons on before they picked up Nickleodeon shows (Catdog? Pleeeez) I was just thrilled to see them again - the Lone Ranger, Blackstar, Count Duckula (whimper!), Spartacus...all those Filmation toons that are quite gathering dust I imagine.
  • But do you have Deities and Demigods? The first print run, with the deities from the Elric fantasy series in it?

    You betcha, when it first came out. And I remember vividly a copy of it being shown on a Televangelist show (Paul & Jan Crouch, I think) while they railed that all these pagan evil gawds were listed, but not JESUS!

    And I remember thinking "well just how many hit points do ya recon Jesus has, anyhow?"

    (Must not be many... only took a few 1st level Romans to nail'em up on that cross... talk about a gyp, being the Son 'O Jehova and only getting 1d6 HP!)
  • Cities of gold was really a cool cool one ! Started like an historic story, then ended up with plenty of sci-fi stuff mixed with old myths !

    Secret of blue water (I think that's the title) was also a really good anime in the historic/sci-fi but with a J. Vernes theme.
  • Now, does anyone remember a French cartoon that was on Nickelodeon years ago, called "Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea"?

    Well in France it was called "Les mondes engloutis" (the sunken worlds) - was pretty good too !
  • I loved that show. What surprised me was to see monsters from Fiend Folio featured on the show(which were some of the most bizarre monsters ever).

    Now only if they would rebroadcast OrBots.
  • Ok, everyone who thinks Gargoyles handled the D&D theme better than Dungeons and Dragons the cartoon, raise your hand.

    Ok, I know what people will say, Gargoyles (except for a few notable episodes) took place mostly in modern times. However, please note that all the characters in Dungeons and Dragons the cartoon series, there were a bunch of modern kids who got all their powers handed to them on a silver platter. I mean, if you watch Gargoyles you see how MacBeth became such a powerful fighter and how Demona became such a powerful mage.

    Besides which, I loved the episode of Gargoyles where the Arch-Mage returns to take revenge on Goliath. Of course it's directly stolen from Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps," but then that's what I like about it ^_^

    This is not intended to slam the D&D cartoon, but when it first came out it always drove me nuts how _unlike_ actual D&D it was. It was more like Captain N.

    One Two Three Four... will this start a flame war?

  • Heck with the Elric series. That run had Cthulhu Mythos in it! Hastur Hastur Hastur!


  • Where are the exploding hit points?
    ...the Sword +5s of Instant Dismemberment?
    ...the 5000 1 hit dice monster battles?
    ...the semi-pr0n artwork?
    ...the characters with all 18s?
    ...the fudged dice rolls (all 10,000 of them)?
    ...the arbitrary DM rulings?
    ...the players quitting in the middle of session to go smoke a bowl?

    Bah...that's what you get when you cheapen and commercialize a national treasure like D&D...

    telnet://bbs.ufies.org
    Trade Wars Lives

  • Duh... (Score:1)

    by a2fan ( 63460 )
    Duh, this is the original cartoon. What was old is new again. Wonder why they brought back this old wimpy cartoon? Could it have anything to do with the D&D movie coming later this year? Nah, couldn't be.
  • Space Academy [yesterdayland.com]! OMG! Thank you! I have been trying to find the name of this show for YEARS!!! Everytime I ask someone if they remember a show in the late 70's, set in space/asteroid, I get blank stares!
    Whew, I'm glad thats over. Now on to finding the Ultimate Question. :)

    Later...
  • Yes! Bring back the Mighty OrBots!

    That was easily my favorite cartoon of that period, inching just ahead of Dungeons and Dragons.

    I'm geek: my computer starts to the sound of the OrBots theme. ;)

    --Ruhk
  • HOLY SHIT! I was just thinking about MASK the other day...couldn't remember the name of the show, but I do remember those toys were really shoddily made...would break in your hands...
  • i agree that most new cartoons suck, but there are a few that are actually quite good. for example, starship troopers: roughnecks. it is pretty much just a continuation of the book, and people DIE in it. and have you ever seen any toys for it? i am also rather excited about d&d.
  • ....are you referring to cartoons such as "Gummi Bears", "Pac-Man", and "Rubik the Amazing Cube?"

    What's even more sad is that I watched all three of those...

  • Only with the current rules for .us domains. Businesses could be allowed to use companyname.com.us. Japan and the UK do this and it works fine. Non-profits and other entities could still be required to classify under the most local subdomain they can, if that's the way the US wants its domain run.

  • There are rumors of a follow-up series to the lost cities of gold (they still had 6 to find :), and a movie being made out of Ulysses 31..

    Excellent - those cartoons haven't been bettered from what I see of kid's cartoons in the last few years. I remember Ulysses 31 fondly - it had an eerie feel to it (apart from Nono the robot - ugh) that was only equalled by the original Moomins. And the lost cities were great as well - interesting story and nice ideas.

    I am actually pondering buying rights of one of them, in a couple years if what I'm doing right now works out as expected.

    Now that would be a great idea - if you ever do then post it here on /. - I'm sure you'll get loads of takers for them. And I do remember the title songs as well, but I won't even try and post them here :)

    And as for Pokemon, hey, it's not as bad as people make out IMHO. It's not art, but neither was Inspector Gadget really :)

  • I remember the days when everyone was looking down on my and my friends in high school case we gamed all the time. Now it seems that D&D isnt the only game/tv show that is satanic, Aparently there are people out there that belive Dragon Ball Z, Ferbie, and Teletubbies are satanic.. well, they say that the purple teletubbie is gay which in the mind of the local bible thumpers here in the south is just as bad.
  • Absolutely! Used to be on USA Network years ago (early-mid 80's). Billy and his partner (a girl, don't remember her name) traveled through time in a giant alarm clock (their ship!). The only bit I remember with any certainty was when they Billy introduced soccer to the king of England. Great stuff!

    Mark

  • Now only if they would bring back "Pole Position" and "Lazer Tag Academy."

    Ye gods, do I even want to know?
    Man...know I remember why I watch almost no commercial television...
  • Y'know, there were like three or four times that they "saw" home, and at least once where they ended up actually back at the amusement park, but since Venger followed them in, they had to go back to draw him back into the D&D world. But I don't think they ever made it permanently back home. At least that's my recollection. Ulysses 31...man, I didn't think ANYONE remembered that one...at one point, I thought I just dreamed it up. Dead desktop cases make great kitty litter boxes. -- The Practical Computer Recycler, tip #1023
  • There's some good Cities of Gold stuff at http://www.whimsy.demon.co.uk/gold/inde x.html [demon.co.uk]. Great show!
  • The story which I think you're talking about was the disapearance of Dallas James Egbert III. It was recounted in a fairly informative book "The Dungeon Master", by William Dear, the private investigator that was hired to find him.

    Despite the bad rap that Dear recieved from D&D fans, he actually, as I recall, proved that D&D was not a factor in Dallas' disapearance.

    Supposedly the kid's disapearance had to do mainly with isolation from his peers, a lack of love from his family and drug use.
  • I hate blatent commercialism as much as the next guy, but dont lambast all the toyetic shows. The entire gundam universe is based around toyetics, yet they manage to relay an incredible story around the mechas and their pilots.

    But pokemon still sucks :)

  • I once found the script to the last episode, and a comment by the author. I know everyone in /. is a link-a-holic, but I lost it.

    Anyway, the author said they didn't know if the last episode would really be the last one, or if the series would continue in the next year.

    In this "last episode" (that never went to the air, BTW), the heroes split in two teams, one with the evil guy (I don't know his name in english) and the other with the little good guy (you know who I am talking about).

    Yes, the bad guy convinces some of them that he is really good, and that the little one is the bad one. Got it? :)

    Well, I'll skip to the end. In the end the help the bad guy to become good, and they discover that the little guy is his father (like a inverse Star Wars) . In fact, the first name thought for the episode was "redemption", but the author thought it would spoil the history, giving away the end.

    Do they go back to Earth? Yes and no. Together the little guy with the ex-bad-guy open a portal, and say that they can go back if they want (no strings attached). *But* they also say that there's still a lot to do there, and they can stay and help them fight evil. Their choice?

    Who knows.

    The end.

  • And btw, If I was a moderator I would moderate you down to (Score:-5 Spoiler...) :)

    In fact, I used some <spoiler> tags, but I didn't preview my post, and /. ate them.



  • Will someone please prevent Emmitt from posting role playing game crap!?! I mean seriously. Just when we were getting chicks to take notice of us for our flashy cars and slick portable mp3 players at the gym, Emmitt has to go out and ruin it all by promoting the notion that we're all into rolling 20-sided dice.


    Seriously. I am not going to talk publicly about hit points and clerics until I see a playboy centerfold list AD&D as her hobby, which hasn't happened thus far.
    QUESTION: How can AD&D be considered 'Advanced' when there doesn't really seem to be a 'non-advanced' anymore.

    This is not flamebait, so don't moderate it down like the last time I complained about Emmitt posting the Final Fantisy XIXV stuff.



    Seth


  • The great thing about all that MUD talk in the club is that it's unlikely you'll pass your nerd genes on to future generations. Enjoy your blip on the evolutionary timeline while it lasts....



    Seth
  • Well this is interesting.

    My fiancee (wife in five days!) and I were talking about cartoons last week. We grew up with the tail end of the 'classics' from Warner et. al. Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner (all before they got polite, I might add), and so forth.

    Then came the really awful awful awful trash cartoons which were nothing but cheap rip-offs to promote games. The stories...weren't, the drama...wasn't, and the animation averaged about 2 frames/sec. They were SUCKY! Awful, in fact!

    Now, with the aid of computers, animation quality has gotten much better again, and best of all--the cartoons out there now are being done by people my age, and half of the stuff out there is a great big tongue-in-cheek parody/tribute to those classics!

    Now today I see that the cartoons I expect will be recognised as the worst in history are being reshown, and even more surprisingly, to appreciative audiences!

    Ah well. Que sera, sera. Makes me feel old, though. :-)

  • Good 80s cartoon site (Score:3)

    by Sits ( 117492 ) on Monday April 24, 2000 @06:46AM (#1114621) Homepage Journal
    80'S CARTOONS ALLIANCE [homepage.com]. This takes me right back. I was horrified to find out how many of these cartoons I actually remembered (like MASK, Visionaries, Captain N etc). Anyone who enjoyed these cartoons should start here.

  • Did they ever get home? (Score:3)

    by Scorchio ( 177053 ) on Sunday April 23, 2000 @11:29PM (#1114654)
    If it's the same series I'm thinking of, they quite frequently had a chance of getting home, but then had to go back because one of them was stuck or bad things would happen in the real world... any of a thousand excuses. Was there an end to the story? Did they ever get back home, permanently, no strings attached?

    Anyway, I much preferred Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31. I even caught an episode of Mr Benn on tv yesterday... ah, happy, carefree days!

    Scorchio, suddenly feeling much older.

  • My only major complaint with the old D&D saturday morning cartoon was that the characters each could only have one magic item. That always bugged me... I had trouble to sticking to only seven magic items for my paladins! So, I'm to gather that this party never could manage to accumulate or hold on to any items?

    I know, I know it's just a TV show.

    But don't you think that at least Cavalier could at least get a friggin' sword or something? Sure give the coward the best AC and no weapons!

    --// Hartsock //
  • I believe so....they defeated Tiamat the dragon, and made it home thru the same rollercoaster they entered the realm in.

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