World of Orenda

Author notes

"Mors ultima ratio"

oachambers

on July 3, 2007

Happy 4th of July!

So the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon is finally on DVD! I have very fond memories of this cartoon. It originally aired right around the time that I was getting excited about D&D, and I made a point of watching it every Saturday morning. They did a nice job of integrating a lot of monsters, items, and spells, which weren’t always faithful to the game, but were always fun to notice. At the time, I particularly enjoyed the guest appearances by Warduke, Strongheart, and Khelbek from the otherwise unrelated D&D toy line.

A few years ago, for Christmas a friend gave me the entire series, on 12 grainy video tapes that he bought on Ebay. I have to say, the series really didn’t hold up as well as I’d hoped. The first couple of episodes were great, just as much fun as I remembered. But after a few more episodes, it became clear that the writers had exactly 1 plot structure that they followed for every episode, just changing the details each week. It’s still a fun show, but really needs to be watched in moderation.

The new DVD release does have one interesting extra. Using some of the original cast members, they’ve recorded (as a radio-style drama) the never-filmed final episode, “Requiem.” The script for this episode has been floating around the internets for years, and has puts interesting twists on the whole series.

-Allan