Monday 31 August 2020

roll for perception

Though we are a bit deflated to realise that holiday creep is one of the few things immune to COVID-19, we were delighted nonetheless to not only be reminded, via Super Punch, of the 1983-1985 run of the CBS animated series Dungeons & Dragons and pleased also to learn that there’s a Dungeon Master Halloween costume, which is appropriate for the home office and chairing, officiating remote role-playing adventures.
I can remember very much looking forward to this cartoon—almost to the exclusion of all others—on Saturday morning, identifying mainly with Presto the Magician, though in retrospect to find that he was a diligent but ineffectual try-hard, sort of like Schmendrick, was a bit of a blow, and only might be lured onto a roller coaster ride with the prospect that I might be transported to another realm. Bobby the Barbarian and his pet unicorn were dumb.  Victim of the moral panic that gripped the US at the time over the game and the dark arts (plus that Tom Hanks movie—Rona Jaffe’s Mazes & Monsters), only three seasons were produced with the concluding episodes scripted but animated.