Dragonlance (1991-1996)
From Nostalgia was Way Better when I was a Kid Netsite, February 12th, 2004
If you’re “of a certain age” then you remember the first time that
Dungeons & Dragons came to the small screen. It was the campy, choppily-animated eponymous series that followed a group of teens who took the wrong theme park ride into the “World of Dungeons & Dragons”, and it has managed to be both scorned and beloved, generally by the exact same people. It combined a B-movie premise and flat characters with a wafer-thin veneer of D&D over the top; characters whose titles were the literal names of their Advanced Dungeons & Dragons character classes. And we loved it.
From the Before Time…the Long, Long Ago…
If you’re of a slightly different age then you undoubtedly remember the
second time that D&D came to the small screen, and you probably didn’t even realize that it was D&D. Sure, it had both dungeons and dragons – hell, especially dragons – but unless you read the credits then you probably had no idea that it was another D&D cartoon. And with fleshed out characters, an actual meta-plot, and real consequences for its characters, it’s easy to not realize that the first time the events of this story happened, people were rolling polyhedral dice in the background.
The show was
Dragonlance, an animated series by Disney’s Marvel Productions’ TSR division and based upon the Hickman and Weis book series and campaign world of the same name. The show more-or-less follows the events of the novels, with the “Chronicles” trilogy largely making up the events of seasons 1-3 and elements from the “Legends” filling up seasons 4 & 5.
Dragonlance followed the characters from the novels and original D&D campaign: Ranger Tanis Half-Elvin, the brave but troubled lead hero. Knight of Solamnia Sturm Brightblade, the brave, noble, and self-sacrificing man of honor. Cleric Goldmoon, a pious and caring woman dedicated to serving goodness and right. Flint Fireforge, a brusque and dour but brave and reliable dwarf. The childlike “kender” Tasselhoff Burrfoot, the comic relief, who was good at getting into guarded places, and getting into trouble. The fighter Caramon Majere, a big, tough guy who is brave and friendly, but slow on the uptake. And finally, the fan-favorite, dark wizard Raistlin Majere, brother of Caramon, a shadowy, ambitious, and troubled mage who would upend the world with his actions. And (no spoilers, I promise) they were not afraid to kill off a main character on occasion, albeit in the most bloodless, PG rated way possible.
(Image source “dragonlancenexus.com”)
In addition to the main characters, the show featured recurring characters and villains such as the forgetful wizard Fizban the Fabulous (who held a surprise twist) and his geriatric gold dragon, Tanis’ love interests Kitiara and Laurana, Caramon’s love interest Tika, the villainous Dragon Highlord Verminaard, and the evil dragon goddess Takhisis, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Tiamat from the earlier cartoon leading to fan crossover theories (truthfully the “crossover” was the fact that both were based on the same AD&D adventure game, but fans will be fans). The unique races of Dragonlance were represented as well. In addition to the obligatory elves, dwarves, goblins, and ogres, you had the troublesome kender, the obnoxious gulley dwarves, and the eccentric tinker gnomes. The fearsome Draconians were also brought to life as recurring villains, each one dying in spectacular and often dangerous ways.
Draconians (Image source “villains.fandom.com”)
The animation itself was realistic and based heavily on the original Jeff Easley artwork. It was a cut above the competition at the time, making use of the Disney DATA computer systems for framing, blocking, coloring, and compositing for some scenes, and was one of the first things animated at Disney’s new Eastern Studios complex at Walt Disney World, and thus available for tours out of the Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT. There’s a vivid, flowing, and organic quality to the animation generally not seen on small screens at the time. The scenes of swooping dragons and flights through clouds and mountains are still impressive to this day, even if the computerized source of the movement is more apparent to audiences today than it was in the ‘90s. Eagle-eyed fans can even recognize recycled framing sequences from movies such as
Where the Wild Things Are,
A Small World,
Aladdin, and
Mort. There are also occasional recycled sequences from
The Three Musketeers and other TV animation as well. Even knowing this, fans report loving the sequences. And kids who grew up with the cartoon now lovingly watch it as adults, often with their own kids, enjoying it now for different reasons.
The series aired on the PFN network in the Wednesday Afterschool slot where it grabbed and held on to a small and diverse viewership of kids, nerdy teens, and nerdy young adults with a viewership that had a significant female component despite the assumption by the network that they’d have a predominantly male audience. It also did well on VHS and VCD, helped sell Dragonlance novels, toys, and game supplements, and garnered the ire of moral guardians, some of whom disliked the violence and suggestions of adult relationships, and (needless to say) some of whom saw it as a gateway to satanism. Fans of the novels, meanwhile, were rather mixed about some of the creative liberties taken to fit into the largely episodic series[1].
The success of
Dragonlance even led to a short-lived spin-off, in this case an attempt to bring the retro-futuristic
Spelljammer fantasy/sci-fi blend campaign world[2] to the small screen. This resulted in a two-season show that to this day maintains a small but fanatical cult following.
Spelljammer followed an eccentric crew of antiheroes and misfits of different fantasy races (including Goblinoid) as they flew across the “spheres” of space in a beat-up old Dragonfly class spelljammer and tried to avoid the prying eyes of the Elven Navy. It has lived on in VHS and VCD and is generally considered the poster child for “cult series” and “screwed by the network”.
You Can’t Take the Spheres from Me (Image source “nerdarchy.com”)
In all,
Dragonlance is fondly remembered as a show that was in certain respects ahead of its time. It had groundbreaking animation. It had mature content that made it popular with viewers of all ages. It was exciting and well-written. And thus, while the original
Dungeons & Dragons TV cartoon has only a small handful of nostalgic Gen-X’ers watching it today,
Dragonlance is beloved by fans of all ages, some of who to this day have no idea that it’s a Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.
Should you see it? Yes, definitely. It’s a well put together cartoon that bridges age and era and proves that just because your audience is young it doesn’t mean that you have to assume that they’re dumb.
And yes, a whole article and not a single Xanax reference. Eat it, haters!
[1] In 2014 Disney Direct rebooted the series as a CG animation. Thanks to the binge-able nature, it followed the books more closely and is meta-plot driven rather than largely episodic. Controversially, they gave some of the characters a “race lift” seeking to add diversity to the originally lily-white cast, which needless to say led to anger of a different sort from a certain segment of the fandom.
[2] Created as per our timeline as a joke on Lorraine Williams, who was pushing for a
Star Trek rip-off RPG. It is sometimes cited as the proximate event that drove her from Marvel/TSR and into Disney Publishing. Eventually TSR will launch a highly successful
Babylon 5 game and achieve her aims in a more organic way.
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