YMMV / Dungeons & Dragons (1983)

• Animation Age Ghetto: The writers were obviously pushing the envelope as far as they could, but Executive Meddling still shows.
• Adaptation Displacement: The series is extremely popular in Brazil (see Germans Love David Hasselhoff below), but it received the Completely Different Title of Caverna do Dragão ("The Dragon's Cave") in the country. As such, many fans of the cartoon have no idea it is an adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons.
• Base-Breaking Character: Uni; either you like her because she's cute or hate her due to her annoying voice.
• Cultural Translation: When Bobby questions the Know Tree, the Brazilian dub replaces a reference to an American sporting event with a reference to a comparable Brazilian event. (In both cases it goes on to say the correct answer, preceded by "However, if you mean <competition name> in your world...")
  US original:

  Bobby: OK, who won the '81 World Series?

  Know Tree: Simple, the Grey Wood Elves.
  Brazilian dub:

  Bobby: All right, who won the '84 Golden Cup?

  Know Tree: Easy, the Grey Forest Elves.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: While meant to be The Complainer Is Always Wrong, the sheer amount of Diabolus ex Machina and Jerkass Has a Point resulted Eric acquiring his own fanbase.
• Epileptic Trees: So many theories behind the reason why the series was canceled, possibly because the actual reason^note ratings were dropping and the show was quite expensive is disappointingly ordinary.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • A surprising number of fans have a rather drastic view of Kosar for standing between Diana and her "true love," Eric. That almost no evidence exists to support this ship does not deter them. And it's also noteworthy that even when Kosar and Diana liked each other … they didn't stay together.
  • Many fans feel that Hank and Sheila should be together. The series offers a few moments where they appear close, in addition to Sheila's extreme reaction to Hank's apparent betrayal in ''The Traitor" (hers is easily the strongest reaction in the group, though that's likely because she also fears for her brother's safety), and her reaction to his disappearence and return in "The Winds of Darkness." Mark Evanier's series bible says that Sheila "admires Hank a lot" and that the two might one day be "an item" if circumstances were to allow it. The series bible also says Presto has a crush on Sheila, mostly because she's consistently nice to him, but there's no actual evidence for this in the show.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • This series is obscenely popular in Brazil. TV Globo aired reruns on their Monday-to-Friday morning block even 25 to 30 years after its debut. It's so popular that Renault created a live-action commercial using the animated series' characters, and gave it the full cinematic treatment. Fans cheered it as an incredibly faithful rendition and especially loved the fact that the commercial ended with the kids (and Uni) making it home.
  • Even more so when a Brazilian fangame based on the cartoon was released in 2021.Link
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The evil mastermind that is behind everything is a god known as The Nameless One.
  • The impressions some fundamentalist Christians tend to have of D&D and what Hank's voice actor went on to do a few years down the road.
  • The fact that Sheila's voice actress has had a role on Adventures in Odyssey, which in one episode actually said it was OK to steal and destroy someone else's D&D gear since D&D was immoral.
• Iron Woobie: Eric is the only one of the kids who outright hates being in the Realm. However, he endures it even if he makes it very clear how much he despises it.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "It's Magic. I Ain't Gotta Explain Shit"^Explanation An edit of the Dungeon Master, with the image caption "It's Magic. I Ain't Gotta Explain Shit" to joke about New Rules as the Plot Demands. Edits of the picture became common with "Magic" being swapped out for something else depeinding on the edit.
  • The opening is often used as an illustration of a Killer Game Master, seeing as the first monster the kids ran into was Tiamat^note In most editions, Tiamat is the patron god of evil dragons, some twenty or so levels above a starting party.
• Once Original, Now Common: During its original run, the show was considered the most violent children's cartoon on television. Nowadays, even preschool-level shows tend to have more action than this show ever had. A lot of it's "ominous" reputation was further bolstered by the 80s Satanic Panic starting to focus on D&D around the same time.
• Strawman Has a Point: Eric is pretty much always portrayed as the stupid character, and he tends to have mishaps that serve as comic relief. As a result, it seems the audience isn't meant to take his comments seriously. Yet he usually has a good point, e.g. when he's complaining about how it makes no sense for the Dungeon Master to be speaking in useless riddles like that. Mark Evanier, writer of the series bible, famously disliked Eric's character, and hated the circumstances—pressure to create a contrarian who was always proven wrong, in an attempt to promote "getting along"—that required his inclusion. As such, while Eric's complaints over whether and how the gang approached danger were ignored by the group—the group has to engage in Dungeon Master's missions if they're to have any chance of getting home, after all—and might generally be dismissed as the results of Eric's fractious nature, the show's writers were careful to to give him a point every now and then, usually in regards to interpreting the Dungeon Master's pronouncements.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Eric is meant to be a character that no one takes seriously and is a self-important Know-Nothing Know-It-All. However, he's the only one who questions the rather obvious fact the Dungeon Master is screwing them, hiding secrets, and probably could return them to their home at any point if not was actually responsible for their being brought to the Realms in the first place.
• Unpopular Popular Character: The irony of Eric despite his own creators disliking him was that his constant complaining and Butt-Monkey status made him an Ensemble Dark Horse.
• Values Dissonance: In the episode The City At The Edge Of Midnight, the gang meets Ramuud, a brave Middle-Eastern-esque caravan leader who teams up with them to defeat the episode's villain, the demonic Nightwalker. Afterwards, Ramuud is so impressed that he proposes to Sheila (who, of course, politely declines). While the episode's story presented Ramuud as a stylish, warm-hearted hero, nowadays an obviously middle-aged man proposing to a minor would come across as very creepy, even in a fantasy world.

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