Tuesday, July 27, 2010

In the Land of Ooo


As a Dad I get to watch plenty of cartoons created for kids. I have been enjoying Dexter's Laboratory, Courage the Cowardly Dog and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack for a while now, but this past year a new series began that is appropriate material for Ye Auld Grog n Blog. I speak of course of Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time.

Mr. Benedicto over at Eiglophian Press may have already turned some of you on to the show. If not perhaps I can encourage you to check it out.

I really took notice when one of the recurring characters, the Ice King, referred to himself as a “Magic-User” in an early episode. That's a term normally heard only in D&D circles.

In a later episode, the Ice King used the term “Magic Missile”. Another D&D term. Now I was fairly convinced of some ties to old school D&D.

The recent “Dungeon” episode sealed the deal, of course, with a Mimic, a Gelatinous Cube and a Trapper, amongst other things, protecting, what else, treasure in a dungeon. There's no doubting that Mr. Ward has some ties to old school D&D.

I recommend the Dungeon episode to any D&D fan, and I heartily endorse Adventure Time as a series. It's off-beat and is beginning to develop rather nicely.

~Sham

6 comments:

Hakdov said...

I watched it closely for the first time last night with my daughter and we loved it. It was the episode about the magic man who turns Finn into a foot. I definitely noticed some gaming references.

Matthew Schmeer said...

I don't have cable, and I wasn't aware of the series. So thanks for turning me on to a great resource! There's a Tumblr site linked to on the Adventure Time blog that has some pretty great production art that would be useful to a DM: http://www.adventuretime.tv/

Two words: Demon Cat. Meow!

Christopher B said...

Sorry, but even if they filled every scene of this show with old-school references I would not be able to watch it. I got about seven minutes through the pilot before I reached my fill of its crappy animation and childish writing. All I kept thinking was:

"This gets made into a show but Korgoth of Barbaria doesn't? WTF?!"

kesher said...

I absolutely love this show---it has "make me into a campaign" written all over it. Actually, more in line with your idea, it has "I made this show out of my old D&D campaign" written all over it...

Anonymous said...

Some interesting quotes here

I really enjoy the show and I consider the animation to be quite good (and I'm not impressed easily)though I suppose it may not be for everyone (I also liked Superjail). I immediately noticed a gaming influence, which is probably what kept me tuned when I came across it by chance.

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