Tweet
Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 7/18/2011
Director: Various
Cast: Michael Donovan, Michael Beattie, Arthur Berghardt, Scott McNeill
Year: 1992
Purchase From Amazon
The Series:
Those of us who remember Hanna Barbera's short lived animated series Conan The Adventurer (not to be confused with the live action TV series of the same name) will definitely get a minor nostalgia rush when we hear that classic theme song:
“Conan, the Adventurer, Conan, warrior without fear. he's more powerful than any man, His legend spreads across the land and sea.
Conan, the mightest warrior ever. His quest, to undo the spell of living stone cast upon his family by driving the evil serpent men back into another dimension and vanquishing their leader, the cruel wizard Wrath-Amon.
Conan, the Adventurer, Conan, man of bravery, with his magic sword protecting the mightiest of warriors is heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……… CONAN!â€
Now that there's a new feature film version of Robert E. Howard's most famous and enduring creation (sorry Kull!) companies are reaching into the vaults and getting in on what may or may not turn out to be a brief resurgence to Conan-mania, so it makes perfect sense that Shout! Factory would bring Conan back in cartoon form once again and ride a bit of that hype. But does the series hold up? Is at as cool as it seemed when it first aired on TV way back in 1992? No, not really, it wasn't a great show then and it's not a great show now, in fact the best thing about Conan's cartoon debut was that it got Marvel Comics to publish a comic book series of the same name (the first issue had a keen metallic cover) that featured impressive artwork by Rafael Kayanan that was obviously influenced by the early Barry Windsor Smith issues.
But we're getting off track here - this is about Conan The Adventurer the animated series, not Conan The Adventurer the comic book. Unfortunately.
So yeah, it should go without saying that this is a pretty watered down version of Conan here. Intended for a kids' audience, you can't realistically expect Conan to cut anyone's head off or to lay with as many women as he sees fit. He doesn't get drunk and he doesn't really play the thief either. Instead, when the series begins, Conan gets kind of pissed off when some evil wizard named Wrath-Amon freezes his family members in giant stones. Initially he sets out to right this wrong but soon a continuative narrative gives way to typical kids' show single episode storylines.
As Conan travels about he acquires a shield that houses a phoenix named Needle who is able to pop in and out of the shield when the need arises and who loves to eat pomegranates more than anything else in life. He also teams up with Zulu, the cliché named prince of a Masai tribe who take Conan in as one of their own. He befriends a circus performer who uses throwing starts as weapons named Jezmine too, just so the series can have a female character. Later they hang out with a Shaman type named Greywolf and a Viking named Snagg as well.
They basically go on a bunch of adventures together, try to hunt down the sinister Wrath-Amon (though he always seems to escape just in the nick of time - go figure!) and get into scraps with members of the sinister Snake Cult, so named because they worship snakes.
While all of this is sadly quite pedestrian and predictable in nature, the series is at least entertaining and does feature some decent enough animation work as well. Nice backgrounds help to create the fantasy world that all of this plays out in and the voice work is generally decent as well. Character design is a bit too inspired by fantasy series of the past, He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe being the most obvious example, but Conan still sorta looks like Conan and the bad guys are pretty cool looking.
The thirteen episodes that make up the first season of Conan The Adventurer are spread across the two discs in this set as follows:
Disc One:
The Night Of Fiery Tears / Blood Brother / Star Of Sadizar / Conan The Gladiator / The Heart Of Rakkir / Men Of Stone / The Terrible Torrinon
Disc Two:
Greywolf Of Xanthus / Shadow Walkers / The Claw Of Heaven / The Serpent Riders Of Set / Windfang's Eyrie / Seven Against Stygia
Video/Audio/Extras:
Conan The Adventurer looks okay in its original fullframe aspect ratio as presented in this two-disc set from Shout! Factory. Color reproduction is good and detail is about as strong as you'd expect given the series' age. There's some softness here and there and some murkiness to a few of the darker scenes in addition to some minor print damage but none of this really takes away from the series' nostalgia so much.
The only audio option offered up is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, there are no dubbed tracks or subtitles offered. The mix here is fine even if there isn't much to discuss in the way of channel separation. The score is a bit high in the mix occasionally, but aside from that, it's all good.
Extras? Not a one, unless you count menus and episode selection - other than that, this release is completely barebones, which is a shame.
The Final Word:
Those looking for any sort of accurate depiction of Robert E. Howard's classic character will be sorely disappointed but as far as kids' entertainment goes, Conan The Adventurer is entertaining enough and it's nice to have it on DVD even if the lack of any extras is a bummer. A classic series? No, it never did live up to its potential, but it's a fun time killer and the theme song is still awesome.
