Who owns the rights to the D&D cartoon?
When D&D originally aired in 1983, it was a coproduction of Marvel and TSR. TSR owned the whole “Dungeons & Dragons” franchise, and Marvel owned the marketing of the cartoon series, and toys/books/games based on the cartoon and the actual D&D game. CBS bought the rights to air it. Then, in the years after the series was cancelled, TSR went through a bunch of financial problems, Gary Gygax left the company, and eventually TSR was bought out by “Wizards of the Coast.” Then, recently, Wizards of the Coast was purchased by Hasbro, Inc. Nobody at Hasbro has answered my inquiries as to whether they retain any or all of the rights to the D&D toon or related characters. I think it’s safe to say that they do NOT, because…. In 1999, Saban Entertainment bought out the Marvel cartoons, including all the airing rights. Saban merged with Fox, and for awhile (about six months), the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon was aired during the Saturday morning and weekday afternoon FoxKids time block. The lates
