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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8437513" data-attributes="member: 87792">And this I'd call another example of double standards. Gygax was the President and CEO of TSR. He was legally, ethically, and morally at least as responsible for anything done by his company as Williams was by hers.You're saying that like not being there and not having read the financial reports when he was both President and CEO and taking the salary for both somehow completely exonerates him from responsibility. If he "wasn't there" then this is a strong criticism of him.As for "worst financial decisions" I'd be interested in seeing how the financial decisions round TSR's e.g. needlework business compared in profitability to those when Gygax went to Hollywood and had a vanity cartoon made while not getting any other licenses. This in the era when Saturday Morning cartoons were starting to become toy commercials after Reagan had changed the head of the FCC.For the level of success of the D&D cartoon we can compare it with its direct rivals that were coming out at the same time (1983-1985). These included He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-1985), GI Joe/Action Force (1983-1986), Inspector Gadget (1983-1986), Transformers (1984-1987), My Little Pony (1984-1985) and others. And it almost certainly cost almost exactly as much per episode as G. I. Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, and He-Man because all four shows were actually animated by Toei Animation. Even the biggest fan of the D&D cartoon would be hard-pressed to claim it had remotely the level of success of those four. Four series which among other things were giant animated toy commercials so they didn't have to make direct profits; the toys sold incredibly well.I would be entirely unsurprised if TSR's worst financial decision by a significant margin wasn't the D&D cartoon which was something Gygax emphatically was there for - and indeed was the only one there for.Ah yes. He inherited the position of CEO and President from the CEO and President who was checks notes E. Gary Gygax. And if the Blumes were in the driver's seat that wasn't because that was the seating plan. It was because Gygax had disappeared to Hollywood despite being the designated driver. Gygax of course had the power to have the board of directors remove the Blumes; we know this because he did that.It's that "once he got back" when he was CEO and President all along that's one part of it. Another part is how badly screwed TSR was by those Hollywood adventures. How much he spent trying and failing to get licensing deals, how much he spent on partying on the company dime, and how much he spent on the cartoon series.</blockquote>

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