THE GAMESMASTER

A veteran of 1980s animation recounts his days working on G.I. Joe, Transformers, and a host of other cartoon shows based on popular toy lines of the era.

Back when the Star Wars franchise was fresh and Saturday morning cartoons were relevant, Dille got a call from Lucasfilm to try out as a writer for a new children’s show they were developing. For the author, whose grandfather was John F. Dille, publisher of the original Buck Rogers, the opportunity to work on a George Lucas property was exhilarating. Though it didn’t work out, Dille went on to work for Ruby-Spears and Sunbow Productions. Neither of those companies were at the level of Lucasfilm, but both proved to be crucial in his career development, which involved “an all-access pass to the geek eighties and working with an amazing collection of people who laid the foundations for what would be popular culture decades later.” The nascent writer was making a living adding literary depth to the Transformers’ weekly adventures as well as chronicling the mythical exploits of a barbarian named Sagard alongside Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax. Although Dille led a fairly fast-paced Hollywood lifestyle, his narrative approach to those halcyon days is oddly dispassionate and disconnected. He foggily confesses to forgetting key elements of his story, and the attention he gives major industry figures, including Jack Kirby, Steve Gerber, and Frank Miller, is scant at best. The author also gives short shrift to such seminal events as the dissolution of Gygax’s piece of the D&D empire. Dille’s reaction to being fired from the Garbage Pail Kids and immediately hired on Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toons matches the overall tone of his memoir: “Who knows? Who cares? It didn’t, and doesn’t, matter.”

A middling memoir studded with a few interesting insights into 1980s Hollywood.