The annoying, cowardly guy was a 'Cavalier' and the black chic was an 'Acrobat' and the little kid was a 'Barbarian' but I don't think I've ever got to select those classes in any D&D based game (although it been a while since I played Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds) were they even canonical or just made up for the cartoon?
Also if he was a 'Cavalier' shouldn't he have had a horse? (Although, saying that, the 3 Musketeers were always fighting with swords and hardly ever seemed to have their muskets with them...)

Cavalier and Barbarian were options in BG2 iirc.

OMG yeah, I just checked the BG2 FAQ and you get loads more class variations than Icewind Dale, which is weird because you'd think IWD was all about the rules and classes and making your own party, I can only think that they thought that giving too much choice would just blow people's minds too much when you have to 'roll up' 6 chars before you begin!
It's weird that Barbarian is missing though, given the setting!

Was the acrobat not a subclass to the thief in AD&D? I've never seen the D&D cartoon, but unless they had a very good reason for using those classes, why did they not just stick to the classes that everyone knows and loves? (Thief, warrior, wizard, cleric, paladin, ranger, bard and I've probably forgotten one or two)

I believe they're class kits that would appear in the Complete X(class) Kit books. The core classes are a bit generic. I think they used the kit for Thief as censorship and Kit for the paladin to be less religious. The Barbarian is to be less generic than a fighter.

Nah, I looked it, up, they had a thief as well - Shelia, the chick with the invisibility cloak!

No I meant that its weird that you can't be a Barbarian in Icewind Dale given the cold, northerly setting, at least one NPC is even from a Barbarian race!
Yeah, the kid in D&D was a Barbarian

Barbarian and Cavalier were introduced in 1e Unearthed Arcana, iirc. I can't remember if the acrobat was introduced in the same book, but for certain if it wasn't it was available in the 2e Complete Thief guide. Given the date of the cartoon, though, Acrobat was probably also introduced in the same book.

If I recall, it was, as the Thief-Acrobat.

Cavalier was a class from AD&D first edition, his class description was included in the Unearthed Arcana rulebook. Barbarian has existed in a 1 or 2 editions, at least. They used Acrobat instead of Thief in the cartoon to avoid negative connotations, Acrobat was a prestige class (I might have the terminology a hair off) in 3.0 and 3.5. Obviously Ranger and Mage have been included in pretty much every edition. Because it was the 80s and having a hero called a "thief" in a kid's cartoon that already had people complaining (that it was devil worship) and then making the only black character the "thief" probably wouldn't have gone over all that well with several groups.

Also, AD&D first edition had a lot of classes that got nixed for 2nd edition, Cavalier was one of them (Monk was another).

Umm the white girl was a thief...

Ack, ninjaed. Ah well, now I'm going to go thumb through my copy of Unearthed Arcana:)
Hmm, you're right, I dunno. now that jseeley mentioned it, though, I think Acrobat was in Unearthed Arcana. They had quite a few cool feat-like skills (there were no feats, as such in AD&D) that they got at higher levels.
You're right, I stand corrected.

you know sometimes I hate this forums quote system it completely breaks if someone posts while your quoting them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGkQqooFQ-k

the pacing of first minute is just frigging scary. I guess you had to be a kid in 80s addicted to sugar to actually follow it!