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It’s weird just how much of my life can be traced through television. As much time as I spent as a kid riding my bike down the gravel roads to friends houses and playing in the woods, I spent at least that much time watching TV. From the early years of Sunday Morning Cartoons and The Wonderful World of Disney to my teenage years, cruising North Park in Evansville Indiana and going to the movie theater every Friday and Saturday night. I guess it’s no surprise that I can remember the first time I watched a movie about Dungeons and Dragons.

It was Christmas Break, no school, Rainy but mild weather and based on the newspaper it looked like CBS was going to have a movie about roleplaying. This was going to be pretty cool. I was into roleplaying, but didn’t get a chance to play much. For some reason nobody wanted to talk about roleplaying and if you ever brought it up you got funny looks. I was really looking forward to it.

It was called Mazes and Monsters and it stared that funny guy from Bosum Buddies…That was a great show.

I remember settling in with Orvil Redenbacher Popcorn.

And Wow, that didn’t go the way I thought it would.

For you younger folks out there, roleplaying is cool. ComiCon draws in well over 100,000 people, all dressed up in crazy costumes. GenCon brings in over 70,000 people and that’s a convention designed for roleplayers and gamers.

Being a roleplayer is cool. Movie stars talk about doing it. Rock Stars play D&D. Jocks at your school play D&D. I mean it blows my mind.

Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s if you played D&D you were a Satan worshiper.

Mike and I lived through those days and on this episode, we are going to talk about the Satanic Panic, walk you through some of the low points and generally make you all realize that you don’t know how good you got it.

Mike, did you watch Mazes and Monsters?