Satanic Panic Appreciation Thread

[FAT$TACKS]

I'd be really interested in seeing that. Like stuff talking about DnD, Metal, etc were the devils tools?

Just for you my friend.

For me, at least as far as I'm concerned, the event that really kicked off the Satanic Panic was the Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III. Now I know there were other events before that but, this one spawned a book and made for TV movie that was anti Dungeon's and Dragons. At the time my Uncle was into D&D and as a kid I read through all his books, mostly just looked at the pictures, and played with his little painted miniature figures or sat in when he and his high school friends were playing.

For those of you who don't know the Story of JDEIII there was a book that came out on it after his death, but prior to that Dungeons and Dragons was blamed for him going missing.

Giant Photos for this thread!

So what we have here is a copy of the book about the events and an old wire press photo from a newspaper archive.



From this was spawned the Book and later movie Mazes and Monsters. One of my favorite movies by the way.

Book and Press photo of the author. - I have a shit tonne of press photos from news paper archives. Most are in storage though but I dug out a few for the thread.



Oh and look at that... Signed. Don't know who Hazel is though but, all the best to her.



So about that movie. Some VHS copies and cutouts from TV Guide for the advertisement.



The studio would send out press photos to the various outlets, Here are just a few of those as well.



Then the church got up in an uproar over DnD and well.. a lot of other stuff us kids in the day liked and lots of propaganda came out about that. Here is just a bit of that. A good read if you want to know why everything you enjoyed as a child was evil. I'll toss in some video links for Turmoil in the Toy Box later.



Dark Dungeons was an anti DnD religious tract that circulated at the time.





There were other books and movies that came out (lots of them) that tried to capitalize on the market at the time. So just an extra movie here, again about people and one of those kind of games. On a side note, it has one of the same people in it as Mazes and Monsters. Fun kind of crossover there in the Satanic Panic Cinematic Universe or SPCU. If that were really a thing.

On Betamax no less.



Also, my favorite cartoon at the time got canned.

Here we have a VHS recorded episode and some production artwork from the cartoon.



So about Dungeons and Dragons.... I'll pick that up in the next post.

 

[FAT$TACKS]

Anyhow,

One of the early starter box sets and a magazine advertisement.



Also just a stack of really nice condition Advanced DnD books.







With DnD taking off in popularity, mostly from the negative press it was getting, more and more newspaper articles came out about it. Lots of places did local stories about kids playing and such. Lots of local groups got shut down around the country. I've a bunch of press photos from different newspaper archives on the subject, here are a few. (So when a newspaper goes under it's shit gets sold and you can buy press photos. Or they just clear out their old stuff.}







Fun stuff. When I get a chance I'll update with some other media that I've got in storage, if I can find it. But there was a lot of music, records and such that were significant to the mythology of the panic, as well as other toys and games. I've been hoarding this stuff up for years and realize that most people wouldn't even care about any of it or why it was, to me at least, culturally significant.

 

[Taiso]

The industry has fallen to a similar puritan panic.

I never knew so many trans people and gay people were dropping dead from 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[FAT$TACKS]

So here are some videos I was going to link to.

Worth watching if you are curious about that sort of thing.

 

[SignOfGoob]

I remember watching M&M when it was originally on TV. I remember being excited for it and everything, barely stayed awake for the end. It’s not great but it does show D&D kind of shit on a major network which was a big deal to me.

To me the ultimate Satanic Panic thing was the movie Race With the Devil (1975). It was on TV pretty often, even in the daytime, educating squares about human sacrifices conducted by roaming gangs of RV enthusiasts. I’ll never forget that movie.

 

[norton9478]

I used to have a religious book (Think it was a thick pamphlet). I think it was called "Everything you wanted to know about Rock N Roll Music". It was hella awesome. There was an entry for every popular rock band of the 70's/80's and how they were satanic and or pagan. Or Homosexual. Or drug addicts.

Some things were true, others not true.

It really made me want to check bands out.

I'd give my soul to find another copy.

 

[max 330 mega]

Holy shit! I have only ever read "the dungeon master" guess i better read the other book and see the movie

 

[FAT$TACKS]

Holy shit! I have only ever read "the dungeon master" guess i better read the other book and see the movie

Mazes and Monsters is really only loosely based on the concept of the events from The Dungeon Master. Basically, just a sentimentalization kind of story taking advantage of the situation at the time I feel.

Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, however I really like it. It really was one of those kind of movies where your parents or grandparents would watch it and then not let you play role playing games anymore. Totally worth watching if you enjoy DnD, just to see how misunderstood the take on table top role playing was.

There is one scene in the movie that is accidentally brilliant, where a player wants to play a different campaign he has an idea for so he sabotages the game being ran to bring it to an end.

Also, some of the other scenes... The way that they have the characters talk is great.

It's the right balance of everything wrong and just entertaining enough to be fun to watch, well at least for me anyway.

 

[wyo]

Oscar winner Tom Hanks, lady and gentlemen.

 

[Dr Shroom]

"Mazes and Monsters is a far out game"

 

[Taiso]

Mazes and Monsters is really only loosely based on the concept of the events from The Dungeon Master. Basically, just a sentimentalization kind of story taking advantage of the situation at the time I feel.

Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, however I really like it. It really was one of those kind of movies where your parents or grandparents would watch it and then not let you play role playing games anymore. Totally worth watching if you enjoy DnD, just to see how misunderstood the take on table top role playing was.

There is one scene in the movie that is accidentally brilliant, where a player wants to play a different campaign he has an idea for so he sabotages the game being ran to bring it to an end.

Also, some of the other scenes... The way that they have the characters talk is great.

It's the right balance of everything wrong and just entertaining enough to be fun to watch, well at least for me anyway.

I wonder if Vin Diesel and Hanks had a good laugh about Mazes & Monsters while shooting Saving Private Ryan?

 

[LoneSage]

I have never played Dungeons and Dragons in my life.