OD&D Pop culture references in early editions?

[Shades of Eternity]

I'm curious

It is fairly well known that the game had a ton of pop culture references at the time.

What were some of your favorites?

 

[AOieiosle]

I'm not sure they really did. Can you cite any?

I know that the British RPG books had much more of that with their early GW and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

 

[Yora]

I would assume if you're under 50, most references will mean nothing for you.

 

[Blue Orange]

I remember not seeing any in the early rulebooks, I guess they would at least try to disguise them somewhat? Supposedly Soth is based on Darth Vader and a lot of the early 'brown book' pictures were drawn from Dr. Strange and Nick Fury comic books.

Given what I know of 70s-80s era geekdom, the big ones would have been Doctor Who, Marvel and DC comics, Star Trek, and Star Wars.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

I'm not sure they really did. Can you cite any?

I know that the British RPG books had much more of that with their early GW and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

I don't know much, but I remember a ton of spell components and actions were based on stupid jokes and/or pop culture references.

I would assume if you're under 50, most references will mean nothing for you.

I'm kind of hoping for a Blake 7 joke.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I can give an example of the opposite -- my favourite reference to D&D in pop culture. That's the D&D cartoon adverts in early 80s Marvel comics.

 

[Rabulias]

Ah that Bill Willingham art takes me back...

Which reminds me that he inserted comic book Easter Eggs into some of his pieces, like the cover page art in AD&D Module D1-2: Descent Into the Depths of the Earth. It looks like the drow are guarding Captain America's shield and Iron Man's helmet in a chest with an appropriate Spider-Man motif.

 

[Stormonu]

One of the worst ones was the living metal from Dragon Mountain - it was basically the T-1000 from Terminator.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think most of the original D&D creators where more into ancient mythology than popular culture. And for them, their pop culture was the 50s and 60s, which even the oldest here are too young to remember much of.

In the 80s, with the Hickmans and the like, we saw more contemporary cultural influences coming into D&D, but they where played straight for the most part. I think it's fair to say that the UK took a more ironic approach to fantasy at that time. Of course, most home games had many pop culture references, I certainly had daleks in mine.

For something riddled with actual pop culture jokes (many of which are now so dated that you wouldn't notice them) you should look at the original Baldur's Gate computer game.

Given what I know of 70s-80s era geekdom, the big ones would have been Doctor Who

I don't think Doctor Who and Blake's 7 where much known in the US until at least the late 80s. There was no BBC America exporting them in those days.

 

[Deset Gled]

"Monty Haul" and/or "Hall" is an old phrase that has been noted by name in rule books on a few occasions. Some of these young whippersnappers today don't recognize this as a reference to the "Let's Make a Deal" game show.