Tom Hanks Starred In A TV Movie Inspired By Dungeons & Dragons' 'Satanic Panic'
Decades before he became one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Tom Hanks got his first leading role in a TV move inspired by the Satanic Panic of the '80s.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons exploded in popularity but also became the center of a moral panic. This led to Tom Hanks' first lead role in a feature film, as he starred in a made-for-TV movie called Mazes and Monsters in December 1982. The movie, inspired by Rona Jaffe's novel, was a misguided cautionary tale about a group of college students playing the fictional RPG Mazes and Monsters.
Hanks played Robbie Wheeling, a student who becomes convinced the game is real and suffers a psychotic break, trapped in a psychosis. The film debuted just a few years after reports linked the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III to playing Dungeons & Dragons, further fueling the moral panic. Despite the movie's misguided preaching, Dungeons & Dragons sales boomed in 1981, the year the novel debuted.
Two years later, Hanks starred in Splash before leading notable films like Big, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Toy Story.
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