Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson walks into a comic book shop on the TV series “Diff’rent Strokes.” And look what just happens to be by the door: A display of Advanced D&D core rule books!
From the episode “The Big Heist,” which aired Thanksgiving Day, November 26th, 1981, this is one of the earliest — if not the first — appearances of D&D in film and TV in America, predating its appearance in “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (June 1982) by 7 months.




