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Monday, December 9, 2013

What Was the First "Gazebo" Sighting?



So, I've been reading Knights of the Dinner Table - Bundle of Trouble Volume 1 (surprisingly readable on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3) and the first strip is "Lair of the Gazebo".

I doubt that this was the first time a "Gazebo" was mistaken for a viable monstrous adversary in the lore of "old school gaming".

Can anyone think of an earlier reference than KotDT Issue #1 circa summer of '94?

10 comments:

  1. That is the 1st time I heard about it. Perhaps ask Jolly Blackburn. He would know.

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  2. Little bit older school: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_and_the_Dread_Gazebo

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  3. Here is the story as told by Arensen himself, it occurred in the 1970's ... http://www.dndadventure.com/html/articles/gaming_stories.html

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  4. There was a Phil & Dixie strip, circa 1980, with a Gazebo joke.

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  5. Gazebo was a slang term for goon or thug used in old 1920s-1930s pulp fiction (see The Shadow magazine).

    So I can understand someone thinking it might be something besides a non-attached sundeck.

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  6. There's a reference in one of the Judges Guild products from the 70's (a Wilderlands book I think) to a burned down gazebo.

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  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_and_the_Dread_Gazebo

    dreadgazebo.com - the story had it's own URL for a while.

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  8. I first read it on a Usenet group where someone posted the story as being from Dave Arensen.

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    Replies
    1. I've linked the Arensen tale, above, if you wish to read it.

      Delete
  9. A large gazebo stands on the grounds of haunted Tegel Manor (1977): Some people believe that this dread edifice was where the tales of a murderous gazebo originated...

    ReplyDelete

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