Diana the Acrobat first appeared on September 17, 1983, in "The Night of No Tomorrow," the opening episode of the CBS animated series Dungeons & Dragons, produced by Marvel Productions in association with TSR and voiced by Tonia Gayle Smith. In that story she is one of six people pulled from an amusement-park dark ride into a hostile fantasy world called the Realm, alongside Hank the Ranger, Eric the Cavalier, Presto the Magician, Sheila the Thief, Bobby the Barbarian, and the unicorn Uni. The Dungeon Master names her the Acrobat and gives her a golden javelin that lengthens into a quarterstaff, shortens to ride at her belt, can be thrown and willed back, and serves as vaulting pole, balance beam, and parry against spells. Before the ride she was already a gold-medal gymnast and a competitive horseback rider, tall and athletic, with brown skin, dark hair, and brown eyes; the series bible also makes her the daughter of an astronomer and gives her a brother left behind on Earth. For this prompt lock she is an adult woman in her early twenties, above legal age regardless of the cartoon's original depiction, with medium brown skin and wavy dark brown hair, while the adventurous acrobat spirit of that first appearance remains.

Across the 1983–1985 run she becomes the group's steady second will. She is brave enough to take the first step onto a rotten span, outspoken enough to cut through Eric's complaining, and level-headed enough to lead when Hank is separated from the others. The staff is the tool of that personality: she plants it to pole-vault a moat, spins it to trip larger foes, and uses its reach to keep Venger's shadow demons off Sheila and Bobby. Fear of losing her physical edge sits under the confidence. She encourages the others, puts up with their failings, and treats the Realm as a place to be crossed rather than a nightmare to be endured. Her cartoon costume was a yellow leotard with shorts, a red belt, green boots, a circlet, and an armband; the visual lock used in every prompt below instead follows the supplied card, an animal-skin patterned brown bikini with fur and gold trim, a gold belt, gold arm bands, a gold tiara, and brown fur boots, with the golden bo staff kept as her weapon wherever a pose leaves the hands free.

Important turns gather around loyalty and the road home. In "Child of the Stargazer," aired October 27, 1984, the city of Turad is ruled by a demon queen whom prophecy says only a child of a stargazer can unseat, and Diana, daughter of an astronomer, must choose between a path home and staying long enough to protect Kosar and see the city freed. Other episodes put her in the front of rescues, including the defense of Terri in "The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow," and the series ends in 1985 with the companions still in the Realm. A later unofficial finale, "Requiem," recast her voice with Laura Pavlakovich, and the 2023 live-action film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves briefly showed the companions as adults in an arena sequence. Those later adult glimpses fit this file: every image treats her as an adult woman in her early twenties, medium brown skin unchanged, wavy dark brown hair, athletic and sexy, adventurous rather than grim, the Acrobat of the Realm rather than a renamed heroine.