I've done a bunch of posts on trading cards in the past (mainly Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages) but I really have a love for trading cards in general. I enjoy reliving the childhood feelings of collecting along with the grown-up respect for all the great art.
Deciding what I want to blog about is sometimes frustrating because there are so many wonderful things that interest me and behind the scenes my brain goes about a million miles an hour flitting back and forth between this and that.
I find it is a lot easier to break things up into groups and focus on one chunk at a time.
Since I was born in 1977 I fortunately don't remember much of anything from the 70's so I figured I'd stop posting blog posts on pre-80's pop-culture just because I like the art or artist. There's more than enough junk from "my" generation to occupy my blog for the time being.
I'm going to do some posts spotlighting trading cards throughout the 80's (specifically Topps) in about the most anal and organized way I can think of: 1980-89, alphabetical order, one series at a time.
Even with the massive amount of information available through the internet I still get frustrated at times trying to find high-quality scans of certain things (especially when the art is so great) so although it seems to take an eternity, I'm going to scan my own personal collections when I need to so the next person out there can get a better image in the future.
So here we go with TOPPS "CREATURE FEATURE" cards 1980...
The Topps "Creature Feature" series is actually the third incarnation of a card series most commonly referred to by collectors/fans as "You'll Die Laughing" cards.
The first cards were created by Topps in 1959 as "Funny Monsters". This was actually the first
of a heyday of "monster" card series that would continue throughout the 60's.
These were all gags involving monsters illustrated by Jack Davis who was well known for his
work with E.C. comics. They couldn't have picked a better guy to set the stage for
the monster card craze.
(FUNTIME FACT): Topps (who was fairly new at this time to the trading card business) published the cards under the name Bubbles Inc. as you can see on the wrapper scan.Each card had a funny joke printed at the bottom and the "You'll Die Laughing" quote on the
back. Kids began referring to the cards immediately as "You'll Die Laughing" cards and it kind of stuck. There were 66 cards in this set.
(FUNTIME FACT): A group of mothers in Racine, Washington formed a large protest group mailing petitions to Topps and their advertising clients. This did nothing to stop the feverish sales.14 years and a dozen spin-offs later, Topps resurrected the "You'll Die Laughing" cards with
the 1973 release of the first "Creature Feature" card series. Series 1 is cards 1-64, and series 2
cards 65-128. This time around the reverse side of the cards stayed the same but the Davis art
on the front was replaced with black and white monster movie images. The gag lines continued
like before. I can't find a decent scan of the box, and don't really feel like paying $300 dollars
to buy an empty one to scan. Also there aren't decent scans of the reverse side of the cards
but they are almost identical to the 1959 series.
The third and final rebirth of the Creature Feature cards is the 1980s version. This set is a lot
like the '73 set except this time the cards have funky colored borders and on the back they list
which movie the monster images are from. The jokes on the back could have been pulled from any 101 Silly Monster Jokes book and definitely wouldn't make any kid laugh himself to death. The set has 88 cards and 22 stickers. 13 of the stickers have a "Monster Hall of Fame" theme featuring heads of famous movie monsters and
the other 9 are miniature monster movie posters and images. The reverse side of the stickers
is a puzzle of the creature from the black lagoon.
I have the full sticker set but only half of the card set. Here are the scans:
COMING UP NEXT: TOPPS EMPIRE STRIKES BACK CARDS 1980
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