Forget 80's actresses, First Ladies and American Idol contestants, THIS is a real Americana card! There was a pile of these selling for 50 cents each at the flea market this weekend and I couldn't pass up Willie. I'm tempted to see if I could find an autographed version, but I'm afraid I would betray my blog's motto from the massive contact high I would probably get from that card.
YAY! WE'RE DONE WITH AMERICANA!!! Here's the french chick from Better Off Dead.
#121 Diane Franklin
Yeah, I feel that way too, babe.
Here's the "Two Dollars" scenes from Better off Dead. Diane's in there for a couple of seconds I think.
So there's my couple of packs of Americana. I got doubles of Wagner and Vader if anyone's interested. Actually everyone except Mayhem and Jackie Chan are yours for the taking. These packs weren't that bad actually, but I think I'm done with celebrity cards for a while. Well, except for the oncs that have invaded legitimate baseball card sets that is.
Here's another Americana card. When I puled it, I was like, "Hey, Austin Powers dude..." Then I checked out his filmography in IMDB and I'm still like, "Hey, Austin Powers dude..."
#112 Robert Wagner
You would absolutely not believe the sheer number of Hart to Hart fan made music videos on YouTube featuring slow cheezy love songs. It's astounding. I guess baseball card bloggers aren't the only ones with way too much free time. Here's Robert on The Fall Guy.
Well, I managed to piss someone off by mocking an ugly card of someone who hasn't updated their web page in a year. I was about to update the post with some good information left in the comment, but they decided to get nasty, so forget it. I'm going to be nice to the guy on this card though 'cause he can kick my ass.
RK-JM Justin "Mayhem"Miller Ring Kings
I don't know anything about Mixed Martial Arts. It's just something I never got into. If I want boxing, I'll watch boxing. If I want martial arts, I'll watch a kung fu movie. If I want violence and mayhem, I'll watch hockey. If I want two guys kicking the living crap out of each other, I'll watch They Live. I've just never seen the need to watch all of that at the same time. I don't know, maybe if I tried it, I'd like it. Sadly, it's a major scheduling hassle for me just to sit down and watch a few innings of the Braves on TV, so I doubt I'll be making time for MMA anytime soon.
That being said, now that I look into Mayhem Miller on the interwebs, this card is freaking awesome. Mainly because Jason Miller is completely out of his mind. He looks like a pretty good fighter (20-5-0 according to back of the card) but he's easily the best interview ever. Check out this insanity where he discusses Mormonism, evolution and the Flying Spaghetti Monster:
All interviews should be like this. Maybe Jason can take over for Tim Russert on Meet The Press. It sure would make this crappy election a lot more fun. I'm clueless about the fighting, but the guy sure is a hell of an entertainer who even does his own web show thingy. I also like the Evil Cult Monkey logo. Not quite enough to pony up for the T-Shirt, but I approve of the concept of vampire monkeys in principle. When I originally pulled this card I wasn't too impressed, but now I know that it's way better than a swatch of a blouse off some actress. I just don't want to know where this bit of cloth came from. I really hope it's a shirt, but it's probably best not to think about it.
Continuing with the Americana 2 cards, here is the absolute best one out of the two packs I bought. Maybe the best card in the set. This one is soo good, it makes up for the rest of the junk in the packs and is worthy of Card of the Week status.
101 Jackie Chan
This was the first card I pulled from the first pack I opened. It's also the first card in the series 2 set. When I saw this card coming out of the pack I though "hey, cool! Jackie Chan. This might not be so bad". It was all downhill from here. Part of my problem with Americana is I don't get too excited about celebrity stuff. Most of my entertainment tastes tend to fall in the obscure/cult favorites category. I'd much rather watch Kentucky Fried Movie for the 50th time than go see the latest Will Ferrel flick at the theater. I listen to college radio instead of the ClearChannel stations. When I do watch TV, it's not Lost or 24 or American Idol, it's the Braves, raunchy cartoons on Comedy Central and Adult Swim, PBS and nerdy science stuff like Mythbusters and Good Eats. And that's assuming I even watch it on TV, my Daily Show and Colbert Report viewing is almost exclusively online now. So really, unless Donruss adds cards like Alton Brown, Jello Biafra, Doc Hammer, Adam Savage, Tor Johnson and Jon Stewart to series 3, this is truly a set I should avoid. That doesn't mean this card isn't awesome though. See for yourself:
Absolutely astounding fights,
Insane and suicidal stunts,
A sense of humor,
A lovely singing voice...
He even worked as a stuntman on some Bruce Lee films including this fight scene that didn't go too well for Jackie.
I said that none of the cards I pulled came close to the guy on the pack, John Wayne. I still feel that way, Jackie Chan is no John Wayne. Bruce Lee is the John Wayne of kung-fu. Jackie Chan is Clint Eastwood. And Clint Eastwood is one bad ass mofo. Cards like this drive me crazy because normally I'd not be interested at all in Americana, but Jackie Chan is just so freakin cool. I don't understand the picture at all though. Pick shirts or skins, don't halfway it with a pair of shoulder warmers. Even though he has trouble dressing for publicity stills, he's still the Drunken Master.
I'm not done with the Americana cards yet, I paid real money for these things and I'm going to get some use out of them. Here's the next card:
#135 Amanda Bearse
Horror fans know her as the coolest thing from Fright Night. The rest of the universe knows her from her character Marcy, who was Al's neighbor and favorite punching bag on Married With Children. Marcy was originally married to poor henpecked Steve, but after she got ditched, she ended up married to Jefferson D'Arcy and became the immortal Marcy D'Arcy. Try to think of Steve's last name, I dare you. Marcy..... what? You can't think of it, can you. She is now and will be forever MARCY D'ARCY. Since I chewed up most of my blogging time watching old Married With Children clips and laughing my ass off, here's the episode where Marcy marries Jefferson.
Amanda lives in Atlanta and has moved into producing and directing since Married With Children. She's currently working on the Big Gay Sketch Show on Logo. This is one of those 'tweener cards from Americana, it doesn't completely suck like the American Idol rejects, but I must say I've gotten a lot of entertainment out of YouTubing old sitcoms and horror movies. So in the grand scheme of things, while this would never be a card I would go searching out on eBay, I have to put this one into the 'win' column for Americana.
The last post of Americana Cards was pretty horrible. This one is much better. This guy is on the entrance exam for anyone trying to get their professional Geek license. We all know who this guy is, right?
#154 David Prowse
Sure we do. Everyone's seen this guy in a movie. His films are some of the most successful and beloved of all time. You know who I'm talkin' about.
Yeaaaah! Darth muthaflubbin Vader! David was the guy in the suit, George just dubbed in James Earl Jones later like in that goofy video above. This is what Star Wars could have sounded like:
Makes Episode one look pretty damn good, doesn't it? He certainly filled out that suit nicely though. Prowse has had roles in quite a few cult classics. Dr. Who, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy BBC version, Space 1999, The Saint, Benny Hill, Jabberwocky, the original Casino Royale and he even appeared in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. He also has a small but signifigant part in one of my favorite movies of all time, as the old writer's bodybuilding 'helper' in Clockwork Orange.
So not all cards in the Americana set are total crap. There's a few gems in there. I really like the photo on this card, it looks like a Star Wars geek took a snapshot of Prowse while he was on a panel at a comic book convention, which is actually very appropriate. I especially love the "VADERPROWSE" design on his shirt in the style of the LucasFilm logo. So here's a card I'm actually excited to pull out of a pack of Americana. Americana's only batting .250, but that's better than Jeff Francoeur right now.
Boredom is a dangerous thing. It makes you buy stuff like this:
Yeah. I know. What was I thinking? Well, I wasn't really. Allen & Ginter still has not made it's way to retail establishments (or douchebags have bought up all the blasters to flip on eBay) and I just had to rip something new. Plus John Wayne's on the wrapper. John Freaking Wayne, by God. So I got two packs. 11 cards total. Two of 'em were doubles. Not a single card even in the same time zone as John Wayne. On the bright side, I can milk the packs for enough posts to get me to the Olympics, where I have something that's actually interesting planned.
Since celebrities are rapidly infiltrating baseball, it's refreshing to see a set where they are all segregated by themselves. I guess if this stuff sells, Donruss might get their license back. At least that's how I'm going to rationalize buying these packs. I plan to post a card per day from the packs, but tonight I'll give you a three-fer. Specifically the three cards I pulled that most painfully reminded me that I should have just gotten a couple of packs of Heritage and crossed my fingers hoping for a short print I didn't have already. These cards, for the lack of a better term, just plain suck. Here comes the pain...
118 Danielle Harris
Danielle is an actress best known for roles in various slasher movies like Halloween, as well as for being the voice of Debbie on the Wild Thornberries cartoon on Nickelodeon. Not exactly a A-lister, but she looks nice. Or would, anyway if the Donruss photographer hadn't broken into her home and snapped a quick photo using an off brand disposable camera before she had her first cup of coffee. This card illustrates one of the weirder aspects of Americana, about half the photos they use are slick publicity stills and the other half are extremely unprofessional looking candid shots. This looks like a picture I would take. Weird background of somebody's house, a "get it over with already" forced pose and dear Lord, what is up with that shirt? Would you want to be seen on a trading card wearing that shirt? Even worse, what if that shirt's on the relic cards?? Since she is best known as a scream queen, here's her goth chick character from Urban Legend getting horribly, horribly killed while her roommate ignores it all.
178 Dani McCulloch
What. The. Hell. is this?? If I wanted a pack of Benchwarmers cards I would have bought it. Ugh. I don't understand this picture at all. I don't understand the silver jacket with poofy collar and I really don't understand the facial expression that makes her look like she was just pithed like a frog for some inhuman experiment. See what I mean about the slick publicity photos? This one just has a heavy dollop of strange along with the slickness. I can hear the photographer now... "Fluff up that collar and try to look more jailbaity!" Dani is a singer from Memphis who was on American Idol a couple of years ago and is apparently well into the process of getting chewed up and spit out by the music business. Her voice isn't too bad I suppose, but whatever sleazy producer she ended up with made this banal overproduced pile of sludge her first single. There's no money in blues, I suppose. I don't know what she's up to now because information on her is spotty online (nothing on Wikipedia or Amazon) and her website (with similarly vapid photo) hasn't been updated in almost a year. I sincerely hope Dani is back to singing in Memphis clubs and hasn't been sold as a slave to some underground casino in Dubai by her record label. I have no idea why she is in this set.
169 Barbara Bush
Someone I've heard of finally... This one looks like someone snuck a photo with their phone while attending a Bilderberg tea party. Something important is going on, Babs is rocking the three strands of pearls for pete's sake. I don't know, political card fatigue must be setting in, because this is literally the last card I wanted to pull out of a pack. I'm just going to leave it at that, because there is not a direction I can take this post without pissing off somebody somewhere on the political spectrum. Actually, I think it's safe to link (they won't let me embed the video) her appearance on Sesame Street. Everybody likes Sesame Street right?
Thankfully this is the worst of the bunch. Unfortunately, this is probably enough to put some people off Donruss for life. I'll have something really, really cool tomorrow to make up for this.
Yeah, I feel that way too, babe.
You would absolutely not believe the sheer number of Hart to Hart fan made music videos on YouTube featuring slow cheezy love songs. It's astounding. I guess baseball card bloggers aren't the only ones with way too much free time. Here's Robert on The Fall Guy.
That being said, now that I look into Mayhem Miller on the interwebs, this card is freaking awesome. Mainly because Jason Miller is completely out of his mind. He looks like a pretty good fighter (20-5-0 according to back of the card) but he's easily the best interview ever. Check out this insanity where he discusses Mormonism, evolution and the Flying Spaghetti Monster:
This was the first card I pulled from the first pack I opened. It's also the first card in the series 2 set. When I saw this card coming out of the pack I though "hey, cool! Jackie Chan. This might not be so bad". It was all downhill from here. Part of my problem with Americana is I don't get too excited about celebrity stuff. Most of my entertainment tastes tend to fall in the obscure/cult favorites category. I'd much rather watch Kentucky Fried Movie for the 50th time than go see the latest Will Ferrel flick at the theater. I listen to college radio instead of the ClearChannel stations. When I do watch TV, it's not Lost or 24 or American Idol, it's the Braves, raunchy cartoons on Comedy Central and Adult Swim, PBS and nerdy science stuff like Mythbusters and Good Eats. And that's assuming I even watch it on TV, my Daily Show and Colbert Report viewing is almost exclusively online now. So really, unless Donruss adds cards like Alton Brown, Jello Biafra, Doc Hammer, Adam Savage, Tor Johnson and Jon Stewart to series 3, this is truly a set I should avoid. That doesn't mean this card isn't awesome though. See for yourself:
Horror fans know her as the coolest thing from Fright Night. The rest of the universe knows her from her character Marcy, who was Al's neighbor and favorite punching bag on Married With Children. Marcy was originally married to poor henpecked Steve, but after she got ditched, she ended up married to Jefferson D'Arcy and became the immortal Marcy D'Arcy. Try to think of Steve's last name, I dare you. Marcy..... what? You can't think of it, can you. She is now and will be forever MARCY D'ARCY. Since I chewed up most of my blogging time watching old Married With Children clips and laughing my ass off, here's the episode where Marcy marries Jefferson.
Sure we do. Everyone's seen this guy in a movie. His films are some of the most successful and beloved of all time. You know who I'm talkin' about.
Danielle is an actress best known for roles in various slasher movies like Halloween, as well as for being the voice of Debbie on the Wild Thornberries cartoon on Nickelodeon. Not exactly a A-lister, but she looks nice. Or would, anyway if the Donruss photographer hadn't broken into her home and snapped a quick photo using an off brand disposable camera before she had her first cup of coffee. This card illustrates one of the weirder aspects of Americana, about half the photos they use are slick publicity stills and the other half are extremely unprofessional looking candid shots. This looks like a picture I would take. Weird background of somebody's house, a "get it over with already" forced pose and dear Lord, what is up with that shirt? Would you want to be seen on a trading card wearing that shirt? Even worse, what if that shirt's on the relic cards?? Since she is best known as a scream queen, here's her goth chick character from Urban Legend getting horribly, horribly killed while her roommate ignores it all.
What. The. Hell. is this?? If I wanted a pack of Benchwarmers cards I would have bought it. Ugh. I don't understand this picture at all. I don't understand the silver jacket with poofy collar and I really don't understand the facial expression that makes her look like she was just pithed like a frog for some inhuman experiment. See what I mean about the slick publicity photos? This one just has a heavy dollop of strange along with the slickness. I can hear the photographer now... "Fluff up that collar and try to look more jailbaity!" Dani is a singer from Memphis who was on American Idol a couple of years ago and is apparently well into the process of getting chewed up and spit out by the music business. Her voice isn't too bad I suppose, but whatever sleazy producer she ended up with made this banal overproduced pile of sludge her first single. There's no money in blues, I suppose. I don't know what she's up to now because information on her is spotty online (nothing on Wikipedia or Amazon) and her website (with similarly vapid photo) hasn't been updated in almost a year. I sincerely hope Dani is back to singing in Memphis clubs and hasn't been sold as a slave to some underground casino in Dubai by her record label. I have no idea why she is in this set.
Someone I've heard of finally... This one looks like someone snuck a photo with their phone while attending a Bilderberg tea party. Something important is going on, Babs is rocking the three strands of pearls for pete's sake. I don't know, political card fatigue must be setting in, because this is literally the last card I wanted to pull out of a pack. I'm just going to leave it at that, because there is not a direction I can take this post without pissing off somebody somewhere on the political spectrum. Actually, I think it's safe to link (they won't let me embed the video) her appearance on Sesame Street. Everybody likes Sesame Street right?