Joy of a Completed Set - 2003 Rittenhouse Star Trek The Animated Series

In the middle of a February Funk, but I want to post some damn thing so people don't send out search parties for me so here's a completed set. The scans are missing a card but I have since acquired that card and about 2-3 more complete sets of this stuff and enough partial sets to bip the hell outta someone. Rescanning that page to add the missing card would take WORK and that ain't gonna happen. Forget about the backs. if you want to see them it will be easier for me to mail you a set.

As for the set, well, this here set is a helluva set. Rittenhouse especially seems to put a lot of thought and care into their sets. It's a 198 card set which equals 9 cards for each of the show's 22 episodes. When you put the cards on the page horizontally, the borders all match up. Different photos on the front and back and each page tells the story of the episode. Sounds like basic stuff, but I'd like to see a 2014 sports set designed that thoughtfully. In fact, I challenge you to find a new sports product designed like this. Hell, just finding a set size divisible by 9 is damn near impossible. 

Enjoy the cheezy but iconic Filmation animation characterizations of your favorite Star Trek characters along with a dorky looking alien for comic relief and a stupid sexy cat lady because every goddamn cartoon made in the '70s was trying to turn us all into furries for some inexplicable reason. As an added bonus I've included two of the more common insert sets. (9 cards each, natch) One of them is a PUZZLE!

The montage of characters on Scotty's puzzle card are all characters James Doohan voiced on the show. Pretty neat, huh? If this post has you all nostalgic for bad '70s sci-fi animation that is so so good, the entire run is on Netflix. Go have a cartoon binge.

1954 Topps Cartoons - #4 Knothole Gang

Yay! Posting before work again! I'm actually up early for once! And full of energy! I guess that happens when you go to bed before 2:30am! Let's have some Vinegar Bend!

His name is Wilmer Mizell, he signs his name David Mizell and everyone but his momma calls him Vinegar Bend. I guess we'll see a cartoon about the fermentation of alcohol by acetic acid bacteria today...

Mizell never touched a baseball until he was sixteen! 


To gain control, he threw at a knothole in a barn door!


It was good practice - but he threw so hard he knocked down the barn door several times!

I like how 16 year old Wilmer is built like a stevedore and is wearing a fedora while he practices throwing a baseball at a barn. Wilmer, er David, um Vinegar Bend was a pretty dang good pitcher for the Cardinals in the '50s, although he missed a couple seasons serving in the Army during '54 and '55. He ended up finishing his career with the '62 Mets, but that wasn't the most incompetent organization he was associated with. Nope, Vinegar Bend went on to become a Congressman, serving North Carolina's 5th district from 1969-1975. After 6 years in Washington the Mets must have seemed like a tightly run ship! Who would you rather have leading you - Casey Stengel or Richard Nixon? Remember kids - if you throw baseballs at a barn door one day you too might be a congressional representative. Or something like that.

Ya know who else knocks down barns....

1954 Topps Cartoons - #5 I DARE YOU

Next up in the Cartoon Countdown is Dodgers (um, Reds?) pitcher Joe Black.

Brooklyn Dodgers are always welcome in my collection, especially ones with as much history as Joe Black. Rookie of the Year, first African-American to win a World Series game and dude was on the Cosby Show!

In '42 an angry manager dares Joe Black to try out for his team. 


Joe did- and he became the team's shortstop! Switched to pitching and in '51...


Brooklyn bought him. 1 year later Joe was the league's top relief pitcher - and all on a dare!

I couldn't confirm this story online, but it looks like Joe was at Morgan State University in '42. Maybe Morgan State's coach was the grouchy one? Joe didn't go into the Army until '43. Joe had a fantastic '52 season but got traded to Cincinnati during the Championship year in '55. This card reminds me that I should probably get around to reading The Boys of Summer one of these days. But that's a topic for another post.

1954 Topps Cartoons - #6 Assault & Battery

It only took two weeks, but I finally got over my flash drive rage and rescanned all the '54 cartoon cards. I also scanned 1955 as well and I'm going to upload the lot of them to Picasa before my laptop moves an inch. I'm not losing all these images again! The White Sox get two straight 'toons on the countdown, not that anyone remembers the last cartoon post I did.

That's Al Sima, not Al    A. the front of the card is a bit, um, loved. Loved cards are the best cards.

Toonage:

Best known as a pitcher, he's good at other sports too!


He is considered one of the best bowlers in the Major Leagues!


An amateur boxer in his youth, he won a sectional Golden Gloves crown in the 175-pound class!

So in review... Al can pitch. Al Can bowl. Al can snap the necks of rival males in ritual displays of aggression. Rope that dope, Al!

Back in the saddle again! More toons tomorrow!

1954 Topps Cartoons - #7 Criminal Activity

This is turning out to be sort of a lost weekend for drawing/posting although I did participate in the greatest baseball game I will ever witness yesterday and got to watch enough ponies with my daughter to keep Elmer's supplied for the rest of the decade. I want to get one Topps cartoon out this weekend so this series doesn't end up taking 5 years to finish. This toon goes out to Good 'Ol Steve who is having an extraordinarily interesting life at the moment. Hang in there, buddy!

 Here's a card of Ferris Fain, two time AL batting champ. How did this guy hit so well?

One day in '51, Ferris watched some kids play baseball. 


When they left they forgot the bat. Fain, in a batting slump took it. 


He started using it. That old bat not only ended his slump but helped win the batting crown!

Yep, ol' Ferris won the batting title AFTER SWIPING SOME KID'S BAT. Although the way that bat looks in the second panel, the kid might have been trying to get that bat swiped for quite some time. It worked for Ferris though! I wonder how long that bat lasted in the bigs before it broke or an equipment manager mistook it for a table leg and sent it to the scrap heap. Ferris was actually a fantastic hitter in his own right and had a lifetime OBP of .424. He was also a bit of a nut, which caused friction in the clubhouse and ended up getting him run from the league. If Ferris was born 50 years later with an OBP like that, he'd have a 200 million dollar contract, his face would be painted 100 feet high on Nike's corporate offices and Bill James would start a new religion dedicated to the worship of Ferris. Hey, there's worse things to worship besides OBP...

Nothing down here today, I really gotta go...

1954 Topps Cartoons - Honorable Mentions

Before I kick off the '54 cartoons, I feel the need - nay - the obligation to inform you all that the funniest photograph that has ever or will ever be committed to film (or pixels, as the case may be) has already been taken and it's this one right here.

Human shutterbugs shall never surpass this masterpiece of comedy. Perhaps a strange alien race far away in a distant galaxy has snapped a more hilarious photo, but to those far out space nuts, I say: PICS OR GTFO. This right here is as far as humankind will ever progress in the photographic medium. I found this in this little insane corner of the interwebs and I am a much happier person today because of it.

Ok, onto the 'toons.

Comics in 1954 are much different from the ones in '53. The take up just as much if not a little more square inchage on the back of the card, but it is now in a comic strip form spread out over the bottom of the card. 1953 toons are simple and straightforward like Toothpaste For Dinner, the '54s are more complex and nuanced like Chainsawsuit. I'm hoping and praying that Topps' real "Game Changer" for 2012 is that they hired Winston Rountree to do the cartoons for the back. Each card would probably have to be 10" by 14" to fit in all the words, but it would be totally worth it. But I digress. In exchange for the Dugout Quiz* we now have Inside Baseball. Each toon is a two or three panel comic with an anecdote about the player on the card. They are all done pretty well, although they aren't as cartoony or funny as some of the '53s due to the subject matter.

It took me a while to find the right toons to post. Thanks to the flip flop back orientation of the '54 set, trying to read all the cartoons while flipping my binder upside down and back side up every 5 seconds was not easy. Reading tiny black text on a green background with my worthless eyesight wasn't fun either. There were also too many good stories in there, I had my binder half dismantled before I finally settled on 19 cartoons, which eventually got whittled down to a top 7. Aaaaaand of course, I just had to add in a couple of honorable mentions with similar but opposite themes.

Here's the rookie card of Philly hurler Tom Qualters.

In high school, Tom dreamed of playing for the Phils!


But the Phil's scout saw Tom at his worst!


But there was a reason - Tom was just getting over the flu! The Phils knew this and gave him a contract!

A heartwarming story, eh? Kid blows his big break but the scout sees something no one else does and signs him anyway? Pixar should pick up this story for their next picture, right? Well, check the back of the card. The Phillies threw 50 Grand at the kid when he was 18. He pitched in one game in 1953. See the ERA? Wonder why it's blank? That's not because it's an error, it's because Topps couldn't fit a 162.00 ERA in the box. Ok, so the kid got shelled in his first outing, he can still pitch and he'll get some seasoning in the minors and be right back up after his cuppa coffee. NOPE. Philly let Tom rot on the bench for TWO WHOLE YEARS. He pitched one game in '53, none in '54 and finally got sent to the Carolina League in '55. While his development was being stunted, Tom also gained the nickname "Moneybags" from his teammates. Worst of all, after Philly gave up on him and he went to the White Sox, just as he started to come into his own as a relief pitcher, he hurt his arm and his career was kaputt. Does Pixar do tragedies?

You knew I had to sneak a Brave onto the list somewhere.

Del became a catcher by a strange trick of fate.


He was last on line when equipment was handed out in school. Del got the catcher's mitt. That started his career.

Three exclamation points for Tom, none for Del. The rookie hype is not a recent phenomenon. While Tom was a burner striking out batters right and left in high school, Del was apparently a slacker who showed up late to practice one day and ended up with the Tools of Ignorance because no one else wanted them. While Tom's career didn't pan out, Del ended up being arguably the best catcher in Braves franchise history up until some kid named Brian showed up a few years ago. Rookie of the Year runner up, 11 time All-Star, four Gold Gloves and actually had a decent stick at the plate. All because he was last in line.

*True story: on highway 41, there was a bait shop called The Dougout that had a big billboard that I would frequently pass on my travels. The shop is closed but the billboard is still there. And now whenever I try to type the word "Dugout" it comes out as "Dougout" every single time.

Variations on a theme

Apparently Topps did something silly in one of their new "car-payment or one pack of cards" priced sets.

Then Chris Harris fixed it.

Well I fixed the fixing!

If John Flasburgh relic (Or better yet a Flansburgh/Linnell DUAL relic!) was actually in Triple Threads I'd buy a case. Well, not exactly buy one. I might wander into a card shop, throw one of those atrocious pink talking Princess Celestia dolls* at the shopkeep and grab and run away with a case of Triple Threads. But only for the Johns.

Also the venerable SlangKo Provided me with the proper font for my 1953 Topps homebrew cartoon so now it's fixed!

Thanks! '54 toons to come tomorrow!

*Yes, my daughter has one of these things. My wife calls it "The pink horse with the sun on its butt"

1953 Topps Cartoon - DIY Version

We now come to the real reason why I started posting cartoons. I wanted to do my own Topps Toons. Here's my interpretation of a 1953 Topps Dugout Quiz Cartoon:

I'm pretty sure that this was the cartoon that was supposed to be on the back of card 267, but the card got yanked and it was lost to history.

Here we have a tender moment between Warren Spahn and one of Wisconsin's many dairy cows. While my initial idea for the '53 cartoon was the Braves' move to Milwaukee this was not the original subject I had planned. I initially was going to draw Eddie Mathews with a frosty mug of beer. Then I realized that a ballplayer knocking down the suds was not really going to fly on a baseball card from the fifties. It's not terribly fair to Eddie either! So while Milwaukee is known for beer, Wisconsin is known for cows. Beer was out, milk was in (or rather, the production facility) and Eddie was replaced with Spahnnie. Warren actually owned a ranch in Oklahoma for many years so he might be more comfortable with the heffers while Eddie could sit and enjoy his brew off stage.

The reference photo for Warren came off his 1953 Bowman card. I thought Topps might like to pull a little prank on their competitors. I also used the Bowman B for the hat logo. For the cow I googled cartoon cow, looked at a couple of pages of cowtoons and ran with it. My cow is probably a bit more cutesy than anything that made it into the '53 set, but that's a byproduct of drawing precious perky ponies for a month solid. With this drawing I also did something for the first time - actually got the guts to ink the thing. Here's the raw ink before I MSPainted it into the cartoon above.

That was surprisingly much easier than I imagined. Inking is still a bit intimidating because you don't have the eraser to lean on, but it turned out reasonably ok considering I don't know what I'm doing and I only have #2 pencils and a Sharpie to work with.. I goofed up the shading on the right side of Warren's neck, but the paintbrush tool took care of that in the final version. One thing I couldn't get right in my cartoon was the font for "Dugout Quiz" I swear I've seen the font on the actual '53 card running around the internet before but I couldn't find it and I absolutley do not have time to edit it out of the actual card. If I was doing an entire set worth of cartoons, then maybe. Not doing it for one. Berlin Sans FB Demi is good enough to get the point across.

Here's the original sketch scanned for posterity. The plan is to do one of these home brew toons for each year. The other plan was to do one set a week, but that's out the window seeing as I haven't actually picked out the 1954 cartoons yet. Making my own toon is fun though, so you'll be seeing the backs of some '54s soon.

1953 Topps Cartoon - #1 Puddin'

Ok, last chance to salvage this series before I give up. Les do sum toons.

Roy Face rookie card. Lovingly trimmed to get rid of all that unsightly white stuff on the side. If you're one of those anal retentives who like their cards to be 'mint' or some such flavor, you may think this care looks horrific. Well it's nothing compared to what awaits you on the back.

What Philly Player is called "Puddin Head"?

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Mmmmmmm... that's good puddin'. Maybe not 240 dollars worth, but still pretty good. Who cares if it's looking at you? Sadly. Eat that puddin' up! Yum! Ok, maybe I've lost my appetite for puddin' after seeing this card. Who puts a hat on puddin' anyway? I tried to look up the origin if Willie's name, but there are about 20 different theories out there. Poor Willie got stuck with it anyway and now he's forever a glop. An odd thing about the '53 cartoons, in the early series there were some pretty straightforward baseball trivia questions, but as the card numbers got higher, the cartoons got weirder and weirder. A bunch of the high numbers are questions about nicknames resulting in every kind of anthropomorphized animals playing baseball. Bugs, rabbits, moose, fish, frogs, there's even a peanut. Only one glop though. Such a sad, sad, glop.