1996 Upper Deck Johnny Quest

The date of my birth puts me in just about the perfect wheelhouse NOT to be a fan of Johnny Quest. The original series aired in 1964-65, and probably lived on through the 1970s through reruns. This was followed decades later by The New Adventures of Johnny Quest, which theoretically should have been on my radar, but wasn't, probably because the series lasted only 13 episodes. The the time the series on which this pack of cards was based, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, was on television, I was nearly finished with high school, and the only cartoons I watched were The Simpsons and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. This pack of cards is as problematic as the final TV series. I'm familiar with the broad outline of the show, but none of its intricacies. Adult Swim meta-cartoons have provided much of my knowledge of Hanna-Barbera staples, namely the simmering undercurrent of homosexual tension between Benton Quest and Race Bannon.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
26 Dr. Jeremiah Surd
Good God, these cards are a mess! I cannot tell you how difficult it was for me to identify the subject of each card. With no fewer than seven separate places for text on the front of the card, the design seemed to combine early Geocities elements with a seventh grader's myspace page circa 2005. I don't know where to look, and I feel defeated.

35 Dr. Jeremiah Surd (???) Again?
I'm not sure if this card is part of the base set or not. It doesn't seem to be one of the listed inserts, but the card numbering is of a different style than the first one. Surd's profile is on the back, but we have this URL group shot on the front. I want to track down a laserdisc of this show so I can unscramble my brain.

22 Hadji
Back to the base design, I see. Hadji is a familiar main character, albeit with a rebooted wardrobe. The post-1993 WTC bombing environment most likely dictated a turban-free cartoon. Also clearly a Power Rangers derived look.

HC2 Hadji's Clues - Courage Overcomes Fear
If I rub off a portion of the back of this card, I'll get a clue that will help me while I play the Johnny Quest CD-ROM Adventure. I'm not falling for that one. (Turns out I was wrong on the turban thing, too.) Odds on this insert were 1:5.

47 Villain ^2 -- Ezekiel Rage / Dr. Jeremiah Surd
All Surd, all the time baby!

44 Tools of the Trade - Surd's High-Tech Wheelchair
Seriously, I cannot get away from this guy. And another design shift. Can anyone tell me what the base design even is? I give up. Just watch Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. At least that has more Race Bannon than this pack.

1996 Score Series 2 Jumbo

In all the talk about licenses these days, I don't really see anyone clamoring for a Score revival. Score cards were first introduced as a more "normal" brand from the makers of Sportflics. Anyway, I don't have a lot of Score cards that were released after 1991, and 50 cents seems about right for a jumbo pack that had an MSRP of 1.99. So I present to you, with one of the most hideous pack wrappers ever, 1996 Score - Series 2.

363 - Rafael Palmeiro Star Struck (I see what they did there... with the stars and the like.)

283 - Paul Molitor
318 - Erik Hanson
352 - Roberto Petagine (I think I missed out on this guy's major league career.)

290 - John Franco (I don't even know what to say about this photo.)

325 - Kenny Lofton (The fade helped him steal more bases than the rest.)

367 - Randy Johnson Star Struck (Consequently, I don't think Randy's hairstyle contributed to his success, but something about his overall apperance definitely seemed to distract hitters.)

302 - Ivan Rodriguez (Style.)
337 - Ron Gant (Gant was one of those low-budget stars, someone I always tried to sell myself on. Having four Ron Gant rookies was as good as having a Ken Griffey Jr rookie, right?)

508 - Scott Hatteberg (Hatteberg should take lessons from Pudge.)

487 - Lou Whitaker
407 - Chad Ogea

511 - Marty Cordova AL Checklist (Apparently this set was numbered in League order. Whatever happened to this guy? He and Pat Listach must be laughing it up somewhere in the upper midwest.)
473 - Greg Swindell
389 - Steve Trachsel (If you were to do some sort of free association thing with me and said the words "bad pitcher," I'm pretty sure "Trachsel" would pop out of my mouth without much of a thought.)
420 - Stan Javier
456 - Pete Harnisch


1 of 20 - Frank Thomas All-Stars (This card is fairly shiny, and I kind of like the effect of the old newsprint style picture of Thomas on the right. All-Star cards came in 1 out of 4 packs according to the ugly wrapper.)
480 - Gabe White
479 - Brad Ausmus

1996 Upper Deck USA Basketball Deluxe Gold Edition

Last Olympics pack for a while from me. This is a USA Basketball set from Upper Deck meant to cash in on the 1996 Olympics. Upper Deck put out this set and one featuring Legendary Olympic Athletes in for the Atlanta games. They snuck in Michael Jordan into the Olympic set, but I can't blame 'em for that. This is a weird set. First of all, the cards are die cut on the bottom for some reason. I have no idea why, but they did it. Secondly, they padded out a 12 player team into a 72 card set. This means every player gets 5 cards each plus a two per pack SP foil card. The set was produced before the last two players were selected for the team and there's a redemption card for those players inserted one in 10 packs. I apparently never pulled a redemption card because I don't have any of those cards. In addition to the redemption, there are Career Highlight inserts, Michael Jordan and Penny Hardaway tribute cards and a set of Predictor cards where the card of the high scorer in the games would win you a prize. Upper Deck tacked on a USA Women's team subset at the end of the set to be fair to the ladies. Here's a pack for your approval.


SP - S1 Anfernee Hardaway
SP - S6 Hakeem Olajuwon
27 Scottie Pippen
28 Scottie Pippen
50 Grant Hill
54 Hakeem Olajuwon
4 Anfernee Hardaway
20 Shaquille O'Neal
35 Glenn Robinson
68 Carla McGee

As you can see there's a lot of opportunities to get more than one card of any given player. There are probably pretty astronomical odds against opening a pack where you didn't receive two of one player. The cards are nice, if a little repetitive. The SP cards are similar to the base set except for the black and white background printed on foilboard. Those are the best cards in the set though since they are the ones with career stats on the back. The other five cards are broken down into one "Portraits of Power" card like Grant below focusing on the '96 Olympics, and four other career highlights cards. Those highlights cards are really repetitive, as the backs all feature all four photos used on each of the fronts.

Here's one of the Women's Team cards of Carla McGee. These are a breath of fresh air from all the Pippen, Penny and Glen Robinson cards. This card here is extra awesome if you pay close attention to the photo. Former Tennesse Vol Carla is shooting over a University of Georgia player with Stegman Coluseum's waffle cone roof in the background while McGee is wearing her Team USA Uniform. I suppose it could have been an exhibition...

1996 Collect-A-Card Centennial Olympic Games Collection

Today's Olympic pack is from the 1996 Olympics. This was an official product of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and has the Atlanta games logo on the back. The manufacturer is Collect-A-Card, but I'm not sure if that was an oddball non sport manufacturer that popped up in the '90s or if ACOG just made it up to produce this set. The overall theme of this set is "Artsy Fartsy". There are very few athletes profiled and most of the set is made up of official posters of various games and artistic photos that represent the spirit of the games. Like the last pack, this one ended up in deep clearance at Eckerds.


12 of 20 Innsbrook 1964 Gold Medal pogs
112 Babe Didrickson
7 Champions - 200 Meters - Women
14 Champions - 800 Meters - Men
27 Champions - Marathon - Women
47 Champions - High Jump - Men
74 Champions - Pentathlon
87 Champions - 200 Meter Freestyle - Women
54 Champions - Long Jump - Women


As you can see there is one card of an Athlete and the rest have a list of gold medal winners for a particular sport on the pack, with an unrelated Olympic themed photo or poster on the front. The American flag card above had the Women's 200 meter dash winners on back, including Wilma Rudolph and FloJo. It's an interesting set, but a normal collector of baseball cards would be put off by the lack of actual athletes and most non sports collectors probably aren't interested enough in the Olympics to try to build a set. So now we have a set without a wide audience, which ironically is probably what ACOG was shooting for when they designed it. One big plus for the set is that it has a few dufex insert cards to chase. One of them is a one per pack Gold Medal:

The package calls them "Fun Caps" but we all know them as POGs. It's a really cool little insert, the dufex gives them a 3-D metallic look like a real medal. Of course since POGs are designed for playing a game where a heavy metal object is thrown at them repeatedly, one would think that after a few games the delicate dufex would be a wreck. I'm going to save the POGs and flip the cards instead.

1996 Stadium Club Series 1

Hi, my name is Kerry, and I have the contents of one baseball card package to divulge to you. This is my first post here. But I must warn you all, because what I'm about to show you is... EXTREME!

I will be posting my thoughts in real time rather than opening the pack and letting it sit on my desk for several days while I think of something intriguing or mildly interesting to say about what comes out. That's for lazy people. This, remember, is... EXTREME!


Will I pull any EXTREME PLAYERS? Only time and careful separation of mylar sealings will tell. So, here goes:

37 - Jaime Navarro (boo! Cubs! decidedly NOT EXTREME)


81 - Benji Gil (he clearly has a jet pack on his back and is therefore EXTREME)


149 - Pat Hentgen (the 1996 Cy Young Award winner with a wide shot of the Skydome in the background- pretty EXTREME)
74 - Jeff Brantley (The Cowboy worked for ESPN at one point... not so EXTREME)


4 - Jose Mesa (EXTREME mustache)


- Chad Curtis EXTREME PLAYER GOLD (but this has official contest rules on the back, so I don't know if it's truly EXTREME or if it's just trying to sell me something)
171 - Trevor Hoffman (EXTREME future Hall of Famer)


196 - John Valentin Team TSC (EXTREME butt backing its way into the logo)


- FREE! STADIUM CLUB MEMBERSHIP WOW! (unfortunately, I don't think the word EXTREME is mentioned anywhere on this insert - how are they going to get anyone to sign up?)


32 - Bernard Gilkey (a Cardinal! can you say... EXTREME?)
144 - Tim Naehring (eh... not so much)

I had fond memories of the inaugural 1991 Stadium Club set and am always a sucker for full bleed cards. All sillyness aside, the design (at least on the front) isn't all that bad. I know nothing about this set as far as player selection goes, but I'll have to try and pick up the rest of the Cardinals I need from this set when I get a chance. This was part of my trip to a hobby store over the weekend, and I picked up a few other random packs from a group of neglected boxes on the floor that had markdown written all over them. Don't worry, I did not pay $3.00 for it.

1996 Merlin's Premier League

In my last post I asked you to vote on today's pack. The totals:

2006 Topps Updates & Highlights - 1
2008 Upper Deck Series 2 - 1
Surprise me - 2
one abstention

The winner by a two to one margin is 'surprise me' so here's a pack of English football cards from 1996. Surprise! I found this pack in a box of packs on sale for a quarter each and thought "hey, soccer cards for a quarter". I know bugger all about soccer though to that's why I'm posting this now instead of last month during the Premier League finals when this pack might have actually been relevant. Did you know that since this pack came out twelve years ago there have only been three different champions of the league? Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea is it. And we gripe about the Red Sox and Yankees. Not only that but the three worst teams each year actually get kicked out of the league. Reading, Birmingham and Derby got the ol' heave ho this year. I know a few MLB teams that need to be demoted back to little league. So here's a pack of twelve year old cards from a sport I know nothing about for your viewing pleasure. See what happens when you don't vote, people?

S07 Andrei Kanchelskis pop-up card
First card in the pack is a die-cut pop-up card that you can punch out and stand up. The most likely reason to do so is so you can take a hi-bounce ball and do a kick at him with your finger so he can get flattened. Andrei is playing for Everton here after winning a championship with Manchester United. Everton reminds me of the assistant from the BBC series Chef! and not a football club.


Next is an advertisement for their PremierGold cards coming in October. Only 80p for a packet of 8! The back has a soccer design for the kiddies to color apparently. Of course it's a soccer ball and a net, so I'm not sure what there is to color there.

41 Robert Lee
BEER SOCCER!!! Newcastle must be the Milwaukee Brewers of the Premier League. I've had Newcastle Brown Ale before, and it's a hell of a lot better than Miller though. No offense, Thorzul. Oh, Robert scored like, 93 goals and stuff.

05 Gareth Southgate
Gareth and Everton in the same pack. This is the Chef! pack. I wish that show was still on PBS. Now they have To the Manor Born. Who watches that? I really wish they'd pick up The New Statesman. Rick Mayall rules. At least bring back Dr. Who. And not that new crap, give me Tom Baker or give me death. Gareth plays defense or something. Linebacker maybe.

20 Gary Speed
Whoa! Gary's got a big ol' noggin! It's got it's own weather system! I thought Beckham was the one with the swelled head. Gary is Welsh which is why they can get away with mocking poor Gary's hydrocephalus. The English can be cruel. Gary was the Welsh team's captain. He, um, kicked the ball occasionally.

Wasn't that fun?? You'd never even know I kew nothing about soccer football. I've got another pack of this stuff, I'll save it till the new season starts. I'm sure you will all be waiting with bated breath.

The 20 for $40 re-wrap: 1996 Pacific Prisms and 1998 Finest series two

So I've decided what the winner of my contest will get. You will receive every single card I've pulled in both the 20-for-$40 and the 50-cent cheapo wax breaks -- minus whatever cards I actually need on my wantlist. (I might even throw in a few extra game used cards, if that fails to satisfy the winner.)

Onto the packs!



1998 Finest

Base
John "C3P" Olerud
Kerry Wood
Harold Baines
Pat Hentgen
Joe Carter

Parallel
No Protectors (1:2) Brian Hunter


1996 Pacific Prisms

Base
Alex Fernandez

Insert
San Francisco Giants Team Card

Alex Fernandez is card #88, so our winner is "roof_god" who chose "87." To claim your prize, send me an e-mail ASAP.

The 50-Cent Cheapo Pack Break: 1996 Studio

This is the final installment of the initial wave of 50-Cent Cheapo Pack Break videos. The results of this ongoing experiment in video gonzo baseball card journalism are, and I must admit, mixed. Not a failed experiment, not yet.... More packs must be acquired. But which ones? Did they like the late-80s/early-90s Topps cellos? Or was it the mid-90s semi-premium wax?

More packs must be busted, and more videos must be made. But when? And from where? How would Jefferson Burdick handle the situation?

But most important of all is some advice my attorney recently e-mailed to me.

"As your attorney, I advise you to wear the royal blue `Rated Rookie' t-shirt from now on. Your fans seem to think that it has mysterious, God-like powers."

My attorney is very wise. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan.

Ahh, yes. The video.... 1996 Studio.... Fine product, fine product. A marked improvement over the disastrous 1995 set. '96 Studio was the first "Donruss" product released by Pinnacle Brands after they bought 'em out. (Some good that did them, huh?) I believe I already have the whole base set stashed away somewhere -- probably in my parent's basement -- so I'm just looking for inserts. Hopefully a Stained Glass Star.

Super Bowl Prediction: 1999 Topps vs. 1996 Collector's Choice

The Patriots are down a touchdown in the fourth quarter and they need to step it up. Bellichick pulls out a curveball, an old pack of Collector's Choice to help out Brady and company. The Giants have their own trick up their sleeves, they abandon the cardboard for a high gloss foil stamped late 90's pack of Topps.

1996 Collector's Choice
100 Charlie Garner
126 Wesley Walls
38 Stantley Pritchett Rookie class
96 Drew Bledsoe
17 Pete Kendall Rookie Class
M12 Emmitt Smith MVP
S7 Morten Anderson sticker
197 Leslie Shepherd
157 Mike Sherrard
247 Phillipi Sparks
217 Chris Calloway
297 Scott Mitchell
300 Tony Bennett
323 Leroy Hoard

This is my favorite Collector's Choice set. It comes pretty close to the '91 set for looks. Plus the pack has 12 cards plus two bonus cards, wheee!The photography is pretty sweet, there's lots of neat shots here. Sparks is leaping for an interception, Calloway's getting mugged by an Eagle, Sherrard has a great "I didn't do it" look on his face and Bennett signs autographs (in full uniform) for the kids in some neighborhood. The Patriots get a Bledsoe card in this pack which is immediately nullified by three straight Giants. Sherrard has a "Signed by Broncos" label though. I have to give a TD to the MVP card of Emmitt and an awesome sticker of Morten. Hell, I'm giving the Patriots a 2-point conversion since the sticker shows holder Dan Strysynski as well.

1999Topps
288 Keenan McCardell
356 Checklist
195 Glyn Milburn
303 Leslie Shepherd
249 James Jett
194 Ted Johnson
341 Donovan McNabb SP RC
306 Terence Mathis
276 Trent Dilfer
299 Robert Brooks
218 John Avery

Donovan McNabb short print rookie! Freakin' Sweet! That's worth two touchdowns at least. The rest of the pack ain't so great. The design is kind of ugly and there's not much in here other than Donovan. Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson looks real mean though, he knocks out one of McNabb's touchdowns. The Giants have one last trick up their sleeve. Terence Mathis is one of my favorite Falcons of all time, plus he went to the Super Bowl the year this set came out. That's worth a last minute field goal to win it for the Gnats. Hey, I calls 'em as I sees 'em and Topps was just better in these pack breaks. So if the cards are correct we'll have a barn burner today with New York giving Boston another complex with a last second field goal. Bet on it! Old crappy wax is never wrong!

FINAL SCORE: Giants 44 Patriots 42

Ted Johnson sez: WE WUZ ROBBED!!!

1996 Bowman's Best

I went to the hobby store to get some supplies and saw that 2007 Bowman's Best is out. It looks pretty nice but is 90 bucks for a mini box. Gonna have to pass on that. Up on the shelf though was a dusty old pack of 1996 Bowman's best for only three bucks. Now that's more my speed. There's no autographs or relics, and the best cards are Atomic refractor inserts that I think I might already have, but hey who needs all those bells and whistles. Let's open this purple pack.

13 Frank Thomas
57 Jose Canseco
73 Matt Williams
132 Edgard Velazquez
167 Steve Gibralter
154 Luis Castillo

Frank Thomas right off the bat is not shabby at all. I can't pull a White Sox card anymore without thinking about Sox or No Sox. Unfortunately Big hurt is immediately followed by a trap card. A good trap card though, which is going straight into Mario's trade pile. Matt Williams makes this pack three-for-three on mid 90's star cards in the Veteran half of the pack, although the shine has really faded on everyone but Frank. The rookies get silver backgrounds instead of yellow. First up is Edgard Velazquez, better known as Edgard Clemente. He wasn't quite the player his uncle Roberto was and only had one full year with the Rockies. I remember Steve Gibralter was another hot prospect at the time, and he ended up playing 6 games for the Reds before banging around in the minors until 2001. The last card in the pack is a decent rookie though. Luis Castillo is one of the big rookies in this set along with Mike Sweeney, Geoff Jenkins and Carlos Guillen. Ok, so 1996 wasn't the greatest year for rookies.

The backs are pretty neat, Topps once again tried to incorporate some innovative stats on their off-brand cards and we have the Bowman's Best Stat-Scan. The rookie cards are separated into Class A, AA and AAA stats so you can follow the progression, but this means that the veterans have their career stats hacked up into three different chunks. This is the first time I can recall seeing the Home Runs per At Bat stat on the back of a card before. I wish I had pulled a pitcher so I could see their stats. This pack reminded me of two things from 1996: These cards thankfully do not have the stupid "Protective Film" that is found on Finest cards. Unfortunately I was also reminded that these cards have a weird greasy film on them. I bought several packs of this stuff back in '96 and pulled a couple of sweet inserts. No autos or gamers, but feast your eyes on this little gem out of the Cardboard Junkie's vaults:


Awwww Yeah! Die cut baby! NucularCrazyFractor! There ain't no die cuts in 2007 Bowman's Best! If Steve wasn't jealous before, I know he is now.