2008 Donruss Americana II

My last trip to the store ended up with me taking home a blaster of Donruss Americana II. From what I've seen so far this year's checklist is a lot worse than last year's, but I couldn't resist. So far I've opened up just the first pack (actually, the second in the box, but I'll get to that later.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
115 Ray Park (Darth Maul)

172 Gigi Edgley (Never heard of her. Apparently from "Farscape.")

126 Joyce DeWitt ("Come and knock on our door...")

183 Evan Mariott ("Joe Milionaire".)

140 Nicholas Brendon (Never heard of him, either. Apparently from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer.")

Yeah, that pack sucked. The rest of this blaster better not be this terrible. Series Three of this product, if it's ever released, should be called "Donruss D-List Celebrities." To stave off the imminent infection that is this box, I've decided to take action. Each pack in this box after this one will be a contest in the making. When I post a pack, one of the cards will be highlighted in bold. This is the person whom you will use to play "Six Degrees of Gene Wilder." How does one play? It's simple. It's played just like the Kevin Bacon game. I will not insult anybody by explaining it here. All I'm doing is substituting Gene Wilder for Kevin Bacon. Why? Gene Wilder is my favorite actor of all time. I even own this amazing shirt, possibly the best T-shirt in the world.

What you need to do is connect the selected person to Gene Wilder in six moves or less. The first person to post the chain in the comments wins the card. It's not a great prize, but this is probably not a great set. We'll see.

This pack is a practice round, and as you can see above, Joyce DeWitt is the playing piece here. One might make this connection:
Joyce DeWitt was in Airplane II with Rip Torn, who was in Men in Black with Will Smith, who was in Enemy of the State with Gene Hackman, who was in Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder.

The first pack in the blaster, incidentally, felt about 60% thicker than the one I opened here. Hopes are high that it will contain one of the box's big hits, although it could be a decoy, or maybe an overstuffed pack. It will be posted on Thorzul Will Rule some time today, at which point the game will commence.