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.

Donruss Americana: Final Pack

Yeah, it's about time I get to posting the final pack of this stuff. There's a little bit of everything in this one, but no ladies.

Let's tear in,

Top to Bottom:
23 Mike Huckabee

CS-1 John Travolta Cinema Stars (234/500)
CS-3 William Shatner Cinema Stars Shirt (173/500)

99 Bernie Mac

57 Peter Marshall

Final verdict: This box leaves me wishing this product came out in different series. For me, there's too much of a mix of talent levels to justify its high price tag. This box's hits ranged from a silent film star (Pickford), to a TV/cinema star of sorts (Shatner), to a game show host from Flint, Michigan (Eubanks), to a midget pirate sprinter (Klebba). If T.J. Hooker's your thing, that fine with me, but I'd be more willing to shell out the cash for a similar product again if I could choose a bona-fide "Legends" box, where I have no chance of pulling the mom from 7th Heaven. Bogart, Preminger, Harrison Ford, Monroe, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Ingrid Bergman, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock, Jayne Mansfield, Welles, Toshiro Mifune...the list could go on and on...these are what I wanted to pull.

Hope you enjoyed busting these packs with me. I expect to have a full report on my Treasures box break sometime tonight at Thorzul Will Rule.

2007 Donruss Americana Pack 3

Since receiving this box Tuesday night, I've shown a remarkable amount of restraint. Here is pack 3.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
80 Adam West (As a Batman comic collector, this base card is all sorts of awesome. "Pure...West.")

37 Gilbert Gottfried
20 Debbie Reynolds Proof (194/250) (I seem to be doing well on the throwback ladies. Not a bombshell by any means, but shapely, yes.)

47 Martin Klebba Private Signings (1153/1250) (This pisses me off. What the hell kind of set includes an AUTO card numbered that high?! I'm not even going to scan this here. The man's hand had all but fallen off by the time he got around to signing mine, and it shows. I don't care if he does own the Little Person 100-meter dash record [and no, I'm not making that up; it's 13.84 seconds], show your signees a little dignity, Donruss.)
14 Gail Kim (Now that's more like it! Apparently she is a wrestler of some sort. I'd like to get her in the Camel Clutch, if ya know what I mean.)

Grade: C-
I have to use the standard of what could have possible come out of this pack. Please, please God let this be the worst pack out of the box. I only have one more shot at this.

2007 Donruss Americana Pack 2

As promised, thanks to the most wonderful of God's gifts, a snow day, here's the second pack of Donruss Americana.

Last night was a little bit of a rush job, so I'll take the time now to show off a few of the finer points of this box.

Upon opening the box, we can see that each of the four packs is very handsomely packaged in individual plastic cases.

This protection is necessary so as not to disturb the unstable isotopes contained within. I believe the correct term is "a delicate string of pearls configuration." Just be careful you don't ding the corners, Nic!

After one of these is opened, we are left with a normal, unassuming pack...with Humphrey Bogart on the front.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
34 Story Musgrave (Astronaut)
33 Giovanni Ribisi (Actor)

1 John Travolta Proof (003/100)

HL-17 Mary Pickford Dress (241/350)

This pack's pull is freaking awesome! To get a piece of memorabilia that hearkens back to the silent film era in a pack of cards is something that was almost unthinkable a few years ago.

A few thoughts on the rest of the pack:
*Giovanni Ribisi - One of my friends always referred to him as "that mushmouth guy."
*Story Musgrave - The man spent more than 1,281 hours in space. That's gotta be at least 50% more than I have.
*Dick Van Patten - I'm a little too young to have watched "Eight is Enough." I'm more familiar with his son Vince who plays a sleazy degenerate gambler with his undone bow-tie in commercials for Potawatami Bingo, a casino on a small swath of Indian land in the middle of Milwaukee.

Read it and Weep, Bitches!

This means that A Pack a Day gets to see some Donruss Americana during daylight hours today.

Stay posted.