Going Down Memory Lane: Weekday Afternoon Cartoons and Trading Cards (Upper Deck Buying Out Topps?)

Today's blog will take me on a trip down Memory Lane. Pardon me if I get a bit emotional *sniff*.

- (from Krunk) Here's CRACKED.com's list of 15 (Painfully) Unforgettable Cartoon Theme Songs. My thoughts on this list:

• Haha, I completely forgot that Steven Spielberg is the genius behind Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. I may be in the minority here, but I actually liked Tiny Toon Adventures more than Animaniacs.
  
• Speaking of Tiny Toon Adventures, why is that at the beginning of the list?
• The second and third comments are spot on! How are Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck not on this list? And what about Conan the Adventurer?
  

I remember, back in elementary school, coming home every day to catch The Disney Afternoon; more specifically, Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, and Darkwing Duck, as well as Tiny Toon Adventures and, eventually, Animanics on FOX. I recall never starting on my homework until 5pm.

(Yeah, as a kid, I watched too much TV. Don't get me started on how much TV I watch now.)

And yes, I'll admit it; when the show first came out, I watched Power Rangers. What can I say? Lots of my friends watched the show too!

(Wow, I never noticed how ridiculously cheesy the intro to that show was! Actually, what's really sad is that I remember a show similar to Power Rangers, called VR Troopers. Now that was a cheesy intro!)

In my defense, the only reason why I watched Power Rangers was because of the Pink Ranger. Didn't every adolescent male around that time watch the show for the same reason? Didn't they???

- Trading card company Upper Deck is trying to buy out the last major trading card company out there, Topps. This is terrible news for an already dying market; dying because trading cards have gotten so unaffordable, only adults could afford packs these days. Back in the early 90s, I would often visit this card shop with my cousins--I forget the name--and usually spent $10-20 per visit there. I remember getting a whole assortment of stuff; some cheaper $1 packs, and a couple of the "premium" packs that went for $3-5 each. I remember opening each premium pack as if it was a Christmas present, being careful not to harm the foil packaging.

(Of course, I had to open the packs carefully, for fear of damaging the fancy cards that were stuffed inside.)

I remember back in 1993, buying a pack of Fleer Ultra Basketball for $3--Shaq's rookie year--and pulling out an insert card of Shaq. That card was worth $75 at the time, and it's still one of the top five insert cards I've ever pulled out of a deck of cards. I still have the card today, even though it's probably not worth $5, just because of the sentiment behind it. In 1998, when my interest in trading cards was waning, I pulled a Ken Griffey Jr. card numbered to 100 (there were only 100 copies of that card in existence). That card, valued at $100-150 at the time, was probably the coolest card I've ever pulled out of a pack, and it was nothing more than a regular card with the letters in gold-colored foil, with a stamped number on the back (also in gold).

I stopped collecting as a hobby years ago, when the prices of premium packs got ridiculous; premium packs now range anywhere from $25-100 each. Back in the day, a rare card was a limited-print, glossy looking card. Today, only cards have a piece of memorabilia or an autograph on it--swatches of jersey, pieces of ball, shoelaces, nets, sticks, etc.--have any value in the market. What made getting rare cards back in the day so much fun were the improbable odds of getting one; the odds of getting one card similar to the Shaq card I pulled in 1993 was 1:72 (if there were 10 cards in that set, that would make the odds of me pulling Shaq's card itself 1:720). Nowadays, with these expensive packs, the odds of pulling inserts are sometimes 1:1. What fun is that to guarantee yourself a card with a piece of memorabilia on it in every pack?

(Tangent: Between 1999 and 2001, I realized that trading cards was an affordable investment, rather than just a fun hobby. Between Yahoo! Auctions and eBay, I made about $2,000 during my senior year in high school (1999-2000) buying and reselling trading cards. While I don't regret making that kind of money, I do have to point to that time period as the time when I stopped looking at trading cards as a hobby.)

I'll still buy a pack every now and then, but I won't touch those ridiculously expensive packs with a ten-foot pole. I hope, if Upper Deck does acquire Topps, they use the Topps brand to reintroduce affordable, marketable packs for the collector (in the form of $1-2 packs), while keeping the Upper Deck brand for the investor (the more expensive stuff). Bring back the days of holograms, parallel sets, and fancy (non-memorabilia) inserts for the casual collector!

I have the urge to swing by Target and pick up a box of cards, just for fun.