Incredible Hulk Football

I've mentioned in previous posts how any television show in from the '70s on through to the '90s that was worth its salt had a baseball episode -- which is great for me because those make for fun cards.  Not only did The Incredible Hulk have the prerequisite baseball episode, but there was a football episode too!  That's right, the big green guy was the original Bo Jackon.  

The football episode actually came before the baseball episode.  In a Season Two episode entitled "Killer Instinct" David 'Bunett' is working as an ankle wrapper to the fictional Los Angeles Cougars professional football team.  The episode utilizes old footage of Chicago Bears games with the "C" on the helmet doubling for Cougars.  David needs to get help for a Cougar star linebacker who seems to be suffering from CTE which manifests itself on the gridiron in the form out hyper aggression.  

Since this episode came out in 1978 I framed the card in a 1978 Topps football Highlights subset inspired design.  I thought this would be a great fit as an extraordinary event card rather than making a player card since the Hulk wasn't a member of any certain team.  I also liked that the border was green.  Definite bonus for an Incredible Hulk card.

Halloween

Like many I went and seen the newest resurrection of Halloween.  Overall I was pleased with the newest chapter of the franchise, especially seeing Jamie Lee Curtis back in the fold.  A couple of days later it had me popping in my VHS copy of John Carpenter's original 1978 Halloween.  Revisiting the classic inspired me to give the original masterpiece some cardboard love.

Originally I figured I would use a 1978 Topps baseball inspired design especially seeing as I've not yet used it for anything.  Just to cover my bases I refreshed my memory on a what the 1978 Topps football set looked like and I knew within a split second that a '78 Topps baseball inspired design would just have to wait.

I know I've said it before but I'm always a fan of using designs that have rounded frames.  Rounded frames just instantly gives the design a cool retro look.  The colors were easy.  Gotta be orange and black.  The Steelers scheme on the '78 cards actually worked perfect with the light blue name color fill adding a nice contrast for the eye.

I finished the cards with a white border but decided

to also get a look at them with a black border for a spookier vibe and absolutely loved that tweak.

Heaven Can Wait

On one of my many thrifting trips in search of dead media I came across the movie Heaven Can Wait.  I didn't own it nor had I ever seen it so I plunked down the .25 (probably) and became the proud owner of this VHS tape.

1978 Topps football

It took me awhile to get around to watching it.  I, like most VHS collectors I would assume, have hundreds of movies I've yet to watch.  It makes sense since they were the form of movie media for a couple of decades and can now can be picked up for as little as .10 if you catch a sale.  They can pile up fast ... in my basement.

The main character Joe Pendleton -played by Warren Beatty- is a backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams.  Sometimes I search for ideas for custom cards, and sometimes they come looking for me. As for the movie, it was a good story I would recommend checking it out.

Heaven Can Wait was released in 1978.  Luckily I had a 1978 Topps football inspired template ready to go thank to the Ron Simmons card I had already made. It was just a matter of finding a picture and matching the Rams colors and voilà.

Pick up a copy of this card here.

Pigskin Wrestlers

There's a number of big time wrestling names that had football careers prior to stepping inside of the squared circle, and I'm happy to have recently added two of them to my list of custom card TTM successes.  Both all-time greats, and both Georgia residents.  I don't know how significant that second statement is, but I just felt like adding it.  Also, while I'm on a tangent, it seems to me through my TTM requests that a lot of retired pro wrestlers reside in Florida.  Neither here nor there, but whatever.

Bill Goldberg played defensive tackle for the University of Georgia Bulldogs in the late '80s.  He was taken in the 11th round of the 1990 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams.  He spent one season with the Rams and then onto the CFL before landing on the Atlanta Falcons from 1992-94 and then shortly after suffered a career ending injury.   Bill was spotted by none other than Lex Luger (whom also had a pre-wrestling football career) and Sting.  Those two encouraged him to pursue pro-wrestling and the rest, as they say, is history.

To stay era-appropriate I chose the 1989 Topps football design, and it's actually the year the photo used was taken.  There's nothing too fancy about the design, but every time I use it I come away thinking it's a clean design and perfect for customs.  I got the card back from Mr. Goldberg pretty quickly and was actually pretty surprised as he had just come off his pretty well publicized comeback with the WWE.

Ron Simmons played for Florida State from 1977-80.  His FSU career was quite prolific. He was an All-American in 1979 and 1980.  He was in Heisman consideration in 1979 and had his number retired by the Seminoles in 1988.

Simmons was taken in the 6th round in '81 by the Cleveland Browns and played for them in the 1981 and '82 seasons.  He then played for the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits where he was teammates with ... wait for it ... Lawrence Pfohl, aka Lex Luger.

I tried to get Ron's autograph on a wrestling card awhile back and got a note in return saying he's now charging $5 for cards.  I thought that was more than reasonable although I didn't immediately resend my card, and this was before I really started to get going with my custom cards.  I ran across some pictures of Mr. Simmons being a monster for the 'Noles and decided to make a custom feeling fairly certain I'd have a return success.

I chose the 1978 Topps football design, a year right in the middle of Ron's FSU days.  I liked the design because it really has funky retro feel to me, and I was very pleased with the end result.  I think it has a great vintage look. I sent $10 and two card and asked if he could add his WWE catchphrase "Damn!" to his signature, which he did. He also included a signed WWE card of his own, plus the turn around was pretty quick.

Also see : The People's Champ