The Shining

The idea for this card started with the Wendy Torrance card.  This was a character I thought of when I was thinking of movie characters that used baseball bats ... just not for baseball.  That idea also spawned this card, and this card, and this one too.  I originally made a stand alone card of Wendy Torrance in a 1980 Topps baseball inspired design -- the year The Shining was released.  But, I couldn't just really stop at Wendy, there would need to be a Jack too, or what would even be the point?  Then I got the idea why not put all three of the Torrance family members on one card in a design that mimics the Future Stars subset!

1980 Topps baseball

John Elway

You may (or may not?) know that John Elway was a two sport athlete coming out of Stanford University. His most notable exploits came on the football gridiron but he also played for the Stanford Cardinals’ baseball team in 1980 and 1981. Elway showed enough raw talent to have Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner totally enamored with the prospect of having Elway's services in right field for the Bronx Bombers. The Yankees used their 52nd overall pick of the second round to draft Elway in the 1981 MLB draft. Elway received a $140,000 signing bonus and in the summer of 1982 played for the Yankees' short season affiliate Oneonta Yankees in the New York–Penn League. Then the 1983 NFL draft came around and the Baltimore Colts selected Elway as the #1 overall pick. That’s when the drama started because Elway wanted no part of the Colts so he leveraged his baseball career to force a trade. At the time it looked like a prima donna move but looking at it now it was a shrewd move with the Colts not being the stablest of franchises and him going on to cap his 16 year career in Denver with back-to-back Super Bowl victories.

I came across some good quality pictures of John Elway playing baseball so naturally I wanted to do a card of him. I quickly also found out that Topps themselves did an Elway baseball card in 2014 using their 1981 template. Undeterred I just went a year earlier since he did play Stanford baseball in 1980. I used the color scheme that was used on the New York Yankees that year for reasons I assume are obvious if you are on this paragraph by way of the one above it.

Tony Micelli

If you're like me then growing up you've seen most, if not all, of the Who's The Boss? episodes. The show had near an eight year run and stayed in syndication forever.

A former major leaguer and widower forced to retire with a bum shoulder takes a job as a live-in house keeper to a divorcee ad agency executive in an effort to give his daughter better surroundings to grow up in a move -as seen in shows opening credits via Tony's Amber Alert beater van- that sees Tony and Samantha going from Brooklyn to a haughty part of Connecticut. A tale as old as time.

I remember two things specifically about Who's The Boss? One, Alyssa Milano going from a cute kid to a super hot babe at just the right time for my hormones. Second, I was always pretty amused with how Tony pronounced Angelar all New York-like.

It was established that Tony was a second basemen with the St. Louis Cardinals. If the show premiered in 1984 I figured a card with the 1980 Topps inspired design gave Tony a chance to wash out of the bigs and run through all of his funds. Any chance I get to use the 1980 template I'm taking.

The image I found was the second. The first was pretty poor quality. Not only did I luck up on a cleaner image but Danza's in a red baseball pants and looking young as can be. Total score.

Update:

I was reminded in the Instagram post I did of this card by @hamfx that there was an episode of Who's The Boss? where Angela is trying to track down a baseball card of Tony's baseball card as a sentimental Christmas gift for him. It's the 11th episode of the 3rd season entitled "The Christmas Card", (1986). I seemed to have remembered that the card was never actually shown on the episode, but @hamfx was thinking it was. I looked on Netflix and Hulu but the series isn't showing on either. @hamfx not only found it on DailyMotion, but he also grabbed a screen capture!

From the look of it it looks the card used in the episode may have been loosely inspired by the 1981 Donruss set, judge for yourself. And, if you're on Insta give @hamfx a follow.

Caddyshack

Caddyshack would fall under the ‘it’s about time’ heading when it comes to new additions to PCb custom trading cards. Gotta have Caddyshack, right?

This mini-set was a lot of fun to make. I have to believe Caddyshack is on most comedy fans shortlist and the #1 best golf comedy -- that or Happy Gilmore, depending on the age of who you ask.

I finally got to again use the 1980 Topps baseball inspired design I created for my "Bubba Newman" card. The 1980 design is super nostalgic looking to me. I throw the word ‘nostalgic’ around a bunch. You can find ‘nostalgia’ defined as: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. That’s what this design is to me. My cards in general are made to evoke nostalgia, mashing two things from my own past that I look back on fondly; ‘80s (mostly) pop culture and trading cards. You could give me any year in the ‘80s and I immediately identify it with what cards from Topps (and to a lesser extent the other brands) looked like that particular year. When I would part the two folds of a wax pack what was inside was very similar to the cards I make today. They didn’t have any gold foil stamping. There was no high gloss UV coating. There wasn’t 25 different releases to choose from at upwards of hundreds of dollars per pack that are secured in a metal briefcases. No cut up pieces of jerseys or manufacturer certified autographed cards. The cards were on a, for lack of more flattering descriptors, rough and almost cheap feeling cardboard stock. The graphics weren’t crisp with computer generated precision, but that was part of the charm. That’s not to say they weren’t cool looking. They were, and could keep the eye busy. This was before the picture quality dominated the card to the point where it looked like you were holding a photograph taken from courtside seats. That’s cool and all but give me the halftone dots any day of the week and I’ll be happy. In a nutshell Phantom Cardboard trading cards are a tangible yearning for a simpler time.

Stepping down from my soapbox now, I love how these came out. That’s probably another statement I overuse on this blog, but I would think if I didn’t like a card set I made I wouldn’t show it off. I swapped the player position text for the character’s role at the "Bushwood Country Club".

The card’s color scheme is from the 1980 Topps St. Louis Cardinals colors.  "Bushwood" is supposed to be located in Nebraska. Had it been set in a state that had a Major League team I would have chosen that team’s colors. I went with the Cardinals schemes because the Caddie’s shirts were somewhat of a red color.


Fun Fact:
I recently read that both Chevy Chase and Bill Murray (John Travolta as well) turned down the role of Forrest Gump.

Bubba Newman

This card marks my first artist collaboration.  Kristian from kcdesignz.com contacted me with some cool suggestions for cards.  One of them was for a Bubba Newman card from the 1980 TV movie The Comeback Kid.  This was a movie I'd never heard of before.  I YouTube'd it and began watching. Within maybe 5 seconds I knew this was a card I'd be making.  I ended up watching the whole movie and now have my eye out for a VHS copy to add the the library.

The image I most wanted to use for the card was the one on the VHS slip cover.  Problem was there was a lot of other stuff that I'd have to remove before it was card ready.  I simply mentioned this to Kristin and before I knew it he e-mailed me a masterfully edited picture. The guy is quite the pixel wrangler, and that saved me a ton of time.

1980 Topps

For the card I went with the 1980 Topps baseball design.  This was a first for this template, although it had been on my radar for some time, it was just that nothing from 1980 quite piqued my interest enough.

I used a San Diego Padres card for the card's colors as the fictional minor league San Jose Stallions shared their uniform colors.

Regretfully this is another card I have no chance of getting signed.  I love John Ritter.  When I was a kid I didn't get all the double entendre humor that was Three's Company.  I was just a dumb kid.  It wasn't until I watched reruns later in life that I realized how brilliant of a comedian John Ritter really was.

Actually, I don't want to say 'no' chance ... I'm going to try my luck wit Ritter's co-star, Susan Dey, also pictured on the card.

Also, I enlisted Kristian's skills a second time for some help on a preexisting card. I'll be updating that post and this one soon with our results.