Lamar Lattrell

While making the Revenge of the Nerds set I had two cards in mind for the bonus card.  I ultimately chose to go with the Lewis Star Wars card as the bonus card as I thought this Lamar Lattrell 1991 ProSet Yo! MTV Raps style card could work better as a stand alone card.

The Musical Show and Skit Competition was one of the highlights of Revenge of the Nerds.  Lamar killed it.  Now that scene has its own custom card!

"Clap your hands everybody, and everybody clap your hands..."

Daniel Hillard

I think Mrs. Doubtfire is one of those movies you'd be hard pressed to find someone who says that they just don't care for it.  I remember we saw it at the theater as a family and countless times after with our VHS copy.

This card has fun with the opening scene where Robin Williams' pre-Doubtfire disguise "Daniel Hillard" character is being the 'cool dad' by throwing his young daughter a wild hip hop birthday house party complete with barnyard animals and dancing on top of the family dining room table to House of Pain's "Jump Around" -- much to the shock and horror of his wife who arrives home earlier than expected and thus becoming the final straw of their marriage.

This card joins the previous cards I've done set in the style of the 1991 ProSet Yo! MTV Raps set.  This card also marks the second card I've done featuring Robin Williams, who continues to be a beloved figure that's gone far, far too soon.

2Pac, 1991

Tupac had a rather meteoric rise to superstardom before his untimely murder, but in 1991 when ProSet released their Yo! MTV Raps rapper trading card set, Tupac was still a relative new-comer to most of the established artists in the set.  This card has a little fun imagining "what if" Tupac had made it into that card set.

In 1991 Tupac --then going by the stage name 2Pac-- was a roadie/back-up dancer in the rap group Digital Underground.  He had a cameo with the group in the movie Nothing But Trouble performing the song "Same Song", which also was featured on the film's soundtrack.  Later that year Tupac released his debut album 2Pacalypse Now.

Juice

Another movie I've given a rewatch to in this time of quarantine is 1992's Juice.  Very entertaining movie and just more proof that Tupac was a very talented actor. 

Here's a custom card of Omar Epps' character, "Q", who was an aspiring DJ.  Something that's perfect for the 1991 Yo! MTV Raps inspired template.

Froggy Fresh

Back in 2012 Froggy Fresh (then known as Krispy Kreme) and his pahtna, Money Maker Mike, took the internet by storm with the video to the song "The Baddest".  I guess you could call it comedy rap?  They then followed that up with video after video that expanded the Froggy Fresh universe.  I was hooked from day 1.  The Froggy Fresh character is so well done that it had a lot of people wondering if it was actually a character or not.  The musical value is well produced and the story telling draws you in and keeps you entertained.

Unfortunately the guy behind Froggy Fresh has since retired the alter ego.  Fortunately, he still puts out music on YouTube under his actual name, Tyler Cassidy.  His newer stuff is still as funny but the genre has changed into a more soulful crooning style of music.  No elaborate videos either.  Just Tyler at a piano.  But it's still good stuff.

I did two cards for Froggy and Mike.  Of course I had to pay tribute to the video that started it all and that went into the 1991 ProSet Yo! MTV Raps inspired design.

I also made a card from my personal favorite from the Froggy Fresh catalog which is his song "Dunked On" using the 1980-81 Topps basketball inspired design.  This design is one of my favorites to use.  I really like making cards that feature multiple pictures on them.

Cool As Ice

Here's another gem I got reacquainted with during the stay-at-home order we're currently under here in Michigan.

Here's a little admission, I was a huge H-U-G-E Vanilla Ice fan back in the day.  I remember getting the To The Extreme cassette tape in December of 1990.  I bought it for myself while Christmas shopping for others.  Not only did I know every word to every song I also know how those songs sounded when the batteries to my Walkman were about to die, which usually happened to and from school on the bus.  I had posters up and I even read his, what I know was highly fabricated, biography from a book I got from the Scholastic book order.  Easy to say I was the perfect demographic mark for the Ice Man.

Here's some nice things I'll say about Cool As Ice.  It does a pretty good job of encapsulating some totally early 90's fashions.  Let's see, it features Michael Gross (dad from Family Ties) and Kristin Minter (older cousin from Home Alone).  It's quotable.  There's three nice things for ya.

But, this is a bad movie.  I like bad movies though, so I do legitimately like Cool As Ice.  It's overtly obvious that this movie was simply thrown together to cash in on Vanilla Ice's rocket ship like ascension to the top of popular music --  To the Extreme spent 16 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, and sold 15 million copies worldwide.  But, the movie made zero sense to the point it's comical.  It cost $6 million to make but only had a box office gross of $1.2 million.  Ironically, after being on top of the world a year prior, Vanilla's run was pretty much over by this time as a paradigm shift to grunge music took the place of Ice's sequined and airbrushed pop-rap.  It's kind of a shame too because Vanilla is a pretty charismatic guy (as evidenced by all the reality TV he's been a part of over the years).  As good as the timing was for his music career, this movie's timing was equally as bad for his acting career.  I would be genuinely interested in seeing him in a movie role where he wasn't just playing a caricature of his rap caricature.

As for the card, this is of course inspired by ProSet's 1991 Yo! MTV Raps card set.  I think, like Cool As Ice, these cards are an example of the cash in on the card boom of the early '90s, or, as it's come to known as, the "junk wax era".

ProSet's 1991 Yo! MTV Raps

I've done a number of cards in cards in the past.  They all, sans the B-Rabbit card, have fun with the gentrification of rap music.  This card is obviously not an exception.  What does set this one apart though is that I've gone little deeper into the design, giving the card a little more flava with a full bleed card back complete with a Johnny Van Owen Yo! Fact!

B-Rabbit

With Eminem's meme-inspiring performance of his Academy Award winning "Lose Yourself" at this years Oscars just a mere 17 years after winning for Best Original Song in a film it got me to thinking that adding a Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith, Jr. card to my 1991 ProSet Yo! MTV Raps inspired cards would be pretty phat-with a "ph".

SNL MusiCards

I made this Lazy Scanton card in the style of the 1991 Yo! MTV Raps cards and posted it on Instagram.  If you're unfamiliar, the "Lazy Scranton" rap from The Office is a parody of the 2005 "Lazy Sunday" Saturday Night Live skit by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell.  Well, a follower to the Phantom Cardboard Instagram suggested a card for the original SNL skit.  Why didn't I think of that? 

While making the "Lazy Sunday" card it dawned on me that there's another SNL musical short that would make a great card ... "Dick in a Box"!  This one is done in the more fitting R&B/pop friendly 1991 ProSet MusiCards inspired design.

Lazy Scranton

I wanted to do another card from The Office so I started thinking about different episodes and what ridiculous Michael Scott exploit would make for some tasty Phantom Cardboard.

There's an episode entitled "The Merger" where the Stamford Dunder Mifflin branch is merging with the Scranton office.  Michael and Dwight make an orientation rap video for the benefit of the  Stamford transfers.  The video parodies SNL's "Lazy Sunday" skit.

This makes a great addition to the growing 1991 Yo! MTV Raps set.

Doctor Of Thuganomics

I tried to take a picture of the new card I made but only got this shot of artificial grass (git'it?)

Add another to the Yo! MTV Raps collection.

Don't Be Hatin'!

B-Rad is in the heezy to add another custom cardeezy to my 1991 ProSet Yo! MTV Raps inspired seteezy.  I'm mean, how could he not be?  The dude can rap about anything.  Growing up on the mean streets of The 'Bu will sharpen your skills to a lethal measure.

Look, I don't know if Malibu's Most Wanted was a critical success but I thought it was funny as hell.  If you didn't we'll probably have to fight if we can settle on a meeting place that works for both of us. B-Rad cracks me up going back to the character being a part of The Jamie Kennedy Experiment hidden camera show.  That's the kind of stuff that gets me rolling when you put an unsuspecting mark in a crazy outlandish situation and see how they squirm.  B-Rad was totally over the top and I loved it.

Yo! Phantom Cardboard Raps

Chances are that in 1991 if you had any of the ProSet MusiCards you probably also had some of that card set’s funky cousin, the Yo! MTV Raps MusiCards. It seems that on the store counter where you found one, you found the other. The format was the same, music act on the front, informational blurb on the back. The Yo! MTV Raps cards featured strictly hip hop acts where as the the regular MusiCards featured popular artists from all genres, a few acts even are featured in both sets. The aesthetic of the Raps cards had a little more going on than the much simpler template of the regular MusiCards. If I didn’t know better I would say it looks like ProSet consulted with Lisa Frank to help this set pop.

I’m just freesetyling here but the Yo! MTV Raps cards target audience may have been Suburban America. With Vanilla Ice and M.C Hammer bringing a new demographic into the rap fold these cards introduced hip-hop acts that weren’t as well known as rap and hip-hop culture was experiencing a mainstream boom. Just a theory.

Anymore rap is a culture of its own. Hip hop is now multigenerational and is really transcending race. Back in 1991 white rappers, by and large, were mainly novelty acts. For my Yo! cards I wanted to have fun and add some Anglo pop-culture flava from back in the day.

If you’ve ever seen 1989’s Teen Witch you are well aware of one of the most pinnacle scenes in movie history; the “Top That” rap battle between Polly and Rhet. I have to believe that scene was the seed that the whole plot of 8 Mile would eventually grow from. If you’re a fan of that gritty street-level lyrical rap and you’ve never seen this scene then stop reading this blog and hit up YouTube. Just type in “Top That”, watch and then come back and finish this post.

I read recently that the “Top That!” scene was not even part of the original movie but added months after the movie had wrapped with producers wanting to add a rap feature to the middle of the movie. Both Noah Blake (Rhet) and Mandy Ingber (Polly) each recalled being embarrassed about performing the scene but both went HAM on “Top That!” thinking no one would ever see it. Little did they know that the Internet and a generation heavy on nostalgia would resurrect it into a pop-culture phenomenon.

In Season Six (1992) of Married … With Children we were introduced to Bud Bundy’s alter-ego Grandmaster B. For the longest time I thought the producers were using the popularity of rap music at the time as another avenue to put Bud Bundy’s ineptitude with woman on display, which it was, but what I found out only a few years ago was that David Faustino around this time was trying to throw his backwards Raiders cap into the rap game! Faustino, under the moniker D ’Lil, released a single in 1992 called “I Told Ya” and it’s the most early ‘90s rap thing you’ll ever listen to.

So you wick-wack, knick-knack, tic-tac, skip back
I got the funky style and you know you can't get with that
I got more flava than the bar candy Kit Kat
And when it comes to kitty cats, I gotta have the jimmy hats

If you think “Top That!” is cringey then I’d have to believe that the Prince Zack rap from the “1-900-Crushed” episode from Season Two (1990) episode of Saved by the Bell has to be as hard to watch as your grandparents in the throes of a saliva heavy makeout sesh. It makes “Top That!” sound like Eminem’s “Rap God”.

The scene comes as a dream sequence of Kelly’s little sister Nikki. It’s a bastardized rap retelling of Cinderella with Zack as a rapping Prince Charming with Slater and Screech providing the spit-shower beatboxing as Zack tries to find the owner of the golded out hi-top sneaker. Spoiler alert; it fits Nikki Kapowski. After seeing this no wonder it took white people so long to be taken seriously in rap music. But, I jest. I love Saved by the Bell and think this scene is charming in a ridiculous Zack Morris kind of way.

I could not make a fantasy music trading card of Saved by the Bell and not pay tribute to probably the greatest fictional band of all-time, Zack Attack. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Saved by the Bell basically lay the groundwork for VH1’s Behind The Music series with the Season Three (1991) episode “Rockumentary”? The episode chronicles, again in dream sequence form, the rags-to-riches rise, fall, and eventual reunion of Zack’s powerhouse band “Zack Attack”.

I dusted off the two fluorescent oblong triangles of my 1991 ProSet MusiCards inspired design and plugged in Zack, Lisa, and Kelly performing their worldwide smash hit “Friend’s Forever”. Seriously, that episode ruled. The voices in the songs didn’t even remotely match those of the Bayside gang.