Wacky Packages 2010 - All New Series (ANS) 7

After the recent Wacky Old School release earlier this year and two previous Flashback sets released in 2008, Topps is set to release an "All New Series" (ANS) later this year. The last ANS was Series 6 released back in 2007, but rather than call this upcoming release ANS 7, it looks like Topps is simply calling it "Wacky Packages 2010":



The tentative release date is August 23, 2010. Early information indicates that there will be 8 stickers per pack, which will consist of 7 Wacky Base Stickers and one Wacky Code Sticker. There will be 24 packs per box, and they will be available through retail (as opposed to the Old School set that was only available directly from Toppsonlinestore).

According to the product description on the sites that are taking pre-orders:

"Wacky Packages 2010 features 75 hilarious new pieces of art parodying famous consumer products. Now, for the first time ever, each 8-sticker pack contains a unique code that unlocks web-exclusive content on the Wacky Pack World website."

Here are the other sticker images that have been released so far:



Its good to see that there will soon be some new Wackys showing up later this year!

Happy Birthday Brooks Robinson!

As a few bloggers have already posted, today is Brooks Robinson's birthday. Brooks is celebrating his 73rd birthday today, and I'd like to wish him a Happy Birthday!

I'd also like to thank him for this:


This is a picture that my father took of me and my brother at the opening of a Crown gasoline station in the late 1970s. Brooks was a spokesperson for Crown, and was on hand for the station opening.

Brooks was very pleasant to us as he signed autographs for my brother and me, and was glad to pose for the above picture that my father took. My father had the picture blown up as an 8 x 10 that he had framed which I proudly displayed in my room.

A few years after the picture had been taken, Brooks was in town for another signing, so I took the picture and had him autograph it. Again, he was as friendly as could be, and complimented me on how much I'd grown since he'd seen me last.

All the great things people say about Brooks are certainly true, at least from my experiences with meeting him. I've been fortunate enough to meet him a few times, and each time has been a very enjoyable experience.

Brooks - if you ever happen to come across this post, thank you for being such a great ambassador for Baseball, and for the great memories you've provided for me and all of your other fans.

1985 Donruss Box Bottom Panel

In 1985 Donruss started a trend which the other card companies soon followed - putting bonus cards on the bottom of its boxes:

I always liked the Dwight Gooden card as its not often you see a picture of a player taken standing in the upper deck of the stadium. The nice thing about the box bottom cards was that the pictures were different from the regular cards. For example, here is Ryne Sandberg's 1985 Donruss card:


The card backs are numbered PC1 to PC3, with the Lou Gehrig puzzle instructing kids to carefully cut out the puzzle pieces to make their own puzzle (not like we didn't have enough of those puzzle pieces that were included in each pack already!)

Donruss was the only company to put cards on the bottom of its baseball card boxes in 1985, but as with nearly all innovations in the baseball card industry, once one manufacturer does something, the others quickly jump on the bandwagon.


Fleer and Topps would start doing the same thing with their baseball card boxes the following year.

In future posts, I'll be covering the various box bottom panels from Donruss, Fleer and Topps from the mid 1980's through the early 1990's. Get your scissors ready!

Wacky Packages Old School and Series 5 Post Cards are Out Now!

After a long wait, the 1st Series of Wacky Package Old School stickers has finally been released!

I originally posted about the set back in June 2008 when word first came out about the set:


Unfortunately the targeted Summer 2009 release date was optimistic as the sketch cards took considerable time to complete and then there were some production issues that resulted in the set having to be redone after the initial printing which pushed back the release date until now.

The set is based around package designs from the 1970's - hence the "old school" reference. The set was designed and painted by Dave Gross who has contributed many titles to the recent run of All New Series Wacky Packages. Dave has done a great job with this set in capturing the packaging from those times, and has come up with some very funny parodies.

The stickers are only available through the Topps Online Store. Here is the link if you are interested in purchasing a box which contains 24 packs:

http://www.toppsonlinestore.com/servlet/the-537/Detail

Here is a look at the complete 33 sticker set:


I really like the Crappy Magazine Covers parody as first of all its great to see Topps poking fun at Fleer, especially since the product (Crazy Magazine Covers) was a direct knockoff of Wacky Packages. The other thing that makes it so good is that it is so true - the artwork on those stickers really was crappy!


Take a closer look at the Slopee sticker. Look familar? It should:

Dave Gross confirmed that Oscar Gamble was the inspiration for the Slopee player on the WackyPackages.org forum! It doesn't get much more 70's than an airbrushed cap trying to cover a monster afro!


Packs contain 3 stickers and a checklist card. The checklist is very similar to the checklist cards that came in the 1970s packs


and as the Original Series always did, features a Topps product for the puzzle:


The Wacky is based on the 1975-76 Basketball wrapper:


In addition to the 33 sticker set, the box also contains an envelope with a number of bonus items


including 1 of 3 different colored Wacky Packages Old School logo stickers:


In addition, each envelope contains 3 large stickers that measure 5" x 7" of some of the titles in the set. There are 9 different larger stickers in total as seen in this picture of the full set:


For comparison purposes, here is one of the 5" x 7" stickers beside the regular sized sticker:


The 5" x 7" stickers are great for having a better look at the artwork.

Also included is a promo sticker for Series 2 Old School, so it appears more will be on the way:


Each evelope also contains a unique 1/1 sketch card by legendary Wacky artist Jay Lynch featuring classic Wacky characters:


from vintage Wackys:


Almost all the sketch cards are black and white, but there are a few that have been done in color:


Also included is a promo poster for the set:


If you look closely at the poster, in the background it contains an image I've posted a few times from an old Topps annual report showing a sweet amout of Topps goodies from the 1970s:


Also included is a promo sticker for the Wacky Package Series 5 Postcards which were just released this week (although oddly enough the title on the sticker doesn't appear in the new postcard set):


Here is a look at the post card set: