Today I'll be taking you back to the days of cardboard cards, stale chunks of pink chewing gum and wax wrappers. Today we will be looking at 5 old trading cards! I loved collecting cards as a kid. Baseball, Ninja Turtles, Superheroes it didn't matter. I just loved opening a pack and smelling the gum and seeing if you had opened a pack with new cards or more doubles! The stickers were always the premium pieces, but having a few extras to trade never hurt. Let's open this pack of awesomeness and take a look at 5 random cards from the 80s & 90s:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Series 1 (Topps/O-Pee-Chee, 1989)
Who did not collect these cards? I had the entire set of cards and stickers from this set plus the movie cards and stickers, then I kinda slacked when the second series came out. I had a few of the cards, but definitely not as many as the first. I'm not sure why? Maybe my collecting tastes changed at that point? The card pictured here was the Canadian O-Pee-Chee version of the card. It seems to be a bit more on the high end side. The colors are brighter and the card stock is more slick and less brown/cardboard textured. These are like a premium version of the Topps cards we got in the US. Damn you cheap Topps company!
I have a fairly big collection of loose figures from the 80s & 90s. I would like to share a few of my faves with you at this time. Get ready, here we go!
April O'Neil: Ninja Turtles Figure Keyrings (Monogram, 2015)
As you may already know from reading this blog, I have an affinity for the Ninja Turtles. The local mall had one of those "Go! Calendar, Games & Toys" stores pop up around the holiday season. If you don't know, these stores open up around November and close around the end of February. They are very seasonal. When they are about to close for the year everything in the store goes 50% off. That's how I picked up this cute little keyring of April O'Neil. She was in a blind bag, so I didn't know what I was getting. To be honest, I would have been happy with any of the characters in the collection.
Let me start off by saying one of my favorite games for the original Nintendo Gameboy is the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We defeated every bad guy, grabbed every pizza and discovered how to unlock every mini-game! I could beat that game blindfolded. As a kid I never owned the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Back From The Sewers. I don't know why? We were huge into Turtles and had all the NES and Super NES games. Anyway, I purchased a copy of the game for a nice price off ebay recently and was pleasantly surprised when I found the manual in the delivery box with the game. Me, my brother and all my friends used to read these manuals like crazy hoping to find any secrets or tips on how to beat the game. Sometimes stories were included along with some fantastic art you would never see anywhere else. Let's delve into the sewers and check out the TMNT 2 manual and it's contents:
Front Cover
Pages 2 & 3 (Welcome/Table of Contents)
Pages 4 & 5 (Story/Control Set Up)
Pages 6 & 7 (Turtle Profile/Starting New Game)
Pages 8 & 9 (Screen Set Up/Stages)
Pages 10 & 11 (Power Up/Bad Guy Pictures)
Back Cover
I am blown away. The art style is done in a type of manga/Japanese way. I really like this interpretation of the boys in green, especially the back cover work where it looks like Splinter is giving them a high energy pep talk before they go out and kick some shell! The instruction booklet also included a back story for the game, profiles of each Turtle and illustrations of "The Bad News Bunch"! I love finding these old manuals. Most of the ones we had as kids got lost, thrown away or destroyed. This one will find a good place for safe keeping in my house.
