September 15, 2005:
What I wouldn't give to have one more night as a trick-or-treater. Just one more night browsing the neighborhood with an open bag, searching for the richest houses in town because surely they'd offer candy from the top drawer. Course, sweets weren't the only thing kids received on Halloween. It was rare to get anything else, sure, but it did happen, with varying degrees of success. In 1991, the sudden boom of kids who returned home with bags full of more than candy on Halloween night can be solely attributed to Impel's Trading Card Treats.
As children in '91, all we knew was that a suspicious amount of households suddenly began giving out trading cards featuring our favorite cartoon characters. Most of us had never seen such cards before, and though assuredly worthless, we were definitely willing to trade in a Baby Ruth here and a Butterfinger there to add a little variety to our big plastic sack.
There was a little more to the story than we knew. Trading Card Treats were popular finds for anyone in the position of giving kids free shit on Halloween night, being in part a fundraiser for the "National Safe Kids Campaign," which was probably founded by a couple of Shriners over in Switz who embezzled all of our donations and used them to create the world's first Solar Shock Fang-Blast Missile Launcher, invariably pointing at this great land right at this very moment, just waiting for Count Stablechaser's orders to FI-AHHH! If Impel wanted to donate a portion of its profits to charity for a tax break, that's fine. Doesn't explain why they're gave it to those warmongering shithead Swissies.
Were they regional? Possibly. I have no idea. In 1991, they certainly made their way into my neighborhood, with more than a few families saying "see ya next year" to sweet, sweet sugar so they could brag about stabbing the kids' obesity epidemic in the big fat stomach by giving out totally healthy trading cards. You can't get fat on something you can't eat. Like brightly colored, bone-shaped dog food, Trading Card Treats were meant to be as palatable to those who served them as to the kids who grabbed an extra pack when the old bitch lady wasn't looking. "Oh, I'm donating to charity and I don't even have to make kids fat to do it this time! Oh I should be phoning someone in need of inspiration! Oh where is my phone?"
Assholes. Let them have their highly held chins and bravado -- we got cartoon trading cards, what else did we need? Designed quite well for a collection that really only needed to be passably interesting for one day out of the whole year, the cards were more championed for the broad range of characters covered. I've found six sets so far, featuring a nice mix of interest points for both male and females, all snugly tucked in pretty bags with two dozen packs inside. A gander if you please:
I'm pretty sure polyurethane is another word for invisible plastic; if it isn't, let's pretend it is just for today. Each polyurethane pack held three different cards, ranging from a Nintendo theme to an Inspector Gadget theme to a Widget theme, and I can't believe they went as far as that last one. Widget? I mean, okay, Widget? Standing alongside Inspector Gadget and Super Mario? When Mr. President takes the podium, you don't see the Secret Service usher in Max Baer Jr. to stand beside him, and that is the same exact thing. Unworthy, filthy little environmentally conscious Widget freak. Keep in mind, there was no mixing and matching in the packs. If you bought a bag of Nintendo cards, obviously, that's all you had to give out. You weren't going to find Archie and Betty yelling "TURTLE WITH WINGS?!" inside a Nintendo bag. Ugh, I can't remember what my point was.
Three trading cards for sets that nobody would be impressed with if you completed weren't worth much to anybody, I can admit that. But think back, put on your kid gloves and pretend you're out trick-or-treating. You want something like this. You need something like this. You need to get at least one piece of shit that gives you the opportunity to go back to school the next day and say, "Hey...ya get any of those awesome such-and-such things on Halloween?" This is what Trading Card Treats offered us. Neat pictures, mini-biographies for some of our favorite cartoon characters, and best of all, bragging rights. Here's a closer examination of each of the sets I've located, somewhat abridged because this has been the longest intro since I've written that Texas Chainsaw review.
Nintendo Version: Of all the Trading Card Treats offered, Nintendo's batch is the blue ribbon gold trophy ruler and dictator. Even though there'd been so many Nintendo products by 1991, from action figures to cereal, it still always felt special when our top reasons to button-mash stepped away from Video Game Land to charm us on new fronts. The cards focused only on Super Mario and Link, but that was more than enough to put the packs on equal footing with full-sized Snickers bars in as far as what would make a costumed kid's face explode with joy on Halloween. The back of each card tells a little story about the picture on the front, and you'd be amazed at how thought out each description is. Like, there's this one picture where all you see is Mario at the bottom of a long staircase. The description reads like a treatment for a major motion picture.
Inspector Gadget Version: I'm infrequently amazed at how long the Inspector Gadget series remained notable after it ceased production. The power of syndicated reruns kept the show to some level of prominence for a long time after any real money was being pumped into it, and I guess most of this can be attributed to the fact that nobody on the planet wanted to give up hearing that catchy theme on weekday afternoons. Duh nuh nuh neh neh. Duh nuh nuh neh neh nuh nuf, ooh ooh.
With the kind of campaign Trading Card Treats was, it's incredible that it tried so hard to stay true to the source material. You'd think this would just be a case of several licensees lending the rights over for the good of mankind and the National Safe Kids Campaign, but instead, each card is beautifully rendered, and the descriptions of particular show episodes on the card-backs are simply too legit to quit to have been written by someone not associated with 'em. While many of the cards serve as episode guides, others only feature hilarious quotes from the main characters -- all except Dr. Claw, who balked at the idea of associating with hilarity.
Widget Version: Aside from some very PSA-ish messaging on certain card-backs, the Widget set focuses mainly on brief character profiles. A side effect of the big pollution outrage of the early `90s, Widget, The World Watcher constantly, endlessly, nonstoppingly taught kids about the dangers of littering and, according to IMDB, the dangers of introducing foreign species into a contained environment. This motif notwithstanding, the show was more about Widget going kung fu all over a bunch of Mega Man reject enemies.
I have a lot of misguided empathy, and it always makes me feel bad when I see old ladies shopping for children at a toy or department store, hopelessly wandering about without the slightest clue what the kids in their life are into. Sometimes, I try to help. Other times, I hide behind the aisle and watch them lovingly put a hunk of junk no kid would ever want in their wagon, my mind reeling from the visions of a future birthday party going horribly wrong with the offending gift-buyer crying in a bathroom. These Widget cards remind me of all that. I'm not saying the franchise wasn't without fans, just that this was a risky choice for such a broad range of kids. Just picture the poor old people too disconnected to realize that the should've picked up the big black Nintendo bag right next to the dumb purple Widget bag, oblivious to their error and walking with obvious bum knees. My God I'm tearing up.
Marvel Comics Version: A wise choice, and I'll tell you why. At just around this time, Marvel had enjoyed an insane level of success with their Marvel Universe trading cards, which I will forever credit for restarting their fires and delivering half a century worth of comic book lore to the brains of children. There wasn't a boy I knew who didn't have three complete sets and there wasn't a boy I knew who didn't personally upgrade himself to godlike status after finding one of the "rare" hologram cards. These cards were in no way collected only by those who were hardcore comic readers. Actually, what the cards did were turn a ton of kids into hardcore comic readers.
At this precise point in Earth's history, there was no way to go wrong mixing Marvel Comics and trading cards. The Trading Card Treats version were clearly inspired by the Marvel Universe set, the fronts featuring classic beauty shots while the backs offered character biographies and "Did You Know?" blurbs. No endurance or intelligence meters, but hey, they were free.
Archie Version: I admit it, Archie Comics have at times been a guilty pleasure of mine. In the days before Disney started stuffing the racks near grocery store cashiers with tiny-sized magazines, Archie Comics were the next best thing to the Weekly World News. I was pretty young and never really "got" the stories, but they always seemed to be on the verge of some steamy romance scene that I was sure nobody would've wanted me to see. So, I'd eagerly flip through the pages looking for peach colors, and just when it seemed like I should be hitting them, BAM, it's just an offer for a couple of stupid three buck Archie pens. I don't think I would've been philosophically opposed to getting a pack of Archie cards on Halloween internally, but in front of a few same-aged classmates, I'd have to tear them in half and make lots of fart noises to dissuade any notion that I was happy with what I got. Social standing's a bitch.
Universal Monsters Version: I know the Nintendo cards would have to be classified as the most-wanted, and I feel the same, but the Universal Monsters Trading Card Treats are a very close second for me. In fact, if some nice family offered up a selection of TCTs for me to choose from, I'd probably take the Nintendo cards and spend the rest of the night regretting that I hurt the Creature from the Black Lagoon's feelings. Let's face it, all of the other card characters found love all throughout the year, but the Universal Monsters were only applicable during the Halloween season. It was almost callous for us to toss them aside in favor of characters we were still privy to come April. The cards feature art that's slightly more cartoony than the norm for the horror icons, but the descriptions of the backs accurately reflect the classic films they came from.
A nice addition to anyone's Halloween loot, Trading Card Treats provided just enough art and reading material to cover the time it took to down a fun-sized package of Jujyfruits.
