Sunkist Wacky Players -- Football (1990/1991)

Dammit, I went and broke one of my own cardinal rules for communicating intent on the Internet. I went and promised that I'd do these football cards in September, which all but guaranteed that it would not happen then. Take a tip from me, kids--

WINNERS DON'T PROMISE THINGS ON THE INTERNET

Okay, now on to this week's feature. This is a continuation of an earlier post about a series of cards included in the Sunkist Fun Fruits "Wacky Players" line. These cards were illustrated by Jack Davis, also of Mad Magazine fame.

Even though Benjamin's Sport Americana Guide to Non-Sport Cards says that the football series came third, I'm going to disagree. For one, some of the cards say 1990, and some say 1991. Secondly, I can remember the order they came out in. I can remember being really bummed each time a new sport came out, because it meant I'd never get all the cards from the last one. I WAS THERE, MAN.

I still have my original cards, all bent to hell, and something like 5 duplicates of one card. But I did manage to buy a set of 9 of these on Ebay a couple years back. According to the aforementioned BSAGtN-SC, there were 10 cards in the football set (D'oh!), so I am still looking. If I don't find that last card, I will put explicit instructions in my will that my descendants do so (or be cursed). Luckily for you, I did find an image of the illustration on the last card. So, without further ado, here are the Sunkist Fun Fruits Wacky Players, football series.


Did you... enjoy whatever happened to you, Pete? All those teeth were a burden anyway.

From the water fountain, we can safely determine that Krazy Kärl is in the other team's locker room.


Sometimes he just stays up there, for days.


Okay, now I seriously want stadiums to give out football field maps at all the games.


We'll see how pretty your face looks if you play the whole game without a helmet. Then you'll have to go by "Compton", or "Oakland".



My favorite part of this one is the frowny sun on the right-most player's helmet. Is this an empathic logo (ala Wade the Duck's innertube), or is that the other team's logo all the time? I like to imagine that it's the latter. I then like to go on to envision a whole mythology for these cards, where both teams are from the psychiatric ward of a local hospital. The blue team are all the suicidal patients, and the Wacky Players team are the rest: sociopaths, catatonics, actual football players, etc.


Looking pretty goddam smug there, Sly. I'm going to laugh so hard when you fumble that.


Spike, that doesn't work when you run in off the sideline. This is the kind of shit that Coach benched you for in the first place.


And now I just want a jacket with those awesome designs on it. I'll walk down the street, and heads will turn. "That's a Coach original!" they'd all say. I would get laid every night. In my jacket.

Here's an interesting football rules question for you--when #49 crosses into the end zone, would this be considered a touchdown or a touchback? Discuss.


Lastly, when these fruit snacks were in stores, Will Vinton studios (of California Raisins fame) made a commercial for them. Apparently Fruit Snacks were a big enough deal to rate claymation at the time! Sadly, I cannot find a video of the commercial, but this link has a few photographs by a guy who worked on it:

Wacky Players Commercial

Okay, until next week next month next time, this is Casey, signing off.