Wow. I would have thought in those days there wouldn’t have been much besides “Popes of the Mother Church” cards. (Collect all twelve!)
You don’t say how awesome – the cards in the first series were all original drawings by Chuck Jones himself! They amounted to brand-new storyboards for Cartoons That Were Never Made. I had to break down and buy the cards. I have an almost complete set.
The gum was no great loss. I remember the original gum from those cards 0-- it was a crumbly, dry sheet of stuff that was unpleasant in the mouth at first, and required a lot of chewing to get to a state where it was chewable (let alone bubble-capable). Not worth the effort. The gum felt as if it was aged. Or pre=Embalmed. Or Maybe Fossilized. Nobody bought the packs for the gum. You got much better gum with something like Bazooka.
Not true. There were Roman Emperor Cards. I still have the original set of twelve, on collectable vellum. Plus the hidden bonus Julius Caesar card.
envy I no longer even know where mine are, sadly. And, you’re quite correct that not mentioning Jones’ involvement was a major oversight on my part - if I’m going to mention their greatness, I should mention one of the big contributing factors.
Since you apparently know where your set is, I assume you remember the name of them? I wanted to mention it in my post, but I couldn’t remember. (I’m rather shocked I remembered Upper Deck making them, and Jones creating, but not what they were called.)
Too true - my main memory of it is getting jabbed by the corners (and it was almost invariably fractured, so there were usually more than 4 corners to jab with)…your description does not do justice to how hard that damned stuff was. I’ve eaten softer jawbreakers!
On the other hand, that jabbing is a visceral memory of my childhood in itself, so part of me does mourn the passing… Fortunately, the part of me that kept collecting cards into my late 20s (and stopped mostly due to a lack of people to play the games with) is larger and saner. >_>