I have a pretty good memory for idiotic things that were aimed at my demographic as a kid, even the most obscure stuff. Every few days I get the theme song to Kidd Video or Galaxy High stuck in my head. Ask me some time about my deep, sincere obsession with a short-lived series of toys called Spy Tech. Go on, ask me. I dare you.
But last weekend, my cousin reminded me of one item of my youth that I’d completely forgotten about. It’s possible this never crossed my radar, but it’s also possible I may have blocked it out of my mind as a defense mechanism. The thing I’m alluding to is Dinosaurs Attack!, a series of trading cards created by Topps in 1988.
The series was meant to be an homage to Mars Attacks!, the trading cards from the early 1960s depicting an alien invasion, which caused parental conniptions for their violent imagery (and thus became highly sought after collectors’ items). I would say Dinosaurs Attack! was a rip-off of this earlier serial, except that it was devised by the same creative team, Len Brown and Woody Gelman. Or at least it was according to Bob Heffner’s Dinosaurs Attack! Home Page, a lo-fi site dedicated to their memory, which passes for scholarship on this subject. (Bob doesn’t cite his sources, so take that with a grain of salt.)
Brown and Gelman longed to recapture the glory of their first big success. Topps must have had a lot of faith in their ability to do so, since they actually aired commercials for this series, which was unprecedented for non-sports trading cards. (Sadly, I cannot find any video of this online.) In a financial sense, the effort failed, since the cards sold poorly. If Topps hoped Dinosaurs Attack! would attract the kind of parental outrage (and resulting publicity) Mars Attacks! did back in the 1960s, they were disappointed in that regard too. They didn’t even attract the kind of tsk-tsk-ing Topps received a few years earlier for Garbage Pail Kids.
However, on the artistic front, they were completely successful, because Dinosaurs Attacks! is the most depraved, gruesome, twisted, pitch-black thing I’ve ever seen intended for children.
Continue reading When Insanely Violent Trading Cards Attack!