A Year of Topps Designs: 1985

Seemed like an opportune time to cover this year. I have cards from all three major sports sets Topps issued that year:

The football set is a classic. With an action photo the card looks like a mini-poster. The baseball set is simple, but I like the team name on an angle, gives it a playful look. The hockey design is very bare-bones, with the only flair being the large curve where the team logo (and a lot of white space) resides.

The only other "sports" release was the WWF set, which I believe is considered an iconic set for wrestling fans. The design is simple but effective, with the caption "exploding" out at the reader.

1985 was a big year for non-sports at Topps, as they had cards covering many areas of mid-80's pop culture.

I was an eight year old in 1985 so I should have been in the prime demographic for this movie, but I don't remember Baby at all. The movie is a largely forgotten Disney flop about a "brontosaurus" found in modern-day Africa. Like many Topps movie sets, there is a simple design with an element that relates to the movie, in this case a ragged, wild look for a jungle movie.

I only very vaguely remember this movie. Another Disney flop (the mid-80's were not a strong point for them, movie-wise), Return to Oz was a modern-day "sequel" to Wizard of Oz. This was a sticker set with a variety of simple designs, or often no design at all.

1985 wasn't a great year for Disney, but it was a big year for Sylvester Stallone, who had two big-time sequels. Rocky IV had the boxer travel to Russia to fight Ivan Drago. The comic-book style boxing glove "punching" the border is pretty much the only visual interest in the design.

Rambo: First Blood Part II was the other big Stallone sequel of 1985. Topps basically took the Baby design, added some white to the border, and swapped out the Baby logo for a dynamic Rambo photo. It's a good look with the right photograph.

The other big movie set of '85 for Topps was Goonies. No movie logo for the design, but instead the border resembles the pirate treasure map central to the movie plot. Good creepy fun for kids of the 80's.

Topps didn't just make movie cards in 1985. They also put out two trading card sets for popular musical acts.

Cyndi Lauper was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens, ran away to Canada, came back and became a star. She sang the theme song for Goonies, and that video and several others featured Captain Lou Albano who is also in the WWF set. This set has a very MTV-inspired design which looks about as stereotypically 1985 as you can get.

The English band Duran Duran got a set as well in 1985, with a design that is a little more understated than Lauper's, but still pretty bold for a Topps non-sport design.

However, Topps's biggest hit of '85 came from a quite unexpected source. A gross-out parody of Cabbage Patch Kids, Garbage Pail Kids featured gross-out versions of the popular dolls. They were immensely popular at the time and can actually fetch some big bucks today. I loved these as a kid, but stuck them all to my bedroom wall and eventually threw them out. The design is pretty minimal, simply but effectively showcasing the art.