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All This Custom Card Needs Are Some Tasty Waves and a Cool Buzz Ah, high school in Southern California, 1982. The mall. The retail jobs. The beach. The friends. The high jinks. You could say they were fast times. And although that wasn't my personal high school experience, there was a certain film released that same year which documented things fairly accurately. Or maybe not so accurately. Regardless, I felt the film and its major players needed a custom card.  As you might have already guessed, it's Fast Times at Ridgemont High! You can't deny the big acting names up there. Sean Penn. Judge Reinhold. And
do I even have to mention Phoebe Cates? The red bikini scene? Shopping malls everywhere
must have been selling out of her posters on a weekly basis back in '82. As for the character arrangement, Jeff Spicoli had to have the center position, of course. Brad Hamilton needed a spot on the bottom in order to accommodate his burger-flipping hat. Then I figured his little sister would be happy alongside him. That meant the top spots were open for Linda and Mike. I even thought about adding history teacher Mr. Hand to the card, squeezing him along
the bottom between the Hamiltons. (One of the original 1963 Topps baseball cards
does include six players.) However, I decided against it because things just looked a
little crowded down there. Besides, Mr. Hand is a total downer compared to the rest of the crew. To get back to some fun facts, this little subset of custom cards based on the '63 design is now three deep. The first card in the set featured the brave (or not-so-brave) knights
from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The second card showed the fab five from The Breakfast Club. With the third card complete, they're looking pretty good next to each other in a binder. Here's a peek at the card back.  I used the stat line again, which provides some interesting data about the film. Overall, Fast Times did pretty well at the box office, considering it had to contend with blockbusters like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Rocky III. Now here's a little clip of Mr. Spicoli in action. (It helps explain the title of this blog post, too.) Life's not that hard, right? How about all of you? Can you relate to any of the zany experiences depicted in Fast Times? Did you have a teacher like Mr. Hand? Did you ever have a pizza delivered to your school, during class? If so, you've got to share the story here. Thanks for reading, as always! |
