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BB reader fergus1948 says,

My friend Keith Bates has uploaded a lovely set of scans of his original full set of Mars Attacks bubble gum cards from 1962, purchased in Liverpool UK when he was a lad. They look particularly great as a slideshow.

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  • Anonymous

    Huh! I wasn’t scared by these cards, I have watched Dr. Who from the first series to the present day.
    In my day it was fag cards, we didn’t trade them we played a game of seeing who could flick them closest to the playground wall… ah the benefits of a secondary modern education.

  • Thad E Ginataom

    It’s all very planetist.

    — and can we please loose Timothy Leary from the front page, I’m fed up with that picture.

    • Anonymous

      Ah, if only we could loose Timothy Leary on the front page. Imagine what he would do with it, were he not on the outside lookin’ in.

  • Boondocker

    Man, I had to laugh at the Martian leader sitting in a bucket seat, legs crossed, cocktail in hand as he/she/it watched TV.

    It’s also funny to imagine the creators in a panic, realizing that the Martians can’t carry 50+ cards. “What’ll we do? We tried saucers, robots… we’re tapped!” “Giant bugs are in, right? Work giant bugs into it.”

  • Thad E Ginataom

    OK, anon, I could probably go for Timothy Leary let loose on the front page. At least, I certainly could have done thirty-five years ago: Not entirely sure about now, but I’m willing to give it a try. If, somehow, it can be arranged.

    But I’m still fed up with that photo!

  • Xenu

    WARNING: keep cards away from old music.

  • showcasejase

    Anyone else get a taste of bubblegum when they saw this?

  • theawesomerobot
  • cmuwriter

    Seeing these cards has brought back some memories of childhood at my grandmother’s house. She bought me a full set of the cards at a junk auction and I basically scared the living daylights out of myself by looking over the cards and reading about the story on the back of the cars. They scared the shit out of me as a child and I would have nightmares about the Mars Attacks aliens. I watched the movie and although it was pretty funny in the back of my mind I was horrified by them. Glad to know they’re still out there.

  • avraamov

    ak ak ak. ak ak ak ak ak ak ak. ak.

  • Stefan Jones

    “Taking the opportunity, the girl fled.”

    Man, if she’d stayed put Card 22 might have been a lot more interesting. Maybe she’d have taken one look at the martian’s equipment and laughed so hard the invaders would all have fled in shame.

  • Crispinus211

    Card 21 looks like a candidate for Mean Monster Monday.

  • planettom

    Topps negotiated a license in England with A&BC to produce cards under the name “Bubbles.”

    I’m assuming this is the original set, not the version 2 where 13 cards were repainted due to parental complaints in the U.S. about gore and sexuality.

  • oestrek

    An original set of these will set a guy back a couple of grand. These are pretty much the holy grail of gum card sets.

  • SteveNZ

    @ Boondocker: Well, sure. But I can’t help but feel Tim Burton’s movie version would have been better if he’d left the bugs in.

    And taken Jack Nicholson out, frankly.

  • sTmykal

    Norm Saunders is indeed, “The Man”. http://www.normansaunders.com/

  • planettom

    So every fan webpage about these cards mentioned that 13 of the cards were later repainted for being too gory or too sexual.

    But none of them mentions which cards those were. Though there was a 1984 reprint by Rossem Enterprises of these 13 cards.

    It’s curious though; you’d think even the repainted ones would be collectibles, and I don’t see evidence of that on the fan-pages. I see no side-by-side comparisons.

    I’m guessing which cards were the offensive ones:

    Skeletons:

    15 Saucers Invade China
    19 Burning Flesh
    22 Burning Cattle

    Blood and gore:
    28 Helpless Victim
    31 The Monster Reaches In
    32 Robot Terror
    33 Removing The Victims
    36 Destroying A Dog
    38 Victims Of the Bug
    45 Fighting Giant Insects
    50 Smashing the Enemy

    Martians with lecherous plans for Earth Girls:
    17 Beast and the Beauty
    21 Prize Captive
    30 Trapped!!

    That’s 14 though, so probably one card too many (Maybe 50-Smashing the Enemy didn’t count, since it was Martian brains being spilled).

    Anybody know the definitive list?

  • El Mariachi

    Let me see if I’ve got this story straight. The Martians destroy most of Earth’s surface with their indestructible saucers and robots, and somewhere along the way decide to leave the task to terrifying and gross but far more vulnerable giantified insects.

    The insects defeated and the Martians having apparently deserted their intended new home planet altogether, the tattered remnants of humanity somehow manage to form a sizable military invasion force and build a fleet of spaceships. They invade Mars (which has abruptly lost its impenetrable alloy technology,) take their revenge, and [SPOILER] Mars explodes.

    Also the Eiffel Tower has withstood vicious hurricanes at some point previous to the story.

    • Stefan Jones

      Yeah, the inconsistencies totally ruined the story for me when I first read the cards when I was seven.

  • Anonymous

    I knew they couldn’t make it through 50 cards without doing something racist. The card with 15 printed on it has the martians incinerating stereotypes. Apparently American cities don’t have even one black person worth a saucer-ray but they go out of their way to blow up the pagan Chinese.

  • broussardish

    There was another set of cards that came out around the same time that featured wonderfully bloody and graphic scenes from the Civil War. It gets less attention than the Mars Attacks set, but as a kid who was constantly creating battle scenes in the dirt for my plastic War Between the States set, I found it to be much more useful and entertaining. http://oldbubblegumcards.com/1960s/Civil-War-News/index.html