Mars Attacks!

Not all that many years ago, a company used the name "Bubbles, Inc." to issue a small set of 55 cards -- a set which would so offend parents and teachers that it was pulled from the market. Why? The images of the Martian Invasion struck a responsive chord in children who routinely were told about the imminence of a nuclear war. Now, with the film Independence Day being the highest grossing film of 1996, and a new film based on these cards, it seems very appropriate to show some of these highly-collectible pieces of cardboard.

Card 1 shows a space-suited Martian pointing to the fleet of flying saucers as The Invasion Begins

Washington in Flames is strongly evocative of Independence Day for sure!

Yet one of the most frightening images to parents was this one of a helpless female victim at the mercy of the evil spiders...

Destroying a Dog is surely one of the most famous of the cards ... during a period when Lassie was a Sunday night staple, the image of a dog defending a young boy, and being shot, was a jolt to parents and teachers.

The Empire State Building is collapsing in The Skyscraper Tumbles. Only a few years earlier, a plane had crashed into the building, so the vulnerability of towering buildings was already getting to be a theme in fiction, and now on cards as well.

©Dave Cunningham 1996, Images ©Bubbles Inc.