Bubblegum Card of the Week: Bigfoot®

Bubblegum Card of the Week is back from summer vacation -- did you get our postcard?

Anyway, lots of Bigfoot news this week, but let's examine the other Bigfoot. Even though the forest monster and monster truck share a name (both appear in my daily "Bigfoot" news alerts), they have little else in common. According to its Wikipedia entry, the truck got its name when owner/driver Bob Chandler asked friend Ron Magruder why he was breaking so many parts. Magruder responded, "it's because of your big foot."

Now you know.

This week's specimen is from Topps' series of Allen & Ginter replica cigarette cards, featuring modern subjects rendered in a 19th-century style. Clearly an odd juxtaposition, and I've never seen more wasted negative space on any card, ever (I cropped out over a third of it in the scanned image here). Serious collectors may want to upgrade to the oversize Bigfoot card, which is "autographed" with an actual Bigfoot skidmark.

The card's flipside reads, "the Original Monster Truck®, Bigfoot 4x4, was the brainchild of St. Louis construction contractor Bob Chandler. After 'tricking out' his 1974 Ford F-250 with enormous tires and participating in truck pulls. Chandler decided to try running over a couple of junk cars, just for fun, in '81. Thanks to Bigfoot, the monster truck craze was born. Car crushing became, and remains, a popular American pastime."

Hey, that sounds fun. I think I'll go crush some cars right now.