Shooter McGavin...in Space!

Not every pop culture property get a card set made for it, and not every property that gets a card set includes autographs and/or relics. Sometimes that means you have to get a little creative if you want to acquire an autographed card or relic of a celebrity. Some of them appear in general pop culture sets like Leaf Pop Century or Panini Americana, and others show up in the card sets for other shows or films they appeared in. One example from my collection is Napoleon Dynamite. There was a Napoleon Dynamite card set, but it was a bare-bones affair. Most of the key actors in the film don't have autographed cards out there, but I was able to acquire a (Deb) Tina Majorino autographed card from her appearance in the Veronica Mars card set. I don't know what Veronica Mars is, but I recognize Deb from Napoleon Dynamite when I see her. 

Likewise, when this card popped up in a sales thread on the Blowout Cards forums, I didn't see Lt. Richard Castillo from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I saw Shooter McGavin, the antagonistic golfer in the Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore. That was enough for me to pick it up, as I don't think we're going to see a Happy Gilmore trading card issue any time soon. Honestly, an Adam Sandler career card set would have such an awesome checklist if they were able to get actors from most of his movies from like 1995-2007 to sign autographs for it. Maybe it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I came up with just a quick list and I would probably spend a lot of money chasing that product down.

Adam Sandler

Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (Veronica Vaughn)

Steve Buscemi

Christopher McDonald

Bob Barker

Carl Weathers

Kevin Nealon (the heckler from Happy Gilmore)

Drew Barrymore

Rob Schneider

Burt Reynolds

Terry Crews

Michael Irvin

Chris Rock

Nelly

Kevin James

Christopher Walken

Tracy Morgan

And that's just the big names that jumped out at me from the IMDB listings. There are tons of others who could be included. It's unfortunate that Chris Farley, Richard Kiel, and Ellen Albertini Dow have all passed away in the ensuing years, as they played memorable roles in some of those films. Anyway, I'm sure licensing would be a nightmare and you probably couldn't get half of these folks to sign, but that would be a dream set for me.

Until that happens, I'll just have to keep picking up these autographs wherever I can find them.