Card #15: Introducing ‘Jones’

Two premises. Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie Alien is one of the most terrifying movies ever made. And the primary audience for trading cards during that era was preteens.

Ergo, there aren’t any trading cards for Alien.

Not so fast.

Surprising as it may seem, Topps did make trading cards for Alien. It seems safe to say that Topps may have gotten the contract for the job in the wake of the incredible success of Star Wars, and was attracted by a connection to an ambitious sci-fi space epic, without realizing that the actual movie in question would be rated R and indeed, give adults nightmares. (In the U.K. Alien received an X rating.)

Not many movies this cool ever got trading cards. If only they had made cards for Videodrome..... Or even The Shining, even if we did highlight this recently made retro set a year or two back.

Fun to see H.R. Giger himself featured in card #47. I’d hazard a guess that the Alien card series was the only one ever marketed with an image of, to quote the medical professional who chimed in about the subject on this page, “a gangrenous rectal sphincter,” as you can see here:
 

 
The back of the cards featured text descriptions placed within a gorgeous image of an egg:
 

 
The set also included stickers, which looked pretty cool:
 

 
Here are a few of the cards, followed by a picture of the packaging:
 

Card #8: Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt)
 

Card #9: Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)
 

Card #10: Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt)
 

Card #11: Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm)
 

Card #12: Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright)
 

Card #13: Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto)
 

Card #14: Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton)
 

Card #39: The Derelict Spaceship
 

Card #47: Creating a Space Jockey
 

Card #53: Unearthly Assault!
 

Card #57: The Face Grabber
 

Card #70: The Murderous Android
 

Card #72: “Where Can It Be?”
 

Card #79: Walking Nightmare!
 

 
via Blog into Mystery
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Alien’ Pez dispenser is the most badass Pez dispenser ever
Things that should exist: Vintage trading cards based on ‘The Shining’