Angus Sends Me More Cards

Angus of Dawg Day Cards has sent me cards so many times by this point that I'm running out of new or innovative ways to write blog posts about the cards. Today's angle:

A movie "from the Producer of 'Cool Runnings' called Angus. The movie came out in 1995 and was sort of the typical high school movie -- fat geeky kid who is good at football and science gets picked on by the jocks but, in the end, the geek wins the heart of the hot girl at the high school dance and the jock gets his comeuppance. By 1995, I was a bit old to be in this movie's target market -- I mean, I was 23 years old and started law school in 1995, so I was more about Clerks. 

But Clerks didn't have a character named Angus, so I'm not writing about that movie today.

All those high school movies seem to have stock characters. So, let's compare the cards I got from Angus to the characters in Angus.

Also, please note -- if you haven't seen the movie, this post will ruin it. Probably.  

1.  The Wise Old Man Providing Advice

In Angus, George C. Scott (an Academy Award Winner for his role as General George Patton) played Ivan, Angus's narcoleptic grandfather, who counsels Angus that he shouldn't worry about fitting in and, instead, he should just be himself and let people decide whether they like him or not based on that. Ivan dies midway through the movie, and his death is the turning point for Angus. 

The wise old man in the cards that Angus sent is none other than Warren Spahn. Completely unrelated information tidbit: Spahn grew up in Buffalo, New York, and attended South Park High School.

2.  The Mom Trying Her Best to Help Her Son

The truck-driving mom is called Meg and is played by a second Academy Award Winner, Kathy Bates. Meg and Ivan disagree as to the right things for Angus to do to succeed, though both only want the best for the boy. Meg and Ivan disagreed about whether Angus should transfer to another school to get away from the toxic atmosphere in his current school. Meg believed he should while Ivan believed that Angus needed to stand up for himself and get tougher.

Buck Rodgers was named the permanent Brewers Manager late in 1980. He had filled in on an acting basis during the 1980 season when George Bamberger suffered a heart attack. Bamberger stepped down in early September, and Rodgers took over the reigns again at that point. In what was the turning point of the 1982 season, Rodgers was fired on June 1 with the team record at 23-24. The team won 72 of its remaining 115 games to win the AL East and go to the World Series. I put Buck here because, well, what he was urging the team to do in 1982 was pretty clearly wrong and not working.

3.  The Mean Jock Antagonist

In the movie, the football king of the high school always dates the hot girl, calls the fat kid names, hurts others physically and mentally, and, in the end, he gets shown up. In Angus, James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame gets his major motion picture debut as the jerk jock. 

Because none of the players on the cards Angus sent to me really fit the "jerk jock" mold -- at least that I'm aware of -- I'll show this cool Fleer fabric logo patch from some time in the early 1970s. 

Anyone have any idea as to the specific date?

4.  The Geeky Sidekick to the Main Character

Another actor famous for another role played the part of the geek sidekick. His name is Chris Owen, and Owen became much more well known in the late 1990s for his role as Sherm -- "the Sherminator" -- in the American Pie franchise of movies. Owen has remained close friends since this movie with his co-star lead in the movie, Charlie Talbert.

While Cecil Cooper probably is not a geek, the oddball 7/11 coin from 1984 with its magic motion discs is sort of the geeky sidekick to the rest of the cards Angus sent. 

5. The Jock's Yes Man Sidekicks

James van der Beek's character Rick had two fellow jocks who followed along with him everywhere to help belittle all in their wake. These two characters were Mike and Andy. Mike was played by Salim Grant, who in recent years has produced music for Snoop Dogg and performed under the name Autobotic. Andy was played by Kevin Connolly -- who is far better known today as E from "Entourage."



The two yes-men in Angus's envelope to me are played by a John Axford mini from 2011 Allen & Ginter and a Bowman Heritage certified autograph of Rickie Weeks. These are both cool cards generally, but these guys are supporting characters and not the main star.

6. The Hot Girl Love Interest Who's Dating the Jock But Ends Up with the Geek

Ariana Richards played Melissa Lefevre, the girl on whom Angus had a crush. Richards was better known at the time as the "Jurassic Park" girl. She quit acting to attend college, and now she is as much an artist as she is an actress.



These two Robin Yount cards definitely were the "pretty girl" in the envelope from Angus. Both are numbered to 1000, and both were needed parallels from the parallel-happy Donruss sets/inserts of the mid-2000s.

Angus, thank you very much once again for the great cards. To take us out of this post, let's go to the big song off the Angus soundtrack -- "J.A.R." by Green Day.