For the most part as a kid I was pretty unfamiliar with the whole cult of personality surrounding the James Bond franchise.   For some reason, aside from A View to a Kill and the Timothy Dalton flicks, I never ran across any of the films on Saturday Afternoon TV, so I was almost completely unaware of the Sean Connery flicks or a lot of the character’s conventions.  In fact it wasn’t until the James Bond Jr. cartoon in the early 90s that I really started paying any attention to the series.  I think a lot of this has to do with the idea that the Bond films have always been aimed a bit more at an adult audience, though I have to say that Roger Moore’s Bond feels a whole heck of a lot more like the Adam West Batman series than I ever would have guessed before seeing the flicks.   I did know Moore from his part in one of the Cannonball Run flicks, but I never realized how dead on his self-parody was until I watched Moonraker for the first time last year.

It doesn’t surprise me that Moonraker garnered a series of Topps non-sport cards as it was trying to appeal to the Star Wars fans, and for the first time I think also to kids more than adults.  I think it’s also one of the first instances of taking a franchise character to space in an attempt to breathe new life into a series (well Robinson Crusoe on Mars not withstanding), which is way crazier than jumping any scurvy shark (so maybe Happy Days really went too far with their intergalactic time traveling show.)  So Moonraker is most likely to blame for Gilligan’s Planet and Jason Goes to Space…

Of these stickers my personal favorite is number six, the one with the gondola driver getting whacked as Bond sails along leisurely in Florence.  It has to be the one sticker in the set that kids everywhere either threw away or tried desperately to trade for a Jaws portrait or the space station sticker.  Personally, I think the absurdity of the sticker sums up the zaniness of the film for me.

Even though the Dalton flicks are my favorite in the series (I know, it’s heresy I tell you) I’m glad they didn’t get the sticker treatment.  I couldn’t imagine 22 stickers with Dalton’s over-emotional Bond on the verge of silent hate-filled tears, though I would totally love some pock-marked Robert Davi stickers.   Those would be swell…