When I was a kid, my mom wouldn’t let me get sugary cereals very often. No Froot Loops. No Frosted Flakes. No Lucky Charms. No Monster Cereal. I was raised on Corn Chex, Rice Chex, and Kix (Kid Tested. Mother Approved.). Of course the irony is, I ate the Chex cereals with a heaping spoonful of sugar on top, so I’m not sure it was really all that better for me in the long run.
The one exception is that I could occasionally get a box of cereal that was a tie-in to something I was into at the time. When Smurfs was all the rage in the early-80s, there were a few weeks there when I was pounding Smurfberry Crunch. I loved that stuff. But I think Mom only let me get two or three boxes before she shut that down and I was back to the various Chex family of cereals again. Later, I got a few boxes of G.I. Joe cereal and maybe one box of Ghostbusters cereal (marshmallows in cereal weren’t really my thing for a long time). I only got one box of E.T. cereal, but that was because I hated the chocolate/peanut butter taste.
Thankfully, in 1984, when C-3PO’s, the Star Wars tie-in cereal, was released, she didn’t say no. I’m sure she knew I’d beg for them every time we went to the store, so it was easier to just give-in than constantly fight a tenacious 9-year-old. Maybe it was because I didn’t get sugary cereals often, but I remember loving those little double-O-shaped bites.
At first, C-3POs came with cut-out masks on the back of the boxes that featured some of the iconic Star Wars characters.
I’m sure I had a bunch of these, but the only one I can specifically remember getting was Luke. I seem to recall wearing that one around the house one day, barely taking it off.
But my obsession with the cereal really hit a high point when they started including trading cards inside each specially-marked box! I loved trading cards and would collect almost any I could get my hands on. Of course I had a smattering of Topps Star Wars cards from all three films (more on those at a later time…). But I also picked up random packs from movies and TV shows, some of which I hadn’t even seen, like Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Happy Days, Three’s Company, and Mork & Mindy. I was just fascinated by them as a whole, so I wasn’t too worried about what they were trying to promote. So when C-3PO’s started offering them, it was a no-brainer that I’d have to get some.
There were 10 cards in the C-3PO’s set, made up of promo photos from the original trilogy – mostly Return of the Jedi. But what made them unique is that the front was a sticker that you could peel off and that would reveal a different photo underneath. Unlike other sticker cards, like Garbage Pail Kids, you could use the sticker, but still have a card to collect. For me, it was a win-win situation!
Perhaps not surprisingly, I peeled off the sticker on almost every card I had, plastering it onto my Trapper Keeper or maybe the side of my dresser, only to have to scrape it off later when my Dad found out about it. Still, some have survived the years, so I thought I’d show them to you here.
Surprisingly enough, I have two cards in both forms – with sticker and without – so sort of a Schrodiner’s Wookiee if you will.
Here’s the R2-D2 card, with sticker on the left, and without sticker on the right…
And here’s the Chewbacca card, with sticker on the left, and without sticker on the right…
I also still have a Yoda card with the sticker intact…
But the rest have the sticker peeled off…
Here’s the set, with and without stickers (minus Chewie and R2 that I showed you above)…
As I’m sure you can imagine, these cards are really hard to come by nowadays. I was definitely not the only kid using these stickers on their Trapper Keeper, so finding them with the sticker attached is rare. I’ve seen these go for anywhere between $3 – $5 without the sticker, but $10 – $20 if they still have the sticker. Needless to say, this isn’t a collectible I’m going to pursue, but I’m happy to have what few cards I was able to keep from my childhood.
