Nerding Day: All My Children Trading Cards

I've once again managed to locate an entire pack of unopened trading cards from one of America's most popular collectible trading card series. That's right, I'm about to pit seven different versions of actress Susan Lucci against each other in the battle to the death we've all been waiting for. It's time to talk about the All My Children trading card collection!

Seriously, there are so many Susan Lucci trading cards in this deck that I started to wonder if All My Children was a show about quintuplets and Susan Lucci played all of the children. Most of the other characters in the show get one or two cards at most. Lucci gets one for every facial expression she's ever made during rehearsal and two for every time she borrowed an outfit from the Star Trek wardrobe's hot alien section.

Susan Lucci hair check: it's slicked back but also somehow enormous and full of springs? Did they put slinkies in her hair? Judging by the top two looks, I'm a little worried Susan Lucci's hairdresser was a crow trying to make a nest out of its shiny little treasures.

Apparently, Susan Lucci's character, Erica Kane, is considered the most popular character in American soap opera history. So, if someone bought a pack of All My Children trading cards and didn't get at least three or four Luccis, they would riot. The excessive amount of Lucci in this deck is for public safety. Don't worry, though; it's not all Susan Lucci. The creators of this card deck also used it to commemorate special moments in All My Children, like the time Susan Lucci's daughter set her house on fire.

Quick, Susan Lucci, reach into your hair and see if there's a squirt gun or maybe a tiny fire extinguisher in there! All My Children trading cards have three major categories: Susan Lucci smiling, Susan Lucci smoldering, and torturing Susan Lucci. This has to be the most popular trading card commemorating a house fire in American trading card history.

Sometimes, the cards even throw one in that upsets Susan Lucci in a sneaky way. I saw ERICA AT THE CIRCUS, and I thought, oh good, finally, something nice for Erica! Readers, it was not a good day for Erica. This is a card commemorating the time Erica learned that her father, Eric Kane, "the famous filmmaker and infamous philanderer," had faked his death for financial reasons and was now living life as Barney the Clown! Her father abandoned her to pursue a career in professional clowning. Nothing is worse than that! Can't Erica just go to the circus?

Do the people who watch this show love pain? Let's see Susan Lucci in happier times, and we won't ask any questions about what happened immediately after the picture on this card was taken. This is Erica and the third of her seven husbands. He was probably torn apart by wolves or something. Again, we're not asking too many questions; just enjoy that Susan Lucci gets to be happy and not have her hair full of trinkets because it's hidden underneath a hat.

I swear Susan Lucci has cursed these cards. I keep trying to find an interesting one that doesn't have her in it, but almost everyone who isn't Susan Lucci has been done so dirty by the trading card manufacturer. What did these women do to Susan Lucci to be forever immortalized in a bad wig, a brown cape, and the saddest half-smile of all time?

Obviously, it's fine how Susan Lucci definitely made sure these women looked terrible in her trading card set. She's a boss bitch. You don't get your own QVC clothing line, exercise DVD, and celebrity perfume (LaLucci) by being a team player. Maybe I'm wrong. There could have been someone else masterminding the cards. I just can't help but notice the huge gaping difference between Myrtle Fargate's single card, which refers to her as a "drunken ex-carnival worker," and a picture of Susan Lucci that just says "HOT".

So many of the other women in their hot couple cards are craning their necks all weird like they're being rescued from a yoga accident. Susan Lucci is smoldering right into the camera as she holds hands with husband number five (of seven total husbands). Yes, that is the husband who got married thirteen times to ten different women, and had a secret twin brother who Erica was also in love with. Could you look even half as good as Susan Lucci if you were in a relationship with a man and his secret twin brother without knowing it? This woman is so talented!

Of course, every card can't have Susan Lucci, or a woman who Susan Lucci has clearly sabotaged in it. Things happen on All My Children other than Susan Lucci being hot. Luckily, the cards have found a way around that. For instance, if Susan Lucci isn't on a card, what if everyone on it is wearing a mask?

Any of these people could plausibly be Susan Lucci. We don’t know! They’re being cheeky about it. Even the guy in the mustache sort of looks like Susan Lucci wearing a hyper realistic movie mask. Either that or I’m just seeing Susan Lucci everywhere now? Has my husband always looked a little bit like Susan Lucci?

The ultimate All My Children trading card is titled DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE. First of all, it's so dark that Susan Lucci could be lurking in the backseat of its car. However, all of the non-Susan Lucci people in the picture look like absolute hell. They're so not Susan Lucci; they are visibly bleeding. Maybe dead. Susan would never. Rumor has it all of her blood was replaced with LaLucci in 1998. She's technically a window cleaner.

It might seem strange for a deck of trading cards to commemorate housefires, drunk driving, and circus daddies, but All My Children was actually very metal. These are the special moments from the show that the All My Children audience wanted to forever enshrine in a trading card. They're the type of people who like two things: psychological terror, and Susan Lucci. The psychological terror caused by Susan Lucci absolutely rocks their world. You might think you're immune to her charms, but I bet you'll have trouble getting this sultry look out of your head after reading this article. And when I say sultry, I mean SULTRY.

You don't get to spend a decade slinging jorts on QVC without being a woman of incredible resolve and seductive energy. In fact, she's so powerful that Susan Lucci hijacked this entire article and also, maybe my life? There are seventeen boxes of something called Susan Lucci's Youthful Essence Night Cream in my living room. It all expired in 2006, but for some reason, it felt like a good investment at the time. And it feels like Susan Lucci on my skin.

I think my weak personality couldn't withstand the charisma radiating from these trading cards. I've got to stop bringing these things into my home. Yeah, I'm going to get rid of these cards. I'll need room for the additional nine boxes of Susan Lucci's Hair Nest System I just ordered. If I disappear in the next six weeks, please know I may have joined a cult that Susan Lucci isn't aware she started.

This article was brought to by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Koumoutsas, the Susan Lucci of competitive hot dog hurling.  

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