For better or worse, The Outer Limits is often remembered primarily for its monsters. Unsurprisingly, that was just fine with the Topps trading card company. Topps' target market—kids, boys mostly, somewhere between their last bed-wetting and first wet dream—were drawn to the series' eerie moods, dynamic visuals, and, of course, its monsters. With this audience in mind, the challenge for Topps copywriter Len Brown was to devise gum cards from patently adult source material. His solution was a simple one: use the monsters, ignore the show.

Released in 1964 and drawn from the emblematic first season, "Monsters From Outer Limits" (the simultaneously accurate and misleading title for the card set) discarded all but visual affiliation with the series. Brown concocted new stories to accompany images of key creatures—simplistic scenarios written for, and seemingly by, eight year olds. While the cards retain an odd charm, they're unflaggingly ludicrous and ultimately insulting to the careful conceptualization of the show: Warren Oates' tortured, terrifying Reese Fowler from "The Mutant," for instance, is transformed into the jolly, naïve Man with Super Sight, while the tragic Andro (Martin Landau) from "The Man Who Was Never Born" devolves into the bluntly villainous Clay Man. The list goes on; barring much of the series' second season, it's hard to imagine a more jarring slide from the sublime to the ridiculous.

But we aim to top it. The following four "additions" to the Topps set represent a combined homage and slap-in-the-face to the cards and Brown's graceless mishandling of the original stories. Bear with us as we tear apart what must have taken minutes to create.

#51	#52	#53	#54

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