[As we recover from the 200 comment softball extravaganza article from Monday, enjoy a column that originally ran on JSF this past October.  We'll be back with new material this afternoon]

The Hit Man.  Black & Blue. Bash Brothers.  Land of Boz.

The names of the classic 80's sports posters pretty much stand on their own even decades after they first came out.  Most sports fans from the era can distinctly remember the ridiculous gimmick posters that adorned bedroom walls from coast to coast, if for no other reason than because they serve as indisputable proof that professional athletes at that time had no issues dressing up like complete clowns for a little publicity.

You need me to dress up like Freddy Krueger for a "Nightmare" poster?  No problem. Want me to act like a robot next to a sign that says "See Dick Run"?  Just tell me when and where.

Most of the credit for the memorable posters of the 80's goes to a company called Costacos Brothers which produced the large majority of these masterpieces. Contrary to what may be common perception, they didn't simply stop making them once it became uncool to sell giant pictures of players holding toy uzis to hang on kids' walls.  Costacos Brothers continued to pump out posters long after the people my generation were forced to take them down from above their beds by the pressures of society (aka their wives and/or girlfriends).

And when you have a track record of posterizing players for thirty plus years, you're bound to have a few swings and misses along the way.  Not every hot prospect turned out to be a big timer.

Thanks to a site called sportsposterswarehouse.com, we happened to stumble upon some of those Costacos Brothers products that inevitably lead to questions as to what the hell their research department was thinking when they selected some of their subjects...

When it comes to pumping out endless hype only to be met by utter disappointment, no position in sports comes close to matching the legacy of the NFL QB.  Specifically those that happen to be drafted in the first round.  A lesson to the young sports fans out there - wait a few years before ponying up for the poster of the new franchise QB.  Trust us.

Cade McNown Bear Force     /  Tim Couch - Top Dawg



Joey Harrington - Lion of Fire / Ryan Leaf - Supercharger



Mark Chmura - Chewie

Say you're having a few teenager girls over for a couple of beers and a quick skinny dip in the hot tub and you need to establish a little ambiance.  What better way than to slap up a "Chewie" poster and get the nod of approval from a fellow playboy.



Ed O'Bannon - Over Power

Perhaps instead of "Over Power", a better tagline for this Ed O'Bannon poster might have been "Over in Two Seasons".



Travis Lee - The Natural

There are simple misjudgements in talent and then there is just spitting in Roy Hobbs' face.



Jeff George - Air Raid Bernie Kosar - Air Raid

If forced to choose between the two posters that garnered the tagline "Air Raid", we're definitely going with the Bernie Kosar vintage over the Jeff George Oakland edition.  Sure the snappy pun is in place for the George edition, but the guy couldn't even bother to get into the pilot's jumpsuit for his photo shoot like Bernie.  That's bush league, George.



Dave Nilsson - Thunder

Sometimes posters gone wrong  happen to highlight a player who had the name but just didn't live up to the hype.  Other times they happened to highlight a player that we honestly have never heard of.



Dan Majerle - Thunder in the Air

Speaking of Thunder, kudos to whoever was responsible for making sure that the Dan Majerle's nuts were 100% airbrushed out of the "Thunder's in the Air" piece.  With shorts like that, we presume it wasn't an easy task.



No one ever said that spending $10 at Spencer Gifts on a new poster wasn't a calculated risk.

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80's Poster Gallery