Combining their first names, Douglas, Don, and Russ, they renamed their company Donruss and continued to produce candy and gum.

Donruss produced several entertainment-themed trading cards, from such television shows as The Addams Family, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Monkees and The Flying Nun from 1961 until 1969.

Donruss continued making entertainment-themed cards throughout the 1970s, adding titles like The Dukes of Hazzard, Elvis Presley, Kiss and Saturday Night Fever to its product lines.

After five years a federal judge ruled that Topps illegally obtained Major League Baseball Players Association rights.

Quick to react, Fleer's lawyers found a loophole in Topps' contract that stated it had exclusive rights to sell baseball cards with gum or candy.

Its first sports work was seen in 1983 when 7-Eleven began distributing multiple-image discs utilizing the lenticular printing process which gave an appearance as though the image were moving, or changing –with purchases of Slurpee drinks.

[4][6] In 1985 the company obtained baseball licenses and started producing its unique style of cards under the name "Sportflics".

[4][6] Playoff expanded its business in 2000 by adding a 36,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) distribution facility, and developed its Score Entertainment subsidiary to produce Dragonball Z trading cards.

[4] In 2003, Donruss Playoff stirred up controversy when it paid $264,210 at auction for a rare game-worn Babe Ruth jersey, which it then cut up and turned into 2,100 memorabilia cards.

On March 13, 2009, Panini s.p.a. of Italy (which had previously acquired the exclusive license to produce NBA trading cards beginning with the 2009–10 season), announced that it had purchased Donruss Playoff.

Panini also outlined other initiatives: that they will continue to destroy returned NBA trading cards to protect "collectibility", willing to implement minimum advertised price if needed, formation of a brick-and-mortar standards committee, upgraded ordering systems and schedules, new football and hockey trading cards and other products featuring autographs and memorabilia swatches from sports, history and pop culture.

[15] In late 1980, on the heels of a court ruling in favor of Fleer that voided Topps' exclusivity deal, Donruss rushed into production a 605-card set for the 1981 season.

The 1982 offering also saw the introduction of the Diamond Kings, the first 26 cards of the 660-card set, made up of oil paintings by noted sports artist Dick Perez.

Donruss also began selling to dealers directly, the first of the major card companies to offer factory sets for those buying in bulk.

Notable rookie cards in their standard set include Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs.

The "Champions" featured the artwork of Dick Perez and were issued in cello packs along with pieces of the Duke Snider puzzle.

The "Super Diamond Kings" are enlarged, measuring approximately 4 15/16 by 6¾", versions of the first 26 cards of the standard set, and were obtained through mail-order.

[21] Donruss produced a "Leaf" set to establish themselves in the Canadian baseball card market along with rival Topps' affiliate O-Pee-Chee.

Card numbers 251 and 252 feature Dick Perez artwork of Dave Stieb and Tim Raines, respectively, and are not found in the standard set.

However, this year card numbers 214 and 254 feature Dick Perez artwork of Jeff Reardon and Jesse Barfield, respectively, and are not found in the standard set.

The cards were die-cut and folded in a manner that when we unfolded, or "popped up", could stand on its own and give the appearance of a player in action in front of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome ballpark background.

Perez-Steele Galleries started using repeats of the Diamond King (1-26) sections, to avoid depleting their limited pool of available players.

The year's "Leaf" set featured artwork by Dick Perez on card numbers 65 and 173, Floyd Youmans and Mark Eichhorn, respectively.

In addition to finding the usual jigsaw puzzle piece, the year's being Stan Musial, bonus cards, numbered with a BC prefix, were randomly inserted into wax packs.

Two "Bonus MVP" cards, Tim Raines (211) and George Bell (214), were issued in both the Canadian and U.S. versions of the "Leaf" set.

Again, Donruss released "Bonus MVP" cards randomly inserted into regular set wax packs, along with a jigsaw puzzle piece of Warren Spahn.

Donruss baseball cards were produced continuously from 1981 to 1998, when its then-parent Pinnacle Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In the late summer of 2005, Major League Baseball created new license criteria for cardmakers in response to collectors' complaints that the market had become too fragmented and confusing; and that rookie cards were becoming too scarce, with diminished importance due to the race between makers to feature unknown players first.

MLB chose to renew only its licenses with Topps and Upper Deck, tacitly sealing the fate of Donruss and Fleer.

The last MLB-licensed baseball product shipped by the company was the third series of the Playoff-branded Prime Cuts memorabilia cards.