I have many fond childhood memories from the 80's. Some of y'all are probably too young to share my exact sentiment towards this post's topic... but i am sure you all can relate in your own ways. Some of the best memories i have from then were waiting in the car as my dad would go inside the store and begging him to buy me back a pack of Garbage Pail Kids.
The excitement i would feel when he would come back with a pack or two and a box of nerds or some other candy is beyond words. Sometimes, dad would even come home from work with a pack or two. The thrill of opening up a pack and looking at all there was to see on the fronts and backs of the cards can still be felt to this very day.
I was going through some of my old cards recently and came across my old Garbage Pail Kids cards. I kept many but not all the ones i remember having were in my small collection. I used to be an avid card collector- Baseball, (American) Football, Basketball, Comic cards and more... but none were quite as special as these to me. In fact, they may have been my first cards to collect which led to my interest in the others.
So, after happening upon these Garbage Pail Kids i decided to scan a few and share them here with you. For those that don't know, GPK were a spoof on the fad at the time of Cabbage Patch Kids. Topps was a major card brand and they produced these crude gems of childhood memorabilia.
To be honest, these cards were not for children at all as you will see. Fortunately, my dad and the rest of my family had a dark humor and these fit right in with our family. Garbage Pail Kids came in a wax paper pack, with a stick of old crusty gum that Topps was famous for. The cool thing about GPK is they were actually all stickers. You can see the white line around many of the card images and the arrow in the top left corner telling you to peel here. I actually tried my best to not ever unstick them unless i had doubles. You can also see the middle card below, Hector Collector, unpeeling himself.
I added some of my favorites in the images above. I had to adjust the color a little since they were quite old and a bit faded. You can see Outerspace Chase is an ode to Mars Attacks, which before it became a Tim Burton film was also a Topps produced card series.
As an artist, i was not only drawn by the creativity and gross nature of many of the characters but to the vivid colors. I do believe the artistry behind these cards was lost mostly due to the controversial nature of most of the cards. For the middle 80's, the blood and gore and gross-out factors were pretty incredible. Below, Skin Les & Peeled Paul are a good example along with Ground Chuck!
Skin Les & Peeled Paul are also examples of how almost every card had a secondary name for a duplicate image. These two are actually featured as a puzzle. On the backs of some cards were portions of a GPK character. If you collected the right cards you could put them together to reveal the character. Skin Les & Peeled Paul were that series' character.
There are/were so many creative nuances that made these cards special. Momma Mia, the bottom left card, is a recreation of a classical artwork you can see in the background of her card. To her right is Bright Dwight where you can see a few Garbage Pail Kids cards on the table. They are actually super small versions of real cards. I remember trying to see which ones they were and if i had already collected them.
Below, you can see what one of the original packs actually looked like. If you click that image or the link it will take you to an article on Old Sports Cards.com of the 15 Most Valuable Garbage Pail Kids. Of course, none of mine are probably in good enough condition to resale at market values... but the memories are priceless.
Just looking through these and scanning them brought back so many memories. I remember trading with my brother and sisters for the cards that i liked. I was more into the art of the characters and their cards than anything else. I have a feeling these things had a bigger impact on my own art than i probably realize.
Just to give you a taste of a few things not very kid-friendly i included Herman Hormone in the top left for an example. Not my favorite card... but he has a copy of a magazine called PLAYTOY with a very busty woman on the cover. He also has the fold-out unfolded in full and his head is shaped in a similar fashion. This is clearly spoofing perving out on a PlayBoy centerfold.
Just below, you can see the back of a card with a wanted poster. It's a mailman wanted for blackmail. You may not be able to read it... but one of his crimes is delivering Bran Illustrated on time but delivering your PlayBoys 3 weeks late... and reading your love letters. One can only imagine what Mr. Mailmain is doing with that magazine for three weeks. So, there are some pervy aspects here and there that are probably lost on kids my age at the time.
If you look at Mickey Mouths you can see he is wearing a diaper and a couple of his mouths are smoking a pipe and a cig. I could only imagine what the Social Justice Cancel Culture Warriors would say if that came out today. I am sure they wouldn't mind the cross-dressing Marty Gras though, which you can see at the bottom.
I felt like Dupli Kit when i was trying to scan these cards. They all have a slight bend and getting them to line up and lay flat in the scanner was quite difficult.
One thing that is/was cool with these cards was how they spoofed relevant pop-culture at the time. Above you can see Blockhead Blake is a reference to the Rubik's Cube which was fairly new and at it's height of popularity at the time... until the recent resurgence in popularity. Oh, you can also see Miles Smiles got unstuck as the sticker and how i didn't succeed too well in placing him back in his spot.
Below, is a link to the Topps official website and archive. Click on the image or link to go check it out. Topps has started to produce GPK cards again and are still spoofing pop-culture. That is an image of the Tiger King Joe Chaotic instead of Exotic! Looks like they stayed true to their roots.
Another thing i noticed was the cultural diversity in the characters. Considering how much race is a charged topic these days... GPK had no hangups on using all colors to spoof. Minus Hands, Misty Suds, and Tiffany Lamp are all people of color. I appreciate the fact they didn't exclude anyone from being targeted even back in the 80's.
As i mentioned, the art was really what drew me to these characters and cards. The color palettes chosen to illustrate with were and still are quite beautiful. I liked the role reversal of the ventriloquist Whisperin' Woody. I liked the stone look of Slimin Simon. The bearded lady Bushy Bernice was breaking the conventional circus model. The dirty look but attention to detail in Empty Emmy i found to be exemplary in the prowess of art to accomplish the themes. The hand in Overflow Joe is another example and it used to give me the creeps.
If anyone looks beyond the rude and crude shock value of the cards and their characters, there is a real quality about these images. I am sure the butt-face of Swollen Sue Ellen would anger almost any mom during that era... but who could deny the artistry of Knittin' Brittany? Hanna Grenade might have some intrinsic violence due to the nature of it's content but who didn't know a grandma like Wrinkled Rita?
No matter the offense, the wordplay of these names can not be denied in it's level of cleverness... take Moe Bile, Cyril Bowl, and Bowen Arrow for examples!
We grew up in the 80's with horror movies and dark humor and these cards were only a byproduct and reflection of those few people on the fringes culturally speaking. The gross and dark nature of these cards were too much for many back then. Today, Adult Swim or even an average cartoon has worse things than GPK. Garbage Pail Kids weren't taboo... but they weren't widely adopted or well-received by many households at that time.
But there was a core group of fans that held these cards in high regard. There were many kids, like myself, and young adults that got the dark humor and appreciated the statements of many of these cards. They truly did embody the exact opposite of what they were contrasting, which were the Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. This alternative that had a much wider range in potential for appreciators drew a cult following. This is why they are still revered, valued, and created to this day.
As you can see below, not all the cards were grotesque or out for shock value. I remember Haunted Forrest giving me a creepy vibe when i was very young. I really liked the art and something about the eyes and mouth really set the tone.
When Garbage Pail Kids were considered to be a commercial success there was a live-action movie made. I would recommend just enjoying the cards because that movie lived up to the name.... GARBAGE!
The memories that these cards bring is really where the value is. When i see some of these i remember where i was when i opened the pack... or how i felt once i traded to make one of them mine. The images invoke a sense of feeling and thought that are often lost over time in memory. It's cool how sometimes these things can come back so quickly.
Blown Joan with the hairdryer melting and splatting on the wall was one that i recall because we had a hairdryer at the time that looked very similar. Fortunately, it went kaput before melting or splattering anyone on the bathroom wall.
I remember Marcus Mucus looking like a real revolver... up to the point of having puffy cheeks and instead of bullets shooting snot. Phil 'Er Up always reminded me of the opening of Laverne and Shirley on the assembly line. Spikey Mikey reminded me that laying on a bed of nails may not always be successful.
Seeing Viv E. Section was funny because it's usually the frog getting dissected... not the other way around. I don't think i got the pun of Gullivered Travis until now... Gulliver's Travels.
Considering this Bull Market and Bull Run in Crypto... i often find myself thinking of the Bull Runs in Spain or Bull Fighters. So, i thought this card below would be a nice representation. If you click that card or link you can see every Garbage Pail Kid card ever made if you want to go peruse. There were many cards i remember having or wanting that i didn't see in my refound collection. There were so many memories that came back just from looking around.
To wrap things up, Topps has recently joined up with the WAX Blockchain to begin marketing their cards as NFT's. Garbage Pail Kids is one of the lines of cards marketed there. I didn't spend a great deal of time looking there and many of them are sold out already... but the NFT option is a pretty cool advancement.
Many of the old cards are now animated in gifs. Scarcity is a guarantee and the adoption of major brands and companies using blockchain technology to stay relevant moving into the future is a great indicator. It's really cool seeing old things become new again. Click the image or link below to go the the Topps WAX page and you can see for yourself. I liked that some of the GPK NFTs are just the artwork, like the image below.
With all the craziness going on in the world at this time it was really nice to find a small respite and a little bit of levity in these cards. If i could go back to being the little kid in the backseat of that car, chewing that nasty stick of gum while ravaging through one of those wax paper covered packs of cards, i would.
Those were simpler and better times. It's nice to know that little nostalgic touchstones of the past can transcend the current circumstance and transport us to that magical moment when nothing else mattered.
Because of Garbage Pail Kids, i find it to be true that one person's trash is another person's treasure! Thanks for taking the time to read this and walk down memory lane with me appreciating the Garbage along the way!
