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  March 24, 2004 On NY1 Now: News All Eve Weather: Mild, High 60       
Learn More About Topps' "Wacky Packages" Trading Cards

MARCH 23RD, 2004

In the spring of 1973, the Topps Chewing Gum Company manufactured a line of trading cards that were advertising parodies known as Wacky Packages. To learn more about “Weakies - The Breakfast of Chumps” and “Cap'n Crud Cereal,” log on to http://www.wackypackages.org/.

This collector's paradise is run by Greg Grant, and he has images from all sixteen Wacky Pack series available for viewing on the website. Start by tapping the “All Images” option on the main menu page, then just pick a year between 1967 and 1976.

Classic stickers like the ones for “Jolly Mean Giant Peas,” “Gadzooka Gum” and “Minute Lice” all appeared in the first few years. But the gags just kept getting better, and it¹s no wonder: The artists and writers who worked on these cards include Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “Maus,” Jay Lynch, a famed Mad Magazine cartoonist, Kim Deitch, a pioneering underground comic book artist, and Norman Saunders, who illustrated some of the best-known pulp detective novels in the world.

And once you're finished laughing over “Pupsi Cola,” the soft drink for dogs, and “Life Servers,” the candy for convicts, I suggest browsing the Norman Saunders website at http://www.normansaunders.com/. But don't go away yet, because there's lots more to see on the wackypages.org website too, like a collection of unpublished titles including “Hawaiian Punks Vicious Fruit Punch” and “Rotting Zone Magazine.”

Grant has gathered a wealth of historical data, like a bibliography of newspaper and magazine articles about Wacky Packs that includes the New York Magazine cover about this "new fad for the children of the skeptical 70’s." And there's even a Wacky Pack phylum that counts the number of times a bird, fish, or dog has ever appeared on a pack.

Although Wackys faded away in 1976, it spawned the Garbage Pail Kids parody that can be found online at http://www.garbagepailkidsworld.com/.. And in May, Topps is planning to publish an all-new line of Wacky Pack stickers featuring send-ups of modern products like “Foolgers Coffee” and “Frosted Snakes Cereal.”

For more information, visit http://www.topps.com/, or just keep going back to the ultimate Wacky Packs shrine at http://www.wackypackages.org/.

- Noah Robischon
Entertainment Weekly



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