NEW YORK - Somewhere, in a
junior high school locker, sits a faded sticker: "Weakies, the
Breakfast of Chumps."
Time to scrape it off, and make
room for a new generation of pop culture spoofs. "Wacky
Packages," the hot 1970s fad parodying popular household
products, is revamped and ready for the 21st
century.
In May, the Topps Co. will re-release Wacky
Packages with one eye on the nostaglia market and its other on
kids brought up in the computer age. The company hopes its
product can transcend time and the generation
gap.
"Poking fun at things, making parody, is a long
accepted form of entertainment and one we think transcends
generations," said Ira Friedman, vice president of new
products at Topps. "But the question remains: aside from the
adult market, will it resonate with younger kids today? We
hope so."
Born in 1967, the "Wacky Packages" were
hand-drawn parodies done with Mad Magazine style-humor, placed
on punched-out cardboard with a lick-and-stick back, and sold
like baseball cards in a pack with a piece of
gum.
Early artists included pulp-novel cover master
Norman Saunders, who also created the Mars Attacks series for
Topps, and Art Spiegelman, who later won the Pulitzer Prize
for his illustrated holocaust narratives "Maus" and "Maus
II"
Everything was fair game. Jell-O became Jail-O - a
metal file hidden in a jello mold and billed as Sing Sing's
favorite dessert. Gravy-Train Dog Food became Grave Train,
with a picture of a dead dog and the grim tag line, "Your dog
will never eat anything else."
Topps even took swipes
at its own products, turning Bazooka gum into
Gadzooka.
Initially, the cards were not successful but
when they were brought back in 1973 as stickers they quickly
became the biggest thing since white rice (or Minute Lice, as
the stickers would have it).
"Anyone who was 7 years
old in 1973 who wasn't really square was into this stuff,"
said Greg Grant, a University of Pennsylvania research
mathematician who runs an elaborate "Wacky Packages" Web
site.
With their booming popularity back then, New York
Magazine put them on the front page, The New York Times gave
them a large spread and kids all over the country affixed them
to school desks and lockers.
"It's an inherently common
pastime for kids to take a printed sticker and - as a from of
expression, mind you - put it on something," said John
Williams, the creative series manager at Topps. "It's kind of
like graffiti, I suppose, just maybe not as messy."
By
1976, Topps began running out of ideas, and called it quits
after printing the 16th series.
Briefly in early 1980s
and again in the early 1990s, Topps came out with new "Wacky
Packages" series but they never took off. The problem with
those, Grant said, is that they went "just too far into
gross-out humor."
Oddly, the Topps folks decided on the
re-release after the success of last summer's encore of the
uber-gross Wacky-Pack-successor, "The Garbage Pail
Kids."
The new series will feature art from some of the
original artists and with takeoffs on modern products like
baboon-flavored "Chimp Stick" (Chap Stick), "Mr. Coffin Casket
Liners" (Mr. Coffee coffee liners), and blue snazazberry
flavored "Bling Pups" (Topps' own Ring
Pops).
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On the Net:
Topps, Co.:
http://www.topps.com/Grant's Web
site:
http://www.wackypackages.org/