QUESTIONS for the Editor |
TODD'S ANSWERS |
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Who has time to make a list like this in 2020?! |
COVID |
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I got hooked into the Wacky Packages craze when it swept through adolescent America decades ago. Their irreverent, absurdist humor and art were all it took to make a lifelong fan. |
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Does your mother know you regularly dashed across a four-lane road (Blue Ridge Cutoff) at age 8 to give all your Chapel Hill Elementary School lunch money to Paul's Market in exchange for a fist full of Wacky Packages, all the while knowing there were children starving in China? |
Absolutely not.
And why bring it up now?
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Have you been collecting all this time? |
No, like most kids I was done after about two years. But I never forgot about them, or how ridiculous they were. When new ones appeared in stores 30 years later, I was a soft target. |
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Why the emphasis on Gags? |
It reflects what I'm trying to collect - hopefully one of each Gag in the format it was originally released, giving preference to stickers in the cases where gags debuted as promo cards (or the like) but were soon followed by actual stickers. I'm not a 'completist'. I'm not interested in reissues of gags previously released - and there are a lot of them. I am interested in all the creativity that comes from original art and variations to it (variations within the art and text on the face of the sticker/card/ad/poster/tattoo/patch/billboard, not the card back or copyright date on the front of the card, etc.) Chasing 3000+ original gags and their artistic variations is plenty for me.. |
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What constitutes a new Gag? |
It's not just artwork, and it's not just a title/text. It's both. And changing either one, or even just a tiny bit of text (especially if Topps felt compelled to change it to make a grumpy corporate product owner happy), can create a new gag for the sake of what I collect. Test releases like the Wacky Patches test patches, the Wacky Cans Test and Irish Test Series are fair game for counting as new gags. For my collecting and for the sake of this list, a gag that appears on a regular size sticker within a full series of stickers will always be the release counted on this list. In other words, if a gag was previously released as a postcard or as a promo card, but soon thereafter appeared on a regular sticker within a regular series, that gag will be listed here under that series. This just makes things easier and reflects my high bias toward collecting regular stickers. |
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What doesn't constitute a new Gag? |
Reissues, reuse of substantially the same art and title/text on a new card/poster/patch, sketch cards, unreleased titles/art, rough art that eventually became a finished gag. Also not counting "Lost Wackys", tempting though it may be. Fortunately, there is a long history of Lost Wackys eventually making their way into production, though it can take more than a decade. |
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What's a Title, and why not just collect those? |
A 'title' is the name of the Gag - 'Gadzooka', 'Wormy Packages', and 'Ratz' being examples. It's not necessarily the name on the series checklist, if any. A given title can be used on multiple gags, often years apart, represented by different artwork or text, and usually by different artists. Cover Ghoul is an example of a single title rendered into multiple gags using different art and/or text. Counting/collecting Gags rather than Titles promotes collecting the widest range of creativity produced by Topps' Wacky Packages artists over the last 50+ years. |
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Topps has released several series that contain both Garbage Pail Kids (GPK) and Wacky Packages. Are those counted here? |
Only the 'Wacky Packages-branded' ones in those series are counted here. Examples of those series are the Trumpocracy cards from 2016/17, some of the Philly Non-Sports Cards Show exclusives, and the 2017 Lord of the Flyes Festival stickers, among many others. Some '"cross-over" GPK cards are labled Wacky Packages on the back, those are also counted here. The GPK Prime Slime Trashy TV Series from Oct, 2018 is an example - all GPK cards branded 'Wacky Packages' on the reverse. Wacky Packages and GPK are clearly closely related. GPK cross-overs that are not branded 'Wacky Packages' anywhere on the card are only counted here only when they are clearly using Wacky Packages references in their art.. One example would be the January 2019 GPK 'Wacky Pails' Inserts. |
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What's the difference between a "sticker" and a "card"? They surely aren't interchangeable. Does the editor not know? Does the editor not care? Is he stupid or something? |
I'll answer the first question: For this list, I don't currently make a distinction between the two. Maybe someday I'll clean it up by determining which ones are actually stickers, and which ones are just printed card stock that look like stickers. At any rate, both terms describe the 2.5 inch x 3.5 inch format of traditional collector cards. |
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Got a favorite? |
No, but I can point to a 'top three' - all as ridiculous now as when I was eight.
Koduck - Film for Ducks
Blunder Bread
Blast Blew Ribbon Beer
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What does a physical collection like this look like? |
My collection for the years 1967 to 2021+ consists of five 4" binders, each comfortably holding about 650-800 stickers in baseball card-style 9-card pages - (plus the occasional poster, ad, tattoo, patch, postcard or billboard, if a certain gag was only released that way). The years 1967-1999 fit well in one 4" binder. 2000-2011 nicely fills the second binder. 2012-2015 fills the third, and 2016-2019 fills the fourth. The fifth binder begins with 2020. And the beat goes on, and on. |
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Why do some people like to write about themselves in third person?. |
I don't know |
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I'd like to give the editor the benefit of my thoughts. |
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Why'd you become such a slacker at the end of 2021? |
Pandemic was over and I got a job as an aerial photographer
and went off to fly in F-16s. I've been busy! |
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NEW GAGS |
BY THE NUMBERS |
How many new gags were produced in 1967? |
44
All were "Die-Cuts" - on 2.5"x3.5" card stock that would act as a sticker if the back was moistened. |
How many new gags were produced in 1968? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1969? |
30
All were "Wacky Ads", again on card stock that would act as a sticker if the back was moistened.
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How many new gags were produced in 1970? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1971? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1972? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1973? |
152
These were the first gags produced as what are now considered traditional peel-and-stick stickers (plus some of the first posters). Many other gags were recycled from the 1967 Die-Cuts and 1969 Wacky Ads, so they are not counted in the 152 total. |
How many new gags were produced in 1974? |
265
Stickers, Posters, Tattoos and a Patch |
How many new gags were produced in 1975? |
116 |
How many new gags were produced in 1976? |
30
Sticker Series 16 |
How many new gags were produced in 1977? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1978? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1979? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1980? |
15
Frosted Ice Krunkles, part of Set IV from 1979-80, a couple of recylced-but-altered titles, and the twelve new gags in the Wacky Cans Test. |
How many new gags were produced in 1981? |
16
All in the Irish Test Series |
How many new gags were produced in 1982? |
14 |
How many new gags were produced in 1983? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1984? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1985? |
46 |
How many new gags were produced in 1986? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1987? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1988? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1989? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1990? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1991? |
56 |
How many new gags were produced in 1992? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1993? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1994? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1995? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1996? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1997? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1998? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 1999? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 2000? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 2001? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 2002? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 2003? |
0 |
How many new gags were produced in 2004? |
57 |
How many new gags were produced in 2005? |
131 |
How many new gags were produced in 2006? |
62 |
How many new gags were produced in 2007? |
148 |
How many new gags were produced in 2008? |
24 |
How many new gags were produced in 2009? |
16 |
How many new gags were produced in 2010? |
143 |
How many new gags were produced in 2011? |
135 |
How many new gags were produced in 2012? |
176 |
How many new gags were produced in 2013? |
234 |
How many new gags were produced in 2014? |
165 |
How many new gags were produced in 2015? |
115 |
How many new gags were produced in 2016? |
123
Including the first 10 of the Disg-Race for the White House series of 2016/2017 |
How many new gags were produced in 2017? |
343
Including the last 9 of the Disg-Race for the White House series of 2016/2017 |
How many new gags were produced in 2018? |
157 |
How many new gags were produced in 2019? |
76 |
How many new gags were produced in 2020? |
324 |
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