If you were a kid in the ’80s, you’re likely aware of the phenomenon called Garbage Pail Kids. These trading cards from Topps caused a nationwide craze. Children traded these gross-out spoofs of the popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls during recess at school. This resulted in many schools banning them from campus. Which honestly just made them that much cooler. Now, as with all things of the ’80s, the Garbage Pail Kids are making a comeback.
A Garbage Pail Kids Series Is Still Coming to Max
In 2021, we learned via The Hollywood Reporter that a new animated series had been greenlit for Max (then named HBO Max). It’s coming from the creative team of Halloween 2018’s Danny McBride, David Gordon Green and Josh Bycel. The hope is that characters with names like Atom Bomb, Jay Decay, and Corroded Carl will become pop-culture favorites all over again. And recently, we finally got a hint of the Garbage Pail Kids series’ status. It seems like the show is not dead despite its lack of updates, instead, it continues to be developed.
Topps
Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Green shared, “Right now, McBride and I are trying to do an animated series on the Garbage Pail Kids, if you ever had those cards… So we’re working on that, and we’ve got some pretty cool ways we can make a naughty animated show. We’ll see if they’ll have us on that one.” In previous, reports seemed to allude to the new series being family-friendly and appropriate across age ranges. Now it sounds like something a bit more mature may be on the horizon. But, hey, a lot could have changed in two years. Hopefully, our next update about the Garbage Pail Kids series will come more quickly.
Previous Garbage Pail Kids Adaptations
The Topps Garbage Pail Kids cards were a massive success, running for an impressive fifteen different series from 1985-1988. At the time, nothing could stop the Garbage Pail Kids train, and there were early attempts at creating media spin-offs. There was a live-action movie in 1987 that sought to capitalize on the pop culture phenomenon. But it was a terrible film and a massive box office bomb. It really is on another level of atrocious. You gotta see it to believe it.
1987 also saw a Saturday morning cartoon show created as well. A full 13-episode season was fully produced by CBS. But parent groups complained, and the show never aired one episode. It did play in other territories, though, countries where the parents presumably had better things to do than get bent out of shape about a dumb cartoon.
Will This GPK Adaptation Succeed?
Despite all these failed attempts and the current seeming delays, maybe Danny McBride and David Gordon Green can make a Garbage Pail Kids series work this time. As big fans of the original cards growing up, this is more than a cynical cash-in attempt for them. They genuinely love the likes of Leaky Lindsay and Dead Fred. Who knows, maybe McBride will voice one of the characters. Maybe Drippy Dan?
Originally published on May 26, 2021.
Featured Image: Topps
