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Wacky Packages first appeared in 1967 as Die-Cuts and Wacky Ads.
Using the same form as traditional trading card packages, Die-Cuts
and Wacky Ads came as a set of randomly assorted cards. Each card
was set into a larger cardboard frame and bordered by perforations.
The card could be punched from the perforation and, using the sticky
back, applied to a flat surface. The perforations made the card
difficult to remove without tearing the fragile paper surface, and
as a result, Die-Cuts and Wacky Ads did not perform as well as Topps
had hoped.
In 1973, Topps tried again with a new format. Instead of
perforations, every image was on a self-adhesive sticker-back card.
The new cards needed a new name, and Topps' Wacky Packages were
born. Jay Lynch, a comics legend responsible for many of the Bazooka
Joe cartoons, was also chiefly responsible for the art and concepts
of Wacky Packages. Lynch claims the idea for Wacky Packages comes
from ad parodies in Mad Magazine and The New Yorker, and certainly
the artwork was similar to that of Mad.
The 1967 series had not been particularly popular, but Wacky
Packages ruled schoolyards, parks and recreation centres throughout
the 1970s with an iron fist. The wildly popular and politically
incorrect cards parodied everyday household products, most of which
could be found at the supermarket. Children, familiar with the idea
of product art at a very early age, gravitated to the incredibly
well designed cards and stuck them on every surface they could find
like little product-placement terrorists. There wasn't any place
safe from the ravages of Wacky Package stickers.
Most sets of Wacky Packages also doubled as a puzzle. Packages
came with individual puzzle pieces which fit into a larger parody
puzzle. Of course, this required completing the set in order to put
it together, assuring that children would continue to buy them with
maniacal devotion. The task got a little easier in 1979, when Topps'
reprint series included the puzzle pieces on the backs of every
card.
All kinds of brand name products got the Wacky treatment: Miss
Clairol, Crest Toothpaste, Lavoris, Lipton Soup, Scope . . . No
product or company was above being lambasted. Some companies didn't
take Wacky Packages lightly and were, perhaps laughably, concerned
that Topps was irrevocably damaging their collective good names. In
1982, Tetley Tea Bags took Topps to court claiming that the Wacky
Packages' parody of their product, "Petley Flea Bags", had
done damage to their brand. They didn't win but the writing (or
sticker) was on the wall.
Although Wacky Packages had enjoyed a ludicrous popularity, it
was time for Topps to throw in the towel. The children that had
grown up on Wacky Packages were now actually growing beyond them.
Besides, there were virtually no companies left worth parodying.
Between 1985 and 1991, there were four attempts at reviving the
Wacky Packages brand, but with little success.
The original 16 series of Packages produced between 1973 and 1977
are heavily collected and traded to this day. The popular series
yielded several competitors in the 1970s and later inspired such
sets as the Garbage Pail Kids. Now Wacky Packages exist as a
talisman of a 1970s childhood. One look at them can make the adults
who owned them go misty-eyed with nostalgic visions of summers spent
slapping stickers on taboo surfaces and making their first lasting
impressions on the world around them.
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