Does Anybody Remember Wacky Packages™?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Reminiscing about schoolyard games in this thread got me to thinking about Wacky Packages™.

Does anyone remember them? They were trading cards that spoofed products on your local gocer’s shelves. Instead of Quaker Oats™ you’d have Quacker Oats and a card with a duck dressed up like the Quaker on the original.

Some of these spoofs bordered on being, if not vulgar, then inappropriate for elementary-school age children, and thus they were banned from our school. That, of course, guaranteed that Wacky Packages™ trading went on every recess.

I had a collection of hundreds of 'em, but sadly I lost track of them. It’s too bad, because I could sell them on E-bay and make a fortune.

So, who else traded these cards, and do you have a favorite? And if you like links, here’s a good one.

2

I loved those things. And the gum was that hard as cardboard kind that would break into shards upon biting.

In the same vein, what was the name of the freaky looking monsters that drove the hot rods?

3

I remember those well. The same people made Garbage Pail Kids for the next generation.

Haj

4

I used to love Wacky Packages. Had lord knows how many of them. With the picture puzzles on the back of the cards. I used to have a t-shirt with “Rice-a-Phoni” on it. With a bent-up fork.

I don’t remember hot-rodding monsters but I do remember monster baseball players with fake stats on the cards like baseball cards. I distinctly remember a two-headed one who was listed as a “switch-hitter.” Looking back I wonder if that was an intentional double-entendre. It was the 70s after all.

5

Freetoes (in every bag of corn chips) with this corn encrusted foot on the bag
and Cover Ghoul makeup.

6

My Grandfather-in-law still has the box fan that was covered with wacky packages stickers, courtesy of my husband who was in grade school at the time.

Everytime I see it, it makes me laugh. Those things were great!

7

You ought to look for these on Ebay. Even if you don’t buy them, there are a lot of pictures in the ads. I loved these things! Didn’t they also come in sticker form, the same size as the labels on the real products? You could put them right on top and fool your mother. Or did I dream that?

8

I don’t recall a card series, but are you thinking of the work of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth ?

9

The Topps company even spoofed that fact with its take-off on a package of its own football cards, which featured the text POOR FOOLBALL / YOU’LL NEVER COLLECT THEM ALL / HARD AS A BRICK BUBBLE GUM.

10

NY Magazine cost 50¢ then
There’s even a Wacky Packages.org website

11

I had all the Wacky Package stickers after finally getting the ?Liptorn one. Sadly, I mounted them all on a crappy piece of cardboard so I could get a “Collector” boy scout badge instead of, say, putting them in a juvenile safe deposit box.

12

Uncut sheets of them here

13

Wacky Packages seems to come BACK every ten years or so, too. They’ve released about a zillion different series of the things…

14

Mod note:

I merged duplicate threads so if posts appear in odd places that’s the reason.
Or it could be you’re hitting the eggnog a little early.
Take your pick.

TVeblen

15

I had almost all of the Wacky Packages! About the only one I never found was Dr. Ono Brain cleaner (a take-off on Drano). I only knew one guy who had Dr. Ono, and I envied him!

16

I have not thought of those for years. The thread title threw me off because we always just called them Wacky Packs.

I used to have them all over my door when I was growing up.

17

I distinctly remember a trading card or sticker series with Roth’s art on them. This would have been in the 1972-1976 time frame, when I was in my later elementary school years. Thought they were the coolest things at the time. Don’t remember what the product name was though.

I did have a pretty fair collection of Wacky Packages as well.

18

As far as the monsters in cars, do you mean “Cartoons”?

unclviny