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Business News Beware popular brands: '70s spoofs "Wacky Packages" are back
By LUKAS I. ALPERT
NEW YORK (AP) -- 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 rerelease Wacky Packages with one eye on the
nostalgia 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 also runs an elaborate "Wacky Packages" Web site. "It
was just life back then."
With their booming popularity, 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 form 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.
Grant said the ones from the '80s and the '90s were "just too far into
gross-out humor."
Oddly, the Topps folks decided on the rerelease 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).
Completing the consumer angle, the backs of the new stickers will
feature fake coupons offering savings like $2 on "Vinnie's
Brooklyn-English Translator" or seven cents on an "Extremely Complicated
Straw."
------
On the Net:
Topps, Co.: http://www.topps.com
Grant's Web site: http://www.wackypackages.org
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