Food of the Seventies, Wacky Packages
I also have food pages for the 80s and 90s.
Picture Gallery
Loading images, if this message doesn't go away you may need to enable javascript in order to see pictures
No pictures available yet!
Description
Your wacky Packs entry should be Wacky PACKAGES, which began in about 1967 as a baseball card/bubble gum product-like item. These were cartoon stickers which parodied everyday consumer products, however. The drawings were weird and frantic (almost like Jack Davis of MAD Magazine), and they reached their peaki in about 1973-74, when several major newspapers did feature stories about the product. I, myself collected wacky packages for several years as a middle schooler, and did not stop until about 1978 when high school intruded. Some of the more memorable product satires were Grave Train Dog Food, Hurts Tomato Paste, Tied Laundry Detergent, Pure Hex Detergent, Dopey (Dream) Whip, Kook Cigarettes, 8 Lives Catfood (made from fish bones), Choke (Chung) King Chinese Dinner, Hungry Jerk Pancake Mix, Poopsie Cola (later they changed it to Burpsie Cola - "Six belches to the ounce"), 6 Up ("You Hate It, It Hates You"), Koduck Film, Mutt's Apple Juice, Liptorn Soup, Hipton Tea (for hippies), Minute Lice, Hawaiian Punks Juice (Bloody Nose Red), Fink (a parody of Wink), Jail-O Brand Dessert, Land O' Quakes Butter, Gadzooka (Bazooka) Bubble Gum, Hostage (Hostess) Cupcakes (filled with mud), Camel (Jerkish Blend cigarettes), Spit & Spill Cleaner, Commie (not Vomit) Cleanser), Ajerks (The Blue Blot) Cleanser, Botch Tape, Boo Hoo Tear-Flavored Drink, Canadian Clod Whiskey, Bloodweiser (beer for vampires), Hostage (brain-filled) Thinkees, and Kook-Aid Soft Drink Mix, among many, many others.
Links for more info
The following are links about Wacky Packages you may find interesting. Also check out the other pages.
- No links have been submitted for this page yet.
User Stories and Comments
The following are comments left about Wacky Packages from site visitors such as yourself. They are not spell checked or reviewed for accuracy.
my husband still has 2 photo albums filled with his collection of these wacky packs-they are cool.
To this day I still call rice-a-roni "rice-a-phony" and kool-aid as "kook-aid".
Beginning in 1973, I was hooked on Wacky Packages. I was into satire and making fun of different situations, so I gravitated to things like this and MAD Magazine, etc. I also loved the drawings and the familiarity with everyday products was reassuring to a kid my age, as well. I could look at the card and then see the same product in my home. Pretty cool ...
Greetings, my name is David Gross. Topps will be putting out a NEW Wacky Packages set this summer (most likely in August). I did all the writing and painting for this set as well as planning out the concept for the set. I painted about half of the All-New Wacky Packages that came out in recent years and did some new Garbage Pail Kids as well. The set is chock full of extras including Jay Lynch sketch cards (Lynch was one of the writers for the original Wackys). EVERYONE that buys a box will get a sketch card. The sets are designed to be like a 17th series of the original stickers which will parody 1970s products that Topps had not done at that time. All new artwork in EVERY series, no reprints. 33 stickers each set with 9 piece old school style checklists, boxes and wrappers. I have promos and fliers available on Ebay for anyone interested (see ebay seller salandrei). These are available at no profit for me, just covering costs. More info to be announced soon so you can keep visiting the topps online store. Long Live Wackys! Thanks!
God I loves these! Almost a precursor to Garbage Pail Kids!
At one point, i had nearly a complete, first series set. The only WACKY PACKAGE sticker I couldn't get was Run Tony Shells (Ronzoni Macaroni Shells). I bought probably $20 worth of gum packs, still didn"t get it. AARRGGHH!!!
I started collecting at the end of series 6,collected all of series 7,and lost interest before an 8th series came out. I stuck the entire series on My closet door and they were still there in 1986 when my aunt and uncle bought our house.I liked to think it increased our home's value.
I collected these in the mid 70's with a friend of mine. I freaking loved the weirdness of them in the art.
Even in the worst parts of a winter storm, we'd be out all weekend during daylight, sometimes in the dark, shovelling people's sidewalks for money, then rush to the candy store for as many packs as we could buy up. Throw put the gum, and enjoy the cards. The store owner could always count on us for lots of business, so he'd give us a few bonus packs for free.
AH THE GOOD OLE' DAYS!
My mom HATED these things! She forbad me to buy any more after just one pack. But I still got some more from the Wonder Bread bags! HA! My faves were "Lavirus" (for Lavoris mouthwash) and "Gadzooka Gum" (for Bazooka bubble gum). You weren't cool in school unless you had these things stuck all over your notebook!
Actually they have come back! They have been around since 2008 and they are still around in 2014. I remember buying Wacky Packages at this local drug store when I lived in New Jersey. This was the 1973-1976 series. Then I remember buying the 1979-1980 series at a Stop And Go just outside my neighborhood after I moved to Minnesota a couple of years before. Then I remember buying the 1982 series when I first started living in northern Virginia. Now in 2014 Wacky Packages are still around having coming back in 2008. They just released the ANS 12 series last week or at least we can call it that. They named it the 1st. new series and are mainly pryoding the same products they had stickers of up till now since ANS 1 came out back in 2008. There are also now Wacky Packages Old School stickers witch spoof products from the 1970's that they didn't spoof back in the 1973-1976 series. They are up to the 5th. Old School series now and I have had all of them.
Wow, I remember searching for 70's Wacky's in the 90's with little success. I would search flea markets and newspaper for-sale ads. Once the internet came around it seems like me and a couple million others were searching for them online so much that they started the whole thing up again 2008 - present. Although nowadays no cigarette or beer Wacky's are allowed. So in the end even parody is affected by our modern PC sesitive culture...
I can remember the one for Salem cigarettes had a cigarette filled with trees and bushes and woodland animals. "You can take Salem out of the country, but - you can't take the country out of Salem."
Submit a story or info about Wacky Packages
Music Poster Books
,Check out ChuckyG's reviews of books about concert posters and other music picture books.