All New Garbage Pail Kids Series II
with Mr. STINKhead

They're back, and they're still gross. Last year we saw the return of another popular collectible from the 80s, Garbage Pail Kids. They got us in trouble with parents, teachers, and decimated our allowance. You can read our original reaction on the first series of new cards. But they're back, with all new Second Series and updated web site.

I'm quite pleased with the new offering of cards. The humor is present; gross bodily functions and injuries, riffs on pop culture icons, punny word plays. But now there's something new. I am completely in love with the new web site. See, each pack of cards contains one gold foil re-issue of an old 80s card. On the back of each of these cards is a special code you can use on their site GarbagePailKidsWorld.com. Point your browser and type in your code to unlock a new gross feature to add to the Kid Builder. The Build-A-Kid flash game is simple to use, but definitely going to eat up some precious break minutes at work. Given a variety of choices, you can change the head, hands, torso, legs, feet and accessories of your own GPK. You can change the background, give it all the gross trappings, and each online code you enter will unlock a special animation or bonus element. Be warned, each code can only be used once, like those under-the-soda-cap games that are so popular. So don't bum your codes out to friends, because then you won't be able to use them yourself. I had a blast working on my character as you can see here.

Ok, aside from the delicious web site, what about the cards? Well color me thrilled. The particular cards by my personal influence John Pound are right on the mark and really fulfill the nostalgia flavor I was yearning for. And the gags are just as gross if not grosser. Even the young parents in our office, who have dealt with disgusting things I cannot even fathom, were disgusted. In fact, it seems these GPKs embrace jokes relating to urine, being unable to contain one's urine, fecal excrement, fecal excrement making a mess, and overactive mucous membranes. Gross, yes, hilarious, absolutely. Just put aside your businessy self for a minute and allow yourself to be reduced to snickers. Ok, maybe I read A Room of Jean's Own too much. (Jeanketeer in the house! But Herbert H-Dogg Kornfeld is also repra-sentin').

Anyway, we got a big box of these in, and I dished out a handful of cards to a couple of coworkers and we went to town trading. I would recommend picking up a couple of the $.99 cards yourself, find the ones named after your boss, or slide em under the door of those stuck-ups in accounting.

The Good and the Bad
Good news: the gum is gone. A lot of us felt, especially with the first series, that we didn't need to have the gum included. Apparently Topps took note and did not include bubble gum with this series. There is also the inclusion of Scratch and Stink stickers, randomly inserted into packs. If you get one, you can tell because on the back there is a diagram showing you which portion of the front should be scratched and held to your nose. And they do stink. I got one that has a smelly urinal cake on it. Nice.

I am a wee bit disappointed that the backs only have puzzle pieces. My second favorite part about the cards, back in the day, were the Wanted Posters and Rewards for dubious honors that were on the back of most cards. Also, I was hoping the price would come down a little bit now that the gum is gone, but my local comic shop is still copping a buck a pack. The only other thing is that I am mainly buying these cards for the nostalgia value, so I really hold the Pound drawn cards more dear. There are a variety of artists contributing, but Pound is still my favorite.

So I've included a few of the grosser, yet more delectable card images within this article. I would recommend tracking down a pack or two. When I was young, half the fun was popping into every convenience store I could find to see if they had any packs left. And right now, you're at the end of the article, so it's cool, go to the GPK site, GarbagePailKidsWorld.com, and start building your own kid. It's alright if you don't have any online codes yet, you can get started, and you can save your kid and come back when you have some codes to enter.

Here's some cool places to check out:

• GarbagePailKids.com, the large online archive of GPKs, and news and stuff to buy.


• Garbage-Pail-Kids-Cards.com, easy to use directory of GPKs


• Matt from X-Entertainment.com, reviews the movie. You have to see the movie clips at the end...

The Topps Company, founded in l938 as Topps Chewing Gum, is an international marketer of kids' entertainment products, principally candy, collectible trading cards, sticker album collections and miniature games.

Article © 2004 MillionairePlayboy.com. All images are © TOPPS.