The Garbage Pale Kids

Episode 1

In the 1980’s it was quite common to find studios producing animated films or cartoon shows based on popular merchandise. Animation Historian Charles Solomon hit the nail on the head when he noted “an unholy alliance between the studios and the toy industry” during the decade. So it was quite a shock and an ordeal when the dreadfully fugly animated series “The Garbage Pail Kids” did not make it on the airwaves even though a full season’s forth of episodes were produced for the air. For those who do not know, the franchise was made as a parody of the successful Cabbage Patch Kid toys from the same era. And really that was pretty much it. There was nothing special about the toys or the cards other than they were filled with toilet humor and gross out visuals. It was made to a live action movie based on the surprise popularity of the trading cards among certain audiences, but it went down as one of the worst films ever made. The film’s tanking at the box office probably spelled doom for the planned animated series alongside other issues with parents. It seems odd in hindsight that parents would want the show pulled off from the TV considering the amount of animated infomercials already polluting the airwaves…but I guess this show was the last straw in that regard. What it all comes down to is that the show is not gory as some critics suggested…it is just really stupid. The writing and the animation of the show is not good at all. The character designs for the Garbage Pail Kids are just visually unappealing and uninspired to watch. You could really care less about the characters or their situations which was probably not the point of this show to begin with. The main goal of the show was to sell toys and trading cards to a mass audience. Yet they seem to have forgotten that it needs to have a great story with the toys in order to sell them figurines off the shelves as was the case with other memorable shows of the period like “Transformers” or “He-Man”.