Aug 19: Why The Garbage Pail Kids Movie Should've Ended Fad Movies — But Didn't
Plus Book It, a forgotten McDonald's burger with a Seinfeld ad, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
August 19th, 2022 • Issue 113
Why The Garbage Pail Kids Movie Should've Ended Fad Movies — But Didn't
35 years ago, on August 21st, 1987, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie hit theaters.
It’s nearly impossible to make a movie based on a fad. Fads are timely. Movies are not. Fads are fleeting. Movies take time. Fads are organically cool. Bureaucrats trying to cash in on fads are not.
But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from trying. Over and over. With almost universally poor results.
Movies based on fads were everywhere in the early-to-mid ‘80s — and always late to the party.
Xanadu, a campy movie based on the ‘70s roller disco fad, came out in 1980.
Pick-up Summer, which focused on the pinball craze of the ‘70s, also came out in 1980.
There was Rad about the BMX craze, which came out in 1986 — at least two years, probably more like three or four after the peak of BMX mania.
The arcade fad received a Time magazine cover story in 1982… and the goofy sex comedy Joysticks in 1983.
Breakin’ came out in May 1984, as the breakdance craze was on the downswing (but at least Breakin’ beat the other breakdancing movies, Beat Street and Body Rock, to theaters). Then the sequel, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, remarkably made it out by December 1984.
None of those movies, however, has the reputation of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. It’s roundly considered the worst of the worst. It has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you stumble onto “Worst Movies Ever” list, it’s likely you’ll find The GPK Movie on it.
And that designation is deserved. Because The Garbage Pail Kids Movie embodied the worst of the worst about fad movies. Which is why it should’ve killed fad movies forever.
Garbage Pail Kids, for those unfamiliar, were a line of Topps trading cards that debuted in 1985. The Garbage Pail Kids bore a strong resemblance to Cabbage Patch Kids (a much, much bigger fad of the era) but the Garbage Pail Kids were doing gross, antisocial, gross, violent, gross, strange, gross, countercultural, gross, satirical, or gross things.
The cards caught on fast, which led to a wave of backlash from the pearl clutchers of the era. The Streisand Effect kicked in, like it always does when the pearl clutchers get involved — and poured jet fuel on the popularity of Garbage Pail Kids.
By January of 1986 the Garbage Pail Kids were ubiquitous and the trend of the moment. (I have vivid memories of buying and trading GPK cards with friends in first grade.)
As for the movie…
Rod Amateau was a Hollywood journeyman in his early 60s reaching the end of his career. He’d done everything from stunt work to TV writing to directing some smaller films. With retirement approaching, he needed a big theatrical film to secure his Directors Guild benefits through retirement.
He spotted the Garbage Pail Kids and, though he was indifferent toward them, he saw an opportunity for a movie that could get a green light — again, Hollywood couldn’t resist fads — and he could turn around fast.
So he acquired the film rights from Topps and set off on fast tracking the movie. At least as fast as Hollywood can move. He banged out a script, cast some young TV actors looking to break into film (script quality be damned), and started shooting on a minuscule $1 million budget.
In the movie, the Garbage Pail Kids (a seemingly random assortment of various early GPK characters from the cards, played by dwarf actors in terrible costumes) come to Earth in a garbage can spaceship. They wind up in an antique store. A young teenage boy works at the shop and the Garbage Pail Kids get loose during the boy’s fight with a bully, then save the boy’s life when the bully tries to murder him in a sewer.
Then it turns out the Garbage Pail Kids are really good fashion designers. The boy leverages that talent to impress a girl who sells clothes. The Garbage Pail Kids are rude and gross and run wild in the world. The murderous bully captures them and takes them to the State Home for the Ugly, a prison that executes people for being ugly. The boy helps them escape. The Garbage Pail Kids go to a fashion show and rip their clothes off the models. The bully is arrested. The Garbage Pail Kids ride off free to wreak havoc in the world.
There’s a lot to unpack there. I’d say to watch the movie to see for yourself but… that’s tough. It’s not streaming anywhere. I guess no service is willing to pay whatever modest price it would cost to stream it. Not even the Tubis of the world.
Anyway, back to why this fad movie was the worst of the worst.
This is a fad movie that never tried to be anything beyond a cynical cash grab. There was no intention for fan service or elevating the material. (Sophisticated gross-out humor isn’t a paradox — it just takes an ultra-skilled hand. GPK didn’t have that skilled hand and never sought it out.)
The script feels like an illogical first draft — and probably was. The decision to make the Garbage Pail Kids look like they do was terrible; they lose all the charm of the cards.
And on top of all that, they rushed this movie out as fast as possible… and still missed the fad.
By late August of 1987, Garbage Pail Kids were on the decline. Topps had oversaturated the market (they capitalized on their fad while they could) and kids were ready to go elsewhere with their allowance cash. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie bombed, grossing $1.6 million — which Topps interpreted as a further signal the fad was over.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie should’ve also signaled the end of the ‘80s fad movie trend. Everything about it demonstrated why fad movies never work.
And yet… it didn’t.
In spite of the movie’s failure, Hollywood still loved (and loves) the concept of hopping on the youth trend du jour and riding it to a low-budget, high-payout reward. Even though the evidence exclusively shows that won’t be the result.
The ‘80s still saw The Wizard in 1989, about two years after the peak of Nintendo mania. The ‘90s got late-to-the-fad-party movies like The Jerky Boys The Movie, the Vanilla Ice movie Cool As Ice, and Jerry Springer’s Ringmaster.
In recent years there was The Angry Birds Movie — which came out in 2016 after the early mobile game peaked about four years earlier. Then there was The Emoji Movie in 2017, a good two years after emojis transitioned from fad to just a regular part of life. The horror movie Slender Man came out in 2018, four years after the peak of the Slender Man panic. Joe vs. Carole (though it’s not a movie, but a miniseries) came out in March 2022, a solid two years after early pandemic Tiger King mania came and went.
None of those is good. (Yes, including The Wizard if you can put nostalgia aside.)
Fad movies never are. By definition, they can’t be. They’re taking something that captured the zeitgeist naturally and commercializing it unnaturally. And they’re doing so in a rushed fashion that throws any semblance of quality control out the window — yet not a rushed enough fashion to capitalize on the fad’s popularity.
But as the aftermath of The Garbage Pail Kids movie proved, these movies aren’t going anywhere. No matter how much all of them deserve to be sent to the State Home for the Ugly.
Other momentous moments from this week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
August 19th
1983 - Mr. Mom hit theaters.
1993 - Mattel acquired Fisher-Price to become the largest toy company in the U.S.
1993 - Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger got married.
1997 - Sarah McLachlan’s single Building a Mystery was released.
1997 - Boyz II Men’s final number one hit, 4 Seasons of Loneliness, was released.
1997 - Fleetwood Mac’s reunion album The Dance was released.
August 20th
1989 - Saved by the Bell premiered on NBC.
1989 - The Menendez brothers killed their parents.
1992 - SWV’s Right Here/Human Nature was released.
1996 - Ginuwine’s single Pony was released.
1997 - The South Park episode “Weight Gain 4000” aired on Comedy Central.
August 21st
1987 - Dirty Dancing hit theaters.
1990 - Prince’s soundtrack to Graffiti Bridge was released.
1990 - Ratt’s album Detonator was released.
1992 - The Ruby Ridge standoff ended tragically.
1993 - I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers peaked at number three on the Billboard charts.
1993 - Slam by Onyx peaked at number four on the Billboard charts.
1994 - John Denver was charged with drunk driving after crashing his Porsche into a tree.
1996 - Netscape 3.0 was released.
1998 - Dead Man on Campus hit theaters.
1998 - Blade hit theaters.
August 22nd
1986 - Stand By Me hit theaters.
1987 - Madonna’s single Who’s That Girl hit number one.
1992 - Tom Cochrane’s Life is a Highway peaked at number six on the Billboard charts.
1997 - GI Jane hit theaters.
1998 - Harvey Danger’s one hit, Flagpole Sitta, peaked at number 38.
1998 - Jay Z’s single Can I Get A... was released
August 23rd
1985 - Teen Wolf hit theaters.
1985 - Better Off Dead hit theaters.
1990 - Ferris Bueller the TV show premiered.
1991 - The Super Nintendo went on sale in North America.
1994 - Jeff Buckley’s album Grace was released.
1996 - The Price Is Right aired its 25th anniversary special.
1998 - That ‘70s Show premiered on FOX.
1999 - Blogspot launched.
1999 - Destiny’s Child’s single Bug a Boo was released.
2000 - The season finale that cemented reality TV as the new force to be reckoned with, the finale of season one of Survivor, aired on CBS.
August 24th
1979 - The Facts of Life premiered.
1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced to 20 to life for killing John Lennon.
1985 - Huey Lewis and the News’ The Power of Love hit number one.
1989 - Pete Rose was banned from baseball.
1990 - The Witches hit theaters.
1995 - Windows 95 was released.
1996 - Donna Lewis’s one hit, I Love You Always Forever, peaked at number two.
1999 - Christina Aguilera’s self-titled debut album was released.
1999 - LFO’s debut album was released.
August 25th
1979 - The Knack’s single My Sharona hit number one.
1986 - Paul Simon’s album Graceland was released.
1988 - Metallica’s album And Justice For All was released.
1989 - Little Monsters hit theaters (but in a very small release).
1991 - Linux was created.
1992 - Mary J. Blige’s single Real Love was released.
1992 - Wreckx-n-Effect’s single Rumpshaker was released.
1994 - My So-Called Life premiered on ABC.
1998 - Lauryn Hill’s album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released.
2000 - Bring It On hit theaters.
2001 - Aaliyah died in a plane crash.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
It would’ve cost almost $13 million to buy all the components of an iPhone in 1991.
And that’s not even including the camera or the screen.
The actresses up for the role of Mia in Pulp Fiction was a who’s-who of the era.
Before the role went to Uma Thurman, others who were up for it included Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Geena Davis, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Michelle Pfeiffer, and more.
Parker Brothers had to apologize for a spelling mistake in Monopoly in 1995.
The game’s property is spelled Marvin Gardens… the actual district in New Jersey is Marven Gardens.
Al Green made more money from Take Me to the River from Big Mouth Billy Bass royalties than from the single itself.
When the Big Mouth Billy Bass electronic fish came out in 1998 and used Al Green’s song, he made more money from it than he ever had during its era.
Pong was never supposed to be released to the public.
It was created to be a training tool for Atari’s new game developers.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The official trailer is out for Netflix’s ‘90s Addams Family reboot called Wednesday.
Here’s a list of 10 classic films that can’t be rebooted.
Emily Blunt has joined Ryan Gosling in the movie reboot of the ‘80s TV series The Fall Guy.
I feel like we see a new story about Dave Coulier and Alanis Morrissette’s You Oughta Know every few months. The latest was him talking about when he heard the song for the first time and came to realize it was about him.
Quentin Tarantino says he liked Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull more than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. “I don’t like the Sean Connery one,” he said on a podcast, “It’s boring, and he’s not an interesting character.”
A Super Mario Bros. speedrunner became the first person to pull off a trick that was thought to be impossible.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Summer’s wrapping up. Time to go get your free pizza.
Believe it or not, Pizza Hut’s Book It! program — which began in 1984 — is still going strong today. And there’s still a free pizza waiting at the end of the summer for kids who go through the program. As far as I can tell the sweet buttons and star stickers are gone, though.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Here are two forgotten pop culture moments in one — (1) that McDonald’s McDLT sandwich existed… and that its commercial starred a pre-Seinfeld and pre-bald Jason Alexander.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
There was an unreleased Penn & Teller video game for Sega Genesis in 1995. In the game, if you chose “impossible” difficulty, Lou Reed would murder you and explain “impossible doesn’t mean very difficult, very difficult is winning the Nobel Prize, impossible is eating the sun.”
Have a great week!
-Sam