Wacky Packages
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Image:Wacky-packages-1979.png Wacky Packages is a series of editorial trading cards featuring parodies of consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has been revived every few years since. At one time the product briefly outsold baseball cards.
The cards have parodied a variety of well-known brands, relying on the talents of such comics artists as Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Kim Deitch, Drew Friedman, George Evans, Jay Lynch and Norman Saunders. For example, one card featured "Blisterine" instead of Listerine and another had "Neverready" batteries rather than Eveready batteries.
The initial series was followed by a similarly designed Wacky Ads line in 1969. Wacky Packages was then brought back in 1973 for a highly successful run. For the first two years, these cards were the only Topps product to achieve higher sales than its flagship line of baseball cards. They continued until 1976 through a total of 16 series.
Some of these cards were sold in reprinted editions beginning in 1979. Newly designed series were produced in 1985 and 1991, but these strayed from the original concept and were not as successful. An "all-new" series of stickers {ANS1} was released in 2004, and has continued into a third set 2006. These series have been successful, in part because of a return to the use of underground comix artists including M. Wartella.
References
- Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 501 F.Supp. 485 (E.D. Pa. 1980).