CREDIT: ATLANTIC ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

The Garbage Pail Kids (1987)

It is rare that some text in the opening credits alone can sell me on a movie. That was the case, however, with the film I had the privilege to watch this week. For when I saw the words “a Topps Chewing Gum Production,” I knew I was in for a treat even tastier than chewing gum. That treat was the much-heralded 1987 film The Garbage Pail Kids.

Topps was primarily a trading card company that was nice enough to throw in a stick of gum with its products. Back in 1993, I purchased a Topps Shaquille O'Neal rookie card convinced its value would skyrocket and allow me to retire by the age of 40. Sadly, that doesn't look to be in the “cards.” I should have instead purchased some Garbage Pail Kids merchandise.

In the 1980s, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. Mothers battled each other in department stores in order to obtain one of these dolls for their children. Topps capitalized on this phenomenon by releasing Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. Unlike the adorable Cabbage Patch Kids, the children pictured on these cards were grotesque abominations, with plenty of attitude. Leakin' Lacey, Fartin' Martin and Overflowin' Owen are just some of the wacky assortment of characters that made Garbage Pail Kids cards into must-have items.

Deciding to turn this cash cow into a motion picture was a no-brainer. Unlike films such as E.T. and Jurassic Park, which jerked the viewer around for ages before finally revealing the goods, the Garbage Pail Kids make their appearance very early on in the film. We first meet the kids when they are accidentally freed from a garbage can by a teenager named Dodger (Mackenzie Astin). He works in an antiquities shop run by the bizarre Captain Manzini, so he is used to seeing some weird stuff. But nothing could prepare him for the sight of a bunch of massively deformed children bursting out of a garbage can.

There is Messy Tessie, who always has a runny nose, and Valerie Vomit, who can upchuck whenever needed. And they say they don't write good roles for women. We also meet Greaser Greg, who resembles a three-foot-tall James Dean, and Windy Winston, who farts a lot. Perhaps the MVP of this outfit is Nat Nerd, a chubby kid with boils all over his face. And he wets his pants frequently! Finally, there is Ali Gator, a half human/half alligator who likes to eat people's toes.

Now I would have been perfectly happy to watch them simply fart, burp and piss away for 90 minutes. However, writer/producer/director Rod Amateau saw fit to include a plot in the film. Bonus!

Dodger is in love with Tangerine, a girl who appears to be about 10 years his senior. Tangerine is an aspiring fashion designer, who notices a jacket Dodger is wearing. Dodger tells her that he designed it, but truth be told, it was the Garbage Pail Kids who stitched up his duds. That should come as no surprise, as children are naturally gifted at that sort of thing. Why do you think all those big clothing companies employ children in foreign countries to assemble their product? Because they want the best people for the job, that's why.

Tangerine, who is somewhat evil, uses her feminine wiles to convince Dodger to provide her with more clothing so that she can stage a fashion show. And what a fashion show it turns out to be! The Garbage Pail Kids storm the stage and commence ripping the clothes right off of the models. If you weren't already aroused at this point in the film, this surely did the trick. From there, we get plenty of women running around in their underwear being chased around by three foot tall people who are attempting to urinate and vomit on them. Sounds just like my bachelor party.

My viewing of The Garbage Pail Kids was 27 years in the making. Unfortunately the video store that I frequented as a child decided not to carry it for some unfathomable reason. Thankfully the miracle of YouTube allowed me to finally see what I was missing, and it was indeed worth the wait. I laughed. I cried. I belched. I shat. The Garbage Pail Kids is truly a (bowel) moving film, and I am sure that any future movies I watch will pale — or should I say pail — in comparison.