Wacky Packages
by The Topps Company
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Book Summary Information
Author: The Topps CompanyIntroduction: Art Spiegelman
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-01
ISBN: 081099531X
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Abrams
Book Reviews of Wacky Packages
Book Review: 70's pop-culture in convenient book form!
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm sure anyone who was in elementary school in 1973 remembers the craze that was Wacky Packages! We brought them to school. We stuck them to the backboards of our beds (and everywhere else!). We traded them amongst our friends (although I needed to trade *two* to a boy at school to get one Hungry Jerk pancake mix to finish my 3rd series).
If any of the above rings true to you, then this book will be a great trip down memory lane!
This book reprints all of the cards from the first seven series of Wacky Packages. Most of them have been printed directly from transparencies made off the original art, so those look fantastic. Others were printed from stickers, so those look like...large stickers. And while they do look OK, you will definitely notice the difference between the sticker-based reprints and the higher-quality transparency-based ones.
The book has more going for it too! The dust jacket has the texture of an old wrapper - and it's complete with "imperfections" printed right on (so it *really* looks like an old wrapper!). Take the dust jacket off and there is a piece of that hard-as-a-brick bubblegum printed on the front cover of the book (and a broken piece on the back cover...!)
You will also find a small packet of four "lost" Wacky Package stickers inside the back cover. Opening this packet will give you the same kind of "I wonder what I got?!" thrill you used to get all those years ago! It's a nice touch.
But, there are a couple of minor things that I wish were done differently...
Originally, many Wacky Packages stickers were designed and printed in a "landscape" configuration. But instead of reproducing them top to bottom (so you'd have to turn the book to better see them), they are printed to fit each page (which is designed for "portrait" configuration). This makes it easier to read each landscape-style card, but it also means that they are reproduced a lot smaller than the ones that were portrait-style to begin with. It might have been better to print them "sideways" as turning the book is preferable to having smaller-sized art. ("Hipton Tea" also looked kind of odd. So after a bit of research, I learned that the book used the Hipton Tea artwork from the WP poster series, not the original 4th series sticker.)
It also would have been nice if the book reprinted checklist cards from each series. The checklist / puzzle-piece cards were just as much as part of the whole Wacky-experience as the rock-hard gum and the stickers. And every pack had one of these cards! Trying to figure out ahead of time which product was being lampooned was a big part of the fun, so I kind of felt the book was lacking just a bit due to this one detail. (I mean, they reproduced everything else - even the gum - so why not the checklist cards..?)
All in all, this book is a treat for anyone who got yelled at by her father for ruining the backboard of her bed with original WP stickers, or anyone else who remembers Skimpy Beanut Putter, Putrid Cat Chow, Land O' Quakes butter, or ...Hungry Jerk pancake mix...!
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