Garbage Pail Kids Series Actually Happening?
Whether this is something people actually want or a cursed idea that horror film director David Gordon Green and comedian Danny McBride dreamt up together doesn’t matter because it seems like either way, a Garbage Pail Kids TV series might actually be happening. According to Deadline, fans of the iconic and irreverent Garbage Pail Kids trading cards can rejoice as Green announced that the animated series adaptation will continue to move forward.
While details of this accursed series remain scarce, Green hinted on the Happy Sad Confused podcast some intriguing developments in the works alongside his collaborators Danny McBride and Josh Bycel.
Garbage Pail Kids is a series of sticker trading cards that first graced the scene in 1985.
Director David Gordon Green, known for his work on projects like Halloween and Pineapple Express, said, “Right now, McBride and I are trying to do an animated series on the Garbage Pail Kids, if you ever had those cards,” Green revealed during the podcast. “So we’re working on that, and we’ve got some pretty cool ways we can make a naughty animated show.”
This announcement raises questions about the direction of the Garbage Pail Kids animated series, particularly when compared to the initial description provided in 2021. At that time, it was confirmed that HBO Max, now known as Max, was working on an animated series based on the iconic trading cards by the Topps Company and that Green, McBride, and Bycel would be leading the project.
The 2021 announcement described the upcoming show as “family-friendly,” which stands in contrast to the “naughty animated show” the director is now describing.
However, a “naughty animated show” certainly seems to fit the bill better than a family-friendly series, considering the source material.
David Gordon Green says he and Danny McBride are working on getting an animated Garbage Pail Kids TV series green-lit.
Garbage Pail Kids is a series of sticker trading cards that first graced the scene in 1985. These cards were designed to parody the immensely popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls that were a cultural sensation at the time, and they did so in wildly irreverent ways.
Each sticker card featured a Garbage Pail Kid character with a comical abnormality, deformity, or suffering a hilariously painful fate, all accompanied by humorous wordplay character names like “Adam Bomb” or “Blasted Billy.”
The Garbage Pail Kids made their infamous leap to the big screen with the release of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie in 1987, just two years after the trading cards hit the shelves at shopping malls. However, this live-action film was too campy for its time and became a major critical and commercial flop, and is one of the few films unlucky enough to receive a 0 percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
“Right now, McBride and I are trying to do an animated series on the Garbage Pail Kids, if you ever had those cards. So we’re working on that, and we’ve got some pretty cool ways we can make a naughty animated show.”
-David Gordon Green
In more recent history, there were attempts to revive the Garbage Pail Kids franchise. In 2012, it was announced that Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company would produce a new movie featuring computer-generated character imagery.
Michael Vukadinovich was hired to write the screenplay, and Adam Pesapane, better known by his pseudonym, PES, was set to direct. Unfortunately, this remake never came to fruition.
Maybe McBride, Green, and Bycel will have better luck with their Max series. Perhaps a fresh take with a little bit of a naughty adult spin and a splash of nostalgia will be all the Garbage Pail Kids need to find success on screen.
