Best of the Bad … ‘The Garbage Pail Kids Movie’

You know you’re in for a treat when the opening credits begin with “A Topps Chewing Gum Production”… I was as much a devoted fan and purveyor of the classic cult trading cards as the next weird, outcast kid in school, but the fact that they actually made a feature film based on the hobby still astounds me. Garbage Pail Kids were the treasure of many kids back then and likewise, the very same cards were Satan’s very own diabolical creation of pure child corrupting evil to many parents. While little girls were playing with their cute little Cabbage Patch Kids, the boys were sifting through and trading their Garbage Pail Kids cards, laughing at the grossness of the different characters featured on each card.

‘The Garbage Pail Kids Movie’ (1987) is generally categorized in the family/kids section, which… in and of itself is kind of disturbing. For the first time viewer [assuming they could sit through it], the movie may give a slight impression of teaching kids that it doesn’t matter how you look, or whether you’re “different”, it’s what’s inside that counts… well, that’s a stretch. In reality, this is simply a poorly made ridiculous little film that’s filled with gross-out jokes and cheesy special effects.

Directed by Rodney Amateau, whose biggest credit goes to directing 101 episodes of the TV show ‘The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis’, this film ended up being his final swan song. ‘GBKM’ would mark the last film from Rodney Amateau who passed away on June 29, 2003. Having lived a long 80 years, I’ll refrain from picking on the man himself, out of respect for the dead. Instead, I’ll pick apart the movie that single-handily almost destroyed the memories I have of collecting and trading my GPK cards with friends… that is, before I came home from school one day and found they had mysteriously vanished.

‘The Garbage Pail Kids Movie’ begins with Dodger (Mackenzie Astin), a 14 year-old kid who works for a strange man called Captain Manzini, who runs a small antique shop that doesn’t do any business. Manzini (Anthony Newley) is an eccentric middle-aged man who has an obsessive fixation with the “old ways” of magic and spells. He allows Dodger to play with anything in the store, except a nasty old garbage pail that Manzini is very protective of, keeping the lid tightly in place at all times. Dodger has a crush on an older girl named Tangerine, whom he hangs out with when he can. The obstacle for Dodger is that Tangerine’s boyfriend is Juice, the a**hole leader of a gang that is constantly out to make Dodger’s life a living Hell.

One day, Juice and the gang decide to crash the antique store and screw with Dodger. In the commotion, the garbage pail is knocked over, releasing a slimy green goo out onto the floor. Dodger is subsequently beaten and left in a pool of raw sewage by Juice’s gang, but is rescued and returned to the shop by the Garbage Pail Kids. When he awakes, he finds himself surrounded by terribly ugly, yet friendly odd little people. Dodger befriends the Garbage Pail Kids, who end up making him a custom jacket that looks like it came straight out of Michael Jackson’s wardrobe. Being the fashion guru that she is, Tangerine loves the jacket and asks Dodger to make more clothes for her to sell, not realizing the jacket was made by the Garbage Pail Kids.

Dodger convinces the GPKs to make more clothes for Tangerine’s fashion show, but in exchange Dodger and Manzini have to find the GPKs friends who have gone missing. Manzini believes they’ve been captured and put into the State Home for the Ugly. Meanwhile, Juice and the gang are enjoying their new influx of cash from the clothes Tangerine is selling through her manipulation of Dodger’s infatuation with her. During the fashion show, Juice and the gang kidnap the GPKs and turn them over the the State Home for the Ugly. Dodger and Manzini enlist the help of some bikers from a local bar to break them out and they crash the fashion show and get their revenge.

This movie accentuates everything that made the eighties such a disaster. The wardrobes in this movie are embarrassingly accurate, spotlighting the very best of the very worst decade for fashion. The movie is scored with some perfect examples of the music that gives the 80’s a bad name, including two songs from The Beat Farmers. In addition to this, ‘TGPKM’ also feature a couple of musical numbers, I would presume to help it fit into the children’s movie genre. Working With Each Other is performed by the GPKs and gives the impression of a “Sesame Street” educational song meant to teach kids a valuable lesson, but is lost by the fact that it’s performed by some really gross, ugly little weird mutant, alien monster kids.

This brings me to an interesting topic… what are they, exactly? The GPKs are apparently some kind of magical kids that come from what appears to be a normal garbage pail. Manzini struggles to find a way to return them to the pail, but finds that the ingredients for his spell are no longer available in the modern world. Funny, I could of sworn I just saw a sale bill for eye of newt and toe of frog at the local Piggly Wiggly. However, at the beginning of the film during the credits a garbage pail spaceship is featured flying clumsily around Earth’s orbit. Are they aliens, are they mutants, or are they some strange magical creatures? We may never know. What we do know is that ‘The Garbage Pail Kids Movie’ is one of the top Best of the Bad movies from the 80’s… but, you’re really going to need to prepare yourself to get through this one.