You know, growing up, there was a movie that I watched CONSTANTLY as a kid, and that movie was 1986’s Howard the Duck (which I even reviewed!)
Now, I'm well aware that it has a reputation for being terrible (side note: did you know that it once starred Robin Williams?). However, that didn't keep me from loving it as a kid, and sort of liking it today. That said, do you want to know what ‘80s movie I HATED as a kid, but kind of love as an adult? 1987's The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, which is at an impressive 0% (Yes, 0) on Rotten Tomatoes.
Stupid, tasteless, and immature (And I use those adjectives lovingly), The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is terrible…and here’s why I like it.
The Movie Is Generally Unpleasant To Look At…Intentionally So
As an ‘80s baby and ‘90s kid, I used to collect a lot of Garbage Pail Kids cards (Oh, and Pogs. Remember those?) And, the thing about the Garbage Pail Kids is that many of the cards were just visually disgusting to look at. Produced by the Topps Company, and invented by Art Spiegelman (Yes, the creator of Maus), Mark Newgarden, and John Pound, GPK were parodying the then-popular Cabbage Patch Kids, and became mainstream in their own right.
I distinctly remember getting cards with boogers dripping from noses, kids with zippers going down their faces, and little girls vomiting. So, would you expect anything less from a movie adaptation? The film itself is visually disgusting, which tracks. We get seven (in)famous characters from the collection - those being Greaser Greg, Valerie Vomit, Ali Gator, Foul Phil, Nat Nerd, Windy Winston, and Messy Tessie - and they’re all just as hideous as their namesakes.
For example, Nat Nerd, who always dressed like a superhero on the cards and had a face full of zits, is just as ghastly in the movie. The “kids” come out of a garbage can from outer space, and there’s all kinds of goop coming out of it. All the while, the film itself looks grungy, which makes sense since the film’s budget was only 1 million dollars (Compare that to Howard the Duck’s $30-$37 million budget, and you can tell why this movie looks so cheap).
And yet, I find its ugliness charming, just like the cards themselves. It’s gross, yes, but shouldn’t a movie called The Garbage Pail Kids Movie be gross? I certainly think so.
The Plot Is Barely A Plot At All…But What Did You Expect?
Do you remember the movie Battleship, which was loosely based on the board game? Well, even though the game itself is quite simple in nature, the movie featured aliens of all things. That, my friends, is an example of a movie that’s doing way too much when it comes to adding a story to a simple concept.
On the other end of the spectrum is The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, which barely has a plot at all. The story is about a boy named Dodger (Mackenzie Astin) who gets picked on by a bully named Juice (Ron MacLachlan) and his friends. Juice has a girlfriend named Tangerine (Katie Barberi), and Dodger likes her. She sells clothes... and that’s pretty much her entire characterization.
Well, Dodger stumbles upon the Garbage Pail Kids in an antiques shop that he works at, and then antics ensue. It’s not like the antics build, and build, and build as you might find in one of the best horror-comedy movies of all time, Gremlins. No. Instead, the characters just do silly things, like fart in people’s faces or try to constantly bite people’s toes. You know, real LOW STAKES stuff.
This lack of a real plot is probably why it’s at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes (And why I hated it as a kid). But hey, I look forward to turning off my brain as an adult, and this movie allows me to do so. It’s dumb fun, which I’ll get into next.
The Film Is Stupid…But I Laugh
I mentioned how a character in one scene just farts in people’s faces, but guess what? I laugh at that scene! Not a little; a lot. This film aims for the lowest common denominator, and it reaches it. It doesn't aim any higher than that, and I appreciate it for that reason. It’s trash, but it knows it’s trash, and it’s all the funnier for it.
While I hated that about the film as a kid, I now admire it for that reason. It relies on cheap jokes in the same way that Every Which Way But Loose relies on the simple fact that just adding an orangutan with Clint Eastwood will automatically make it funny. For example, one of my favorite characters in this movie is Greaser Greg, and I love how one-dimensional he is, just like the cards themselves. With his leather jacket and his put-on, tough guy attitude, I always laugh whenever he delivers lines.
Or, what about the God-awful musical number, “Working With Each Other?” It’s just so incredibly bad that I can’t help but shake my head and grin. I mean, after a while, you just sit there and wonder, What the hell am I even watching? And, more importantly, WHY am I watching it (Especially as a grown-ass man)?
It just has that so-bad-it’s-good quality going for it like Mortal Kombat Annihilation (which I love), and Batman & Robin (which I also love) that I can’t be mad at it. It’s the kind of film that I show somebody else, and they don’t believe it exists. Yet, it certainly does exist. And it’s bad - oh so bad! - but good, too, because it’s bad. Do you know what I mean?
I Had So Many Of These Cards Growing Up, And It Brings Back Good Memories Seeing These Characters Again
Lastly, I don’t know if anything makes me more nostalgic than The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, which is weird, because, like I said numerous times in this article, I hated this movie as a kid. That said, when I watch it today, I don’t really dwell upon not liking it as I did back then. Instead, I think about all the times I used to go to the corner smoke shop down the street from my house and tear open a pack to see what gross characters I got this time.
Which might be why I detested the film back then, just like I detested the first Super Mario Bros. movie, but I love it now. I was probably too close to the source material at the time. You have to remember, as a kid, the sky was the limit when it came to any of my favorite properties becoming movies. I always wanted to see Bebop and Rocksteady from the Ninja Turtles in one of the ‘90s movies, and was disappointed when they never appeared. When it came to Mario, I wanted the movie to be more like the games, which the ‘90s film didn’t even come close to capturing.
I now appreciate that the film tried to stuff in as much as they could from the property. Getting seven characters from the cards is quite charitable, and I like how they all get their own moment to shine, given their character traits.
Yes, none of this movie is actually “good,” but if you go into it knowing that it’s meant to be bad, then you might have some fun with it…especially if you grew up with these characters as a kid, as I did.
