11th Annual Officially Unofficial National Wacky Packages Day!

[Paul_Maul]

Don't forget to vote in the poll for favorite Series 2 Wacky Neil has at the very top of this thread!

Are all the titles not included in the poll?

[RawGoo]

If this is the 11th annual Wacky Day, what were the goodies for the previous 10?

Last year, Neil did a Dorkin' Donuts card, and we had stories and trivia contests.  I believe the prizes included a die-cut, an Ad, and a trinket.  I don't recall from before that.

[koduck]

Are all the titles not included in the poll?

Nope, but if there's a title you'd like me to add, I'll be happy to update the poll!

[koduck]

Last year, Neil did a Dorkin' Donuts card, and we had stories and trivia contests.  I believe the prizes included a die-cut, an Ad, and a trinket.  I don't recall from before that.

Well, there's been previous card promos, but not for several years. The last one that comes to mind is Fruit Broot, a concept by George Wright that Jeff Allwine asked me to paint.

[Paul_Maul]

Nope, but if there's a title you'd like me to add, I'll be happy to update the poll!

Thanks, my vote is for Plastered.

[Paul_Maul]

I do think the poll will be biased in favor of the titles you listed, though!

[koduck]

I do think the poll will be biased in favor of the titles you listed, though!

Plastered has been added (along with All Brain).

[Ruffs]

Once again Neil. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[Ruffs]

Hey maybe we will break the most online today.

[RawGoo]

Thanks, my vote is for Plastered.

Picking a favorite from Series 2 is tough!!   

[Tom Keen]

Not all of the best series 2 titles are on the list making it even tougher!

[Swiski]

I picked Run Tony. Nice to see it's climbing the poll!

[NationalSpittoon]

I guess a funny story can be me finding a Yich's Sign X in bad shape at a bottom of a random pile of cards and buying it for a dollar.

[NationalSpittoon]

Why is this picture so big by the way? 

[bigtomi]

Why is this picture so big by the way? 

You need to use a picture editor and resize the dimensions. The forum software displays it at 100% of its size, I believe. Mine is 138 x 200, to get an idea of the size it should be.

[NationalSpittoon]

You need to use a picture editor and resize the dimensions. The forum software displays it at 100% of its size, I believe.

Not sure how to do that, so I just chose a different picture. Thanks though!

[lucidjc]

Didn't the old forum domain have a slide bar for viewing large avatars?



Jim

[koduck]

Not all of the best series 2 titles are on the list making it even tougher!

They are now!

[Ruffs]

OK here is my story. I got back into collecting Wackys around 25 years ago. I found some of my old cards from when I was a kid so I had to get what cards  I didn't have so the quest was on. This was long before eBay & the internet so I went to the local comic & collectible shops. Finally someone suggested I should get a wrapper magazine. That opened up a lot of avenues. Back then there were a lot of Wacky advertising so I made quite a few purchases. I also met a few other collectors including Mark Shoemaker. ( Hi Brother Shoe ).  Eventually I completed 1 - 16, Ads & Diecuts except for , of course, Ratz & Cracked Animals.  Well I made a  connection with a dealer to buy the 2 cards. He said $600.00 a piece & I agreed. I sent him a money order. I confirmed he got my $$$ & he said he had the cards but there was a problem. He didn't realize the cards went up in value. They were now worth $800.00 a piece. I said I don't care how much they were worth, send me the cards. After going back & forth a little he reluctancy sent the cards. Whew I got them so the Philly show was coming so I went. I brought the cards with me, met Brother Shoe that day. I showed the cards to Mark Macaluso . He wanted to buy them for $800 each . I didn't sell them to him but it would have been a quick $400 profit being that I had them for only 2 weeks. So I kept them & still have them today. That's my story & I'm sticking to it.

[NationalSpittoon]

OK here is my story. I got back into collecting Wackys around 25 years ago. I found some of my old cards from when I was a kid so I had to get what cards  I didn't have so the quest was on. This was long before eBay & the internet so I went to the local comic & collectible shops. Finally someone suggested I should get a wrapper magazine. That opened up a lot of avenues. Back then there were a lot of Wacky advertising so I made quite a few purchases. I also met a few other collectors including Mark Shoemaker. ( Hi Brother Shoe ).  Eventually I completed 1 - 16, Ads & Diecuts except for , of course, Ratz & Cracked Animals.  Well I made a  connection with a dealer to buy the 2 cards. He said $600.00 a piece & I agreed. I sent him a money order. I confirmed he got my $$$ & he said he had the cards but there was a problem. He didn't realize the cards went up in value. They were now worth $800.00 a piece. I said I don't care how much they were worth, send me the cards. After going back & forth a little he reluctancy sent the cards. Whew I got them so the Philly show was coming so I went. I brought the cards with me, met Brother Shoe that day. I showed the cards to Mark Macaluso . He wanted to buy them for $800 each . I didn't sell them to him but it would have been a quick $400 profit being that I had them for only 2 weeks. So I kept them & still have them today. That's my story & I'm sticking to it.

600 each? Dang... Dan at the show had 5800 on the Cracked and 5000 on the Ratz. Either way, still over priced.

[koduck]

600 each? Dang... Dan at the show had 5800 on the Cracked and 5000 on the Ratz. Either way, still over priced.

This reminds me of a funny Cracked Animal story: Way back in my collecting days, Phil Carpenter and I used to do quite a bit of trading and we had agreed that if we ever came across Cracked or Ratz, we'd try to help each other out in a trade (I already had Ratz,and he already had Cracked). After a lot of looking, Roxanne Toser put both titles up for auction and at that time (circa 1986) we had to do phone bids. Well, Phil and I weren't aware that we were each bidding on the same cards, but we knew there were multiple bidders. So, we kept bidding on the cards, including the cards that the other guy needed (I was trying to get Ratz for him and he was trying to get Cracked for me). Afterwards we put two and two together and realized what had happened. He ended up getting the card I needed for 200 bucks and I got the card he need for 200 bucks! At the time we were a bit shocked at paying that much for any card, but as it turns out, it was a pretty decent investment!

[Ruffs]

Nice score Neil. Would you sell them now  for $5800 & $5000 ?

[BustedFinger]

Thanks Neil for doing this every year.  I don't really need the promo cards as I am so far behind on all this new stuff.  But I will share a story:

I was in the 5th grade in 1974.  The 7th series was out and I was avidly collecting and trading to try to "collect 'em all".  I was in class one day with a stack of Wackys and doing some trades with another kid.  As we were looking through the 7th series titles, we noticed that we had two different versions of Grime!  One of us had multiple copies of "Dusty" and one of us had multiple copies of "Heavy" (don't remember which of us had what).  So we made a trade so that both of us had both versions.

By the time the 7th series had ended, I did end up with several copies of both "Dusty" and "Heavy", so I think that they were pretty evenly distributed in Missouri.  I had my big stack of Wackys until I went off to college.  I'm pretty sure my mom finally threw them out so all those Grime Heavys were lost.

[Lavirus]

Well, there's been previous card promos, but not for several years. The last one that comes to mind is Fruit Broot, a concept by George Wright that Jeff Allwine asked me to paint.

Do you mean "Brute Loops"? I've got that card, credited to Jeff.

[koduck]

Nice score Neil. Would you sell them now  for $5800 & $5000 ?

Sure, if I still owned them!  I sold virtually all of my wackys years ago (to pay rent). Of course, I still collect the cloth series just because it's the most amazing set ever! Not sure if any of them still have the borders though, LOL!

[koduck]

Do you mean "Brute Loops"? I've got that card, credited to Jeff.

Oops! Yes, Brute Loops. I must be getting loopy in my old age!

[koduck]

Hey maybe we will break the most online today.

At one point today, I saw 65 online (mostly guests)!

[Plastered Peanut]

Thanks, my vote is for Plastered.

DOH!   Of COURSE!    I chose Awful Bits because I thought we were limited to the listed titles.   Neil I change my vote to Plastered Peanuts!

[cardnut]

I collected Wacky's here in Canada when I was in grade 6.  There wasn't a lot of guys collecting them so I had to rely on buying my own packs. As 1 of 6 kids there wasn't a lot of extra money floating around for frivolous collections.  I can remember trying to complete the 1st series set and in class we had flip up tops on our desk.  We moved to different rooms for different classes and I flipped up the desk in another room and there was the Crust Tooth Paste I needed, and never pulled, stuck to the under side of the desk top.  I peeled it off the desk and stuck it to another card back.  I still have the sticker with scotch tape on it to hold it in place. Funny what you remember as a kid.  I also have 31 of the 2nd series titles with the boarders peeled off.  I can remember thinking they looked so cool with just the image on the card.  Not the greatest investment strategy.  I can also remember not getting all the jokes on the stickers as there were products that were parodied that were never sold in Canada.

[DrSushi]

I told this story back on Greg's forum years ago, but there seems to be enough turn over here that I'll repeat it.

Back when the 3rd series was out, I was going to a friend's house for the day. Since he lived in another town, my Mom had to drive me. Knowing I had Wacky fever, she told me I could only bring 25 cents to spend on Wackys. Such was my fervor that I took 2 quarters and stuck them together with some Silly Putty so they wouldn't make any noise in my pocket (and thinking if she checked, with any luck they might pass for one solitary quarter).
Well, my plan worked! I was so proud that I told my friend and he promptly told his Mother, showing her my handiwork. I was sure she'd reprimand me and rat me out, but she just chuckled and to my knowledge never told my Mom. In my muddled memories, I can recall opening a pack with a Beanball and a Hurtz that day.

Neil, thanks for Wacky Packages Day!

[sco(o)t]

I'll share one of those "what was I thinking" moments. In the '70s,  I lived in the very small Indiana town of Bloomfield, population of about 2200. My only source for Wackies was a drug store in Linton about 20 miles away. Our family went there for shopping about every three weeks or so. I saved allowance and bought what I could at those opportunities that seemed like they were eons apart at that time. I loved Wacky Packages and MAD magazine, but I was an isolated collector in that I didn't know anyone else in our small community that shared my passion for either. With no one to trade with and only limited opportunities to build my collection, I had many holes I wished to fill. Back in those days, mail order was one of the few ways to obtain some of those tantalizing items advertised kids desired and after waiting what seemed like all summer, I received the Wacky Packages poster I had ordered from the WP wrappers. Unfortunately, in my desire to fill the holes in my collection, I cut holes in the poster to make cards for the titles I did not have. I wonder how many others out there did the same thing in our enthusiasm as kids. 

[Jean Nutty]

Great story Doctor Sushi!

That was like a magic trick, with the coins. Brilliant.

In 1973 I was 8 and was collecting Wacky Packages (usually bought from the ice cream man, a guy in a white van)
and I was just beginning to experiment with shoplifting. I would go down to the grocery market and pick up a bag of
Wonder bread, and carry it to another area in the store, and set it on a shelf. I would wander around a bit, and then go
back to the shelf, and quickly untie the bag, and stick my hands in there, groping for the sticker. Somehow my mom
caught wind of this activity, and I was punished somehow, or at least harshly scolded. I never molested Wonder bags
again, but that was far from my last time shoplifting.

[bandaches]

I stuck my wackys on the actual products around my house.  My mom recalls finding bandache stuck to the Band-Aid box, weakies stuck to the cereral box. I found my school books 30 years later in the attic and saw that I had stuck all my extra series 4's including bum and choke.  Lord only knows how many rares I stuck in those days.

[Jean Nutty]

Unfortunately, in my desire to fill the holes in my collection, I cut holes in the poster to make cards for the titles I did not have. I wonder how many others out there did the same thing in our enthusiasm as kids.

At my school, the rumor was the "rarest" Wacky was Crust, so everyone wanted one.
A boy traded me a supposed Crust for a bunch of my titles. I knew there was something
wrong with the flimsiness of it, but I was so jazzed to get this ultra rare valuable sticker
I ignored my intuition there was something very fishy.    Definitely poster cut out.

(I'm still good at self-denial)

[Choke_Wagon]

This past week I made a pilgrimage to the NYC Brownstone in the upper west side where all the original Wacky Magic was created - The one and only Norman Saunders. Words cant express what an influence he has been in my life and also one of the best illustrators ever.