Author Topic: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging  (Read 640409 times)

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Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2170 on: June 16, 2020, 07:53:10 AM »
Jerk in Jail compared to Jack and Jill...



Offline Yubum

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2171 on: June 16, 2020, 08:03:51 AM »
Never heard of Jack and Jill, but that clown on the cover is far scarier than anything Wacky could have come up with!

Offline sco(o)t

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2172 on: June 16, 2020, 01:41:14 PM »
Regarding JERK IN JAIL, always liked the line "How to get Poison Ivy and Break Out". 
aka Scot Leibacher (no trademark)

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2173 on: June 16, 2020, 05:42:02 PM »
Jerk in Jail compared to Jack and Jill...


I don’t remember Jack N Jill at all.  Was it digest-sized?  I remember this one, which was digest-sized:




Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2174 on: June 17, 2020, 04:26:07 AM »
I don’t remember Jack N Jill at all.  Was it digest-sized?  I remember this one, which was digest-sized:




Jack and Jill was closer to a magazine size.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2175 on: June 20, 2020, 07:20:28 AM »
National Spittoon and National Lampoon...



Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2176 on: June 20, 2020, 09:19:44 AM »
I think this one topped a lot of members lists of least-favorite OS Wackys.  I get that it’s a little overly simplistic - the gag is all in the name, and there’s only so much can you do with an image of a spittoon.  Smiley face an odd choice, but better than just a plain vase.  Very nice job with the title lettering.  I would consider it an average entry in the magazine titles.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2177 on: June 22, 2020, 11:58:15 AM »
Dumb and Crazy Idiot Salt compared to Diamond Crystal Iodized Salt. I couldn't locate a matching real packaging photograph, but I did find a magnet on eBay with a simple line illustration of the packaging.



Offline drono

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2178 on: June 22, 2020, 12:45:01 PM »
It seems like the products were become more and more obscure in these later series.

Offline sco(o)t

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2179 on: June 22, 2020, 12:54:11 PM »
Dumb and Crazy Idiot Salt compared to Diamond Crystal Iodized Salt. I couldn't locate a matching real packaging photograph, but I did find a magnet on eBay with a simple line illustration of the packaging.



Here is an example: 

aka Scot Leibacher (no trademark)

Offline RawGoo

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2180 on: June 22, 2020, 01:33:38 PM »
Dumb and Crazy Idiot Salt compared to Diamond Crystal Iodized Salt. I couldn't locate a matching real packaging photograph, but I did find a magnet on eBay with a simple line illustration of the packaging.



At least it's not a magazine!

Based gag and on the tagline, I don't understand why the kid isn't pouring salt on a banana split right in front of him.

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2181 on: June 22, 2020, 03:59:21 PM »
It seems like the products were become more and more obscure in these later series.
It must be a regional thing, because I loved this Wacky in large part because this product was super-familiar in our household.  I’m sure several brands were available in supermarkets, but this is the one we always had at home.  I also appreciated the fact that they came up with a parody name that was more clever than a simple rhyming with the product name as we see so often.  Plus, ‘Dumb and Crazy’ was much funnier to me than ‘Bathless Ribbons’.  Agree they could have come up with something sillier than sprinkling salt next to a steak rather than on it, but for overall pop and eye appeal it’s always been a personal favorite.

Was over the moon to see this one turn up in the Flashbacks, as it had never been repeated before.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2182 on: June 23, 2020, 04:58:39 AM »
At least it's not a magazine!

Based gag and on the tagline, I don't understand why the kid isn't pouring salt on a banana split right in front of him.

Yeah, the illustration should have matched the joke.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2183 on: June 23, 2020, 05:05:59 AM »
Here is an example: 


Nice! I saw plenty of modern day containers of this brand. This is closer to the 1970s packaging.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2184 on: June 23, 2020, 05:18:17 AM »
Doesn't Delight Fright Cocktail and Diet Delight Fruit Cocktail. The real product image shown from the Lost Wackys site is still the best one out there.


« Last Edit: June 23, 2020, 06:26:01 AM by Swiski »

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2185 on: June 23, 2020, 07:07:07 PM »
I’m pretty sure I pulled one of these back in the day, and I remember being a little weirded out by it, not only because an obese Frankenstein is just bizarre, but also because I couldn’t shake the feeling that the head was a decapitated but still living head.  I didn’t spook as easily at the age of 8 as I did earlier with some of those 5th Series titles, but this one got under my skin a little.  Also the little bits of fruit around the head look more like somebody tossed a handful of Trix cereal in the air than anything resembling canned fruit cocktail.  So it’s a strange Wacky to me in a few different ways.  But that being said, I still like it!  And though I never gave it much thought before this thread reached Series 13, this now makes three titles in this series with a Frankenstein theme!  Add the mummy from Screech Tape and the ghost from Scream Sicle, and you’ve got a really monstrous series!

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2186 on: June 24, 2020, 02:14:15 PM »
Yeah, that fat Frankenstein is a jarring image. I wonder who the model was for that face. Looks like a celebrity but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Is it Lou Costello, or maybe Curley Joe from the Three Stooges? LOL

Offline Yubum

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2187 on: June 24, 2020, 03:54:39 PM »
Yeah, that fat Frankenstein is a jarring image. I wonder who the model was for that face. Looks like a celebrity but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Is it Lou Costello, or maybe Curley Joe from the Three Stooges? LOL

Reminds me of Buddy Hackett!


Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2188 on: June 24, 2020, 06:07:53 PM »
Yeah, that fat Frankenstein is a jarring image. I wonder who the model was for that face. Looks like a celebrity but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Is it Lou Costello, or maybe Curley Joe from the Three Stooges? LOL
I meant to mention that as well.  In my mind not necessarily a famous person, but a face I’ve seen before.  Probably looks slightly like someone I know or knew back then but the resemblance isn’t strong enough to definitively connect it to someone specific.  Most of the movie Frankensteins were made up to look like the creation of a mad scientist, but this looks like a normal person in a Frankenstein costume.

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2189 on: June 24, 2020, 06:11:31 PM »
Reminds me of Buddy Hackett!

(Image removed from quote.)
The facial expression is a good match!

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2190 on: June 25, 2020, 05:52:32 AM »
Terror Beastball Creepy Cards and Topps Baseball Trading Cards compared...



Offline Paul_Maul

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2191 on: June 25, 2020, 06:27:04 AM »
Terror Beastball Creepy Cards and Topps Baseball Trading Cards compared...



After decades I only recently noticed that the 1975 mini baseball wrapper (which you posted) has slight differences from the normal sized wrapper. Most notably, the stitching on the baseball is red on the normal wrapper but black on the mini.


Offline Yubum

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2192 on: June 25, 2020, 10:55:04 AM »
Terror Beastball Creepy Cards and Topps Baseball Trading Cards compared...



Beastball sounds like an idea ahead of it's time - sort of like Planet of the Apes meets Rollerball. Now there's a movie worth making!

Online Fanatical_and_Sickly

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2193 on: June 25, 2020, 10:59:47 AM »
After decades I only recently noticed that the 1975 mini baseball wrapper (which you posted) has slight differences from the normal sized wrapper. Most notably, the stitching on the baseball is red on the normal wrapper but black on the mini.
Just odd that they would add 1975 to this if it’s not on any of the wrapper varieties.

Offline Paul_Maul

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2194 on: June 25, 2020, 12:33:08 PM »
Just odd that they would add 1975 to this if it’s not on any of the wrapper varieties.

I don’t understand that either, there is definitely no 1975 date on any baseball pack.

Offline Paul_Maul

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2195 on: June 25, 2020, 12:37:26 PM »
The only thing I can think of is it that the box stickers had emphasized “new 1975” starting with series 12. Maybe they were concerned with wacky pack sales slippage and just wanted to emphasize that the product was current?

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2196 on: June 25, 2020, 03:12:53 PM »
Terror Beastball Creepy Cards and Topps Baseball Trading Cards compared...


When I look at Beastball, what usually crosses my mind is how at the time I was pursuing both the Wacky parody and its real-product counterpart at the same time, or almost the same time.  How often did that happen?  I remember buying 1975 baseball wax packs from an ice cream truck that stopped on our school block during lunchtime recess, a maybe 10-minute period after lunch when we were allowed to go outside on the street while both ends of the block were temporarily barricaded from through traffic.  That was early spring, April-May timeframe.  The 13th Wackys pursuit, for me, started a little later when the weather warmed up more and the ice cream trucks were more consistently present at our local park, say late May through June.  I remember the Hank Aaron card being so sought after that I traded a maybe 4-inch thick stack of 1975 commons for a heavily worn and weatherbeatenHank Aaron card, I wanted it that badly.  Guess the HR record the previous season raised his profile big time.  Looking back on it, I always wonder, how does a relatively brand-new card get that beat-up that quickly?

On Beastball, would it be fair to say that the popularity of the Planet of the Apes movie and TV franchises inspired the use of simian characters in many Wackys?  There are quite a few of them, and the parodies themselves don’t always reference apes directly, like Gulp Oil.  Guess the same could be said for the various monster characters.

Anyway, anecdotal trivia aside, great Wacky that does justice to a great wrapper.  If you look over all of Topps sports wrappers through the 70s and 80s, there are a number of drab, boring ones, but this one is at the top of the list in my book.

Offline Paul_Maul

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2197 on: June 25, 2020, 04:02:07 PM »

Anyway, anecdotal trivia aside, great Wacky that does justice to a great wrapper.  If you look over all of Topps sports wrappers through the 70s and 80s, there are a number of drab, boring ones, but this one is at the top of the list in my book.

Most of the wrappers from 1956-79 were pretty cool. The only exceptions were 1966,1974 and 1976 which were all pretty interchangeable with the 80s wrappers. But I agree that the 1975 was one of the better ones, certainly the best from my collecting years.

Offline Gurgle

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2198 on: June 26, 2020, 11:16:41 PM »
Maybe, and there had already been a Beanball which looked similar.



The only thing I can think of is it that the box stickers had emphasized “new 1975” starting with series 12. Maybe they were concerned with wacky pack sales slippage and just wanted to emphasize that the product was current?

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2199 on: June 27, 2020, 04:40:27 AM »
Finishing up Series 13...Don't-Touch-Mee compared to Swee-Touch-Nee tea bags. The real packaging I found is actually a modern box, but the design hasn't changed that much since 1975.


« Last Edit: June 27, 2020, 04:41:58 AM by Swiski »

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2200 on: June 27, 2020, 05:39:31 PM »
Finishing up Series 13...Don't-Touch-Mee compared to Swee-Touch-Nee tea bags. The real packaging I found is actually a modern box, but the design hasn't changed that much since 1975.


Yet another unfamiliar Wacky (back then) and product (to this day), but I do like this one.  Clever play on words from a product name I don’t really understand....guess there must be a story behind giving a tea product such an odd name. Kind of cool how the white section on the right side is like a blank canvas to add a character, works well.

Sad to see the 13th Series finished, it went fast.  For some reason I missed the 14th series completely when it came out, then caught the 15th.  Another Wacky mystery.  But I dig the 14th too, so looking forward to it.

Offline cmgmd

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2201 on: June 27, 2020, 06:05:56 PM »
Swee-Touch-Nee transliterates the Russian word “tsvetochny”, which means flowery.  It is a sweet blend of orange pekoe and pekoe cut black teas that traces its roots back to pre-Bolshevik Russia.  At one time the brand was particularly popular within a segment of the Jewish community in the New York City area.

Offline sco(o)t

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2202 on: June 27, 2020, 07:29:07 PM »
Swee-Touch-Nee transliterates the Russian word “tsvetochny”, which means flowery.  It is a sweet blend of orange pekoe and pekoe cut black teas that traces its roots back to pre-Bolshevik Russia.  At one time the brand was particularly popular within a segment of the Jewish community in the New York City area.

This blurb is also interesting....

It seemed like many Jewish and Russian-American families had the familiar red tin. The name is an attempt at translating “flowery”… you can still get it on Amazon, I think. I’ll check again. A BLAST FROM THE PAST! There was a political statement in the tea, too! Jews who were more favourable towards Russia drank Swee-Touch-Nee. Russophobic and rabidly Zionist Jews drank Wissotsky’s. To a degree, this still holds true! Yes… you can still find Swee-Touch-Nee in the Jewish foods section of many stores (but the loose-leaf variety, I fear, has gone the way of all flesh). Some have spotted it at some Wegmans locations


Who knew a Wacky could be so “steeped” in history.
aka Scot Leibacher (no trademark)

Offline MoldRush

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2203 on: June 27, 2020, 08:49:46 PM »
i was looking on eBay at the collectible tin box resembling the paper box design, and some had the name written in Russian.  I figured it was just a foreign variation, but then I saw there were quite a few of them listed.  With the backstory just provided, it all makes sense now.  An interesting choice for parody, given the specialty demographic.  I wonder if it could be found around Chanukah or Passover when our larger supermarkets set up a dedicated aisle carrying the related traditional foods, beverages, desserts, etc.

Offline Swiski

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Re: Gag Criticism, Variation, and Packaging
« Reply #2204 on: June 28, 2020, 05:19:43 AM »
I love all the interesting history shared here for the obscure real products! Later series in the vintage run parodied products I never saw in our stores. I looked for them when I went grocery shopping with my parents.