These don't even have any relevance to the Wacky. Why not just buy pinup girl stuff?
I agree, RawGoo. The pin up girls don't have a single blessed thing to do with Wackys at all, save for being superimposed on a Wacky -
and sharing a similar vintage pulp art painting style. This is what makes them work. One could probably get cowboy images from vintage western pulp paperbacks, and they would work nearly as well. Or science fiction / horror monsters from vintage magazines like Amazing Stories. The cowboys and monsters aren't provocatively rendered, though, and probably wouldn't make guys' eyes bug, tongues roll out, and fetch approximately $150 per card - though the pin up girl / Fright Cola mash-up, which IMO was one of the least provocative of the lot, did fetch the most thus far.
Essentially, these mash-ups are selling sex - just like the old pulp magazines did.
Another part of the appeal may have to do with the sensational, unrealistic or "fantasy" images which at times border on the ridiculous. This magazine cover - by Norm Saunders - is wrong, wrong, wrong, yet I do find it amusing in its sheer absurdity:
But you're right, though. These mash-ups have taken Wackys to a whole new realm that is, for the most part, Un-Wacky (just like the MLBs.)
Some time ago, my ex was into the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mythology and collected the action figures. Eventually - and perhaps inevitably - variations began to appear on the market. "Star Trek" turtles, "Birthday Party" turtles, etc.. It just became ridiculous. It made a mockery of and cheapened the franchise. Anything to make a quick buck.
And that's what's happening here. Someone is making a quick buck - and smiling all the way to the bank. And it's probably going to go on for the next two or three years.