Several selections from the first four series in our Wacky Packages Collection.

     Wacky Packages were the hugely popular trading cards/stickers produced by the Topps Chewing Gum Company.  Each of the cards featured a parody of a real household item.  Some examples of this include "Weakies" "Breakfast of Chumps," a parody of Wheaties, and "Ajerx" "The Do-Nothing Cleanser, you gotta be a jerk to use it," a parody of "Ajax."

     The original "lick-and-stick" design was first released in 1967.  However, these originals never became very popular, due to the fact they didn't stick very well. 

     In March of 1973 Topps rereleased the original cards from the 1967 version, but as stickers.  They quickly caught on and became a very popular item for kids everywhere. 

     For our Featured Collection this month we will highlight the first four series.  All of the first four series were released in 1973, with the first series released in March.  All of the ideas for the series were written and sketched by Art Speigelman, while Norm Saunders would turn Speigelman's ideas into actual art work. 

     Each package came with two stickers, a checklist and a piece of gum.  The back of each checklist contained one part of a nine piece puzzle.  The puzzle was a large version of one of the cards from the series.  For example in the first series, the "Gadzooka" bubble gum pack was on the puzzle pieces.

     The first series were not given a number by Tops, since they were unaware of the huge success the cards were going to have.  This Original series contained 30 different cards.  The second series (denoted as such by Topps), released in the summer of 1973, contained 33 different cards.   The third series contained 30 different cards, as did the fourth series.

     Throughout all of the series of these trading cards/stickers there were several cards that were cut from the line up due to cease-and-desist letters from the original manufacturers of the products being parodied.  Therefore, there are several cards that were produced at the beginning of the series that were later excluded and replaced.

For more information on Wacky Packages, visit wackypackages.org, where most of the information for this article was acquired.