by: -RoG-
Trading cards really seem to have taken a back seat these days, sure they're still out there and new sets are released all the time, but kids don't seem to be as feverish about them anymore. My guess is because there are far more distractions (hello Internet!) these days for kids to really care all that much about novelty trading card sets. Long gone are the days where we would run to the store the very first day that the new Garbage Pail Kids series came out. Oh how we looked forward to seeing all the new ways that the madmen at Topps would find to mutilate the Garbage Pail Kids in each set. I even looked forward to that stale piece of gum that came with trading cards. Most people hated that brittle piece o' gum, but I dunno, I always had a thing for it. Sadly, I don't think they even include gum with most if not all trading card sets anymore.
Yes, there are new reincarnations of Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids that you can find in most stores these days, but they're just not quite the same. You can tell that the creators just aren't having as much fun creating them and that's nothing like the labor of love that the old novelty cards of the 70's, 80's and 90's were. That's not to say that there's no merit to them at all, quite the contrary, but I prefer the originals. The art was better and they were simply a lot funnier.
Unfortunately, while the immense popularity of novelty card sets like Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids entertained the hell out of us kids back in the day, there were some other card sets that slipped under our radar. Of course, for every good trading card set, there were another 20 that were so bad and hilariously awful, it's amazing they were ever greenlit to begin with (Oh yes... I'm looking at you, Wacko-Saurs).
Today I would like to share with you one of the greatest sets to ever follow the Garbage Pail Kids. It's obviously no easy task to follow up such an incredibly popular trading card series, but I'll be damned if the Toxic High School sticker card set didn't do just that. Produced by Topps in 1991, Toxic High School was a set that I personally believe was way ahead of its time. The artwork was great and the sheer amount of work and details that went into creating each card is damned impressive as you will soon see. This set easily ranks right up there with my other favorite novelty set, Dinosaurs Attack!
Since so few people have ever even seen these, I decided to take on the task of scanning in the fronts and backs of all 64 cards in the set. Yes, it was a total pain in the ass (especially since I had to rotate each one individually in Photoshop to straighten them out properly), but much like the people who originally created this set, it was a labor of love. It's a criminally overlooked non-sports trading card sticker set that everybody should have the opportunity to see at least once, so I'm happy to provide you guys with it. I kept these scans as large as I could for the site, so keep in mind some of the text on the card backs is just too small to read, but you should be able to make out most of what's going on with each card.
I now present you with the fronts and backs of all 64 cards in the Toxic High School trading cards sticker set!
Card 1
(I challenge you to find a school symbol that you'd take more pride in than the Toxic High one.)
Card 2
(I'm not sure what's more distracting in this picture: the guy riddled with bullet holes who
is
still somehow standing or the "Boogers Rules" note written on the book that's being torn apart)
Card 3
(Gotta love how "A Head Of Cabbage" was a former principal at Toxic High School.)
Card 4
(At my funeral, I want somebody to share their recollections of me just as Warren Cropsey did... "EGGS!")
Card 5
(So the one kid who had any potential for a future fell off the
Empire State Building when he slipped on a banana? That's a shame.)
Card 6
(So I guess they're trying to teach us is that, while Toxic High School is indeed a very dangerous place to be, there are just as many hazards out in the real world too? Furthermore, what's with the "awesome body parts" comment? Creepy.)
Card 7
(So let's see, we've got a baby, a beartrap, a skull, some dynomite, a shrunken voodoo head, a frothing doberman (which I don't understand how the hell it could even fit in there), a venomous snake and a tentacle among other things. It sure
looks like a lot of cash in that one mailbox, but you'd be taking a big risk if you were gonn actually try grabbing it. At least we learned an important lesson about how the mailman likes gin. I'll have to try leaving him some... maybe then he won't lose so many of my packages. Then again, perhaps the gin is what's caused him to lose so many of them in the first place.)
Card 8
(If you've gotta go, I suppose there could be worse things than dying in a locker with your make-out partner. Unless you're highly claustrophobic, in which case, that would be pretty goddamned awful. I should also point out that some of the contents in locker #4747 were "German War Medals". Yes indeed, Toxic High School... home to nazis! Well, nazis or not, at least they paid a nice little tribute to the Garbage Pail Kids by including some of them in the locker.)
Card 9
(Yet another homage to Garbage Pail Kids as you can see one stuck to the mirror.
It also looks like Warren Cropsey left some of his patented graffiti on the bathroom walls: "EGGS!")
Card 10
(Am I the only person who noticed there's a gorilla waiting in line for the test answers, and it's that same
gorilla who is holding the price list on the back of the card? I gotta say, I'd be first in line to buy that "Bela Lugosi
Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla" VHS tape. $25 bux for that is a steal. $1000 for a 14-month-old baby pony, not so much.)
Card 11
(I like how they said "And we don't mean the gum!" for the Bazooka Cream Pie, as if the imagery wasn't a big enough clue)
Card 12
(Warren, maybe you would've gotten the girl if you hadn't written "EGGS!" in your love note)
Card 13
(Eggs in his stomach? I'm shocked... SHOCKED to hear of this news!)
Card 14
(It's a fact - you should wash your hands with weasel blood. Thank you, Toxic High School!)
Card 15
(I like that one of the choices on the "Career Options" poster is shoveling elephant shit... it's good to have goals.
Also, if there's ever been a more perfect response to
"How many jobs have you had?" than
"Wake me up for cake.", I'll be damned if I know what it is.)
Card 16
(Unless this is a school in the UK, it's actually the dog who's driving the bus, and when you consider
that, it's impressive that he was able to make it all the way to Toxic High School in one piece.)
Card 17
(I just want to know why there is an alligator eating a boombox in the library.)
Card 18
(Notice the tattoo on his arm? That's right Navy boys, this is the future you can look forward to for your years of service.)
Card 19
(Is it really necessary for them to vomit into those pots? Wouldn't the boric acid, arsenic and rat poison be enough?)
Card 20
(Why are the children on their best behavior when the English teacher is facing them,
but they appear to go apeshit in front of all other forms of scholarly authority?)
Card 21
(A giant mechanical babe is the dream of every shop teacher? And all along I thought it was to retire.)
Card 22
(Hey future parents, I'm sure the name "Uvula Moosnapper" hasn't been taken and it'd be a fine one for a boy or a girl!)
There are many more Toxic High School cards to see!
Click here to continue onward to page 2!
Reader Comments
On a side note, I was looking at my Netfix, and there's a Garbage Pail Kid's Movie?
what?
I saw a good number of them, at least more than I would expect.
It truly is a shame that these are overlooked as they even surpass such classics as GPK and Mar's Attacks in many areas.
It's also a fairly accurate portrayal of High School life.
BTW anybody else think this would make a great cartoon?
Being a card collector most of my life (hockey generally) I've never seen these cards out. Wal-Mart usually has the collector cards all lumped together...I wouldn't have bought them though....
Thinking about it, considering the menu, it probably makes sense...
"Editor: Mark Newgarden. Sr. Writers: Drew Friedman, John Mariano, Mark Newgarden. Character design and pencils: Drew Friedman. Painters: Tom Bunk, Pat Pigott, John Pound, Walter Velez, Xno. Additional writers: Jordon Bockhanis, Jay Lynch, Russ Reiley, Beth Pearson."
So yeah, it does look like at least one of the Friedman brothers worked on it Max. Good eye! John Pound, who is probably the most famous artist from the Garbage Pail Kids, also worked on it which might explain how there were several little nods to the GPK series in the Toxic High set.
On card 9 it clearly says "Manson teaches gym."
So Charles Manson was a gym teacher before he went batcrap insane? Makes sense to me.
GO ask Alice!
On a side note, I was looking at my Netfix, and there's a Garbage Pail Kid's Movie?
what?