Anyone remember "Wacky Packages?" They were a set of stickers that came with a stick of gum in a collector-card sized package. The hook was the sticker themselves. Each one (and I think there were about 3-4 per package?)was a parody of a current product, like those pictured here (e.g. Chef Girl-ar-dee, the "Feminist" pasta!)
The Wacky Packages had very good art, and were sold by the Topps Chewing Gum company. Along with those pictured here, they had "Lox Scented Soap" (active ingredient seaweed and seawater)"Badzooka Guggle Bum", "Kick-a-man Boy Sauce" (gives kids super power!), "Stove Glop" (15 minutes stuffing mess) and "Land O Quakes" (butter churned by earthquakes), among hundreds of others!
Overall the wacky packages had kind of a Mad Magazine feel to them. The pictures and captions themselves were often extreme and on the edge of bad taste (e.g. "Czechlets-overcoated tiny humans!!"), which made them hugely popular with young boys wanting to decorate their school supplies in their first taste of rebellion! I think they actually got into some legal trouble with a number of the products they were sending up.
Recently my brother and I found a stash of 72 of these stickers, with very few duplicates! Thanks to finding this hoard of trasure, I can again relive those heady days of tasteless stickers on my school binder.
