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April 01, 2006

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie

Taking the Word of a Talking Alligator (and Taking the Piss of Film Criticism)

By Andrew

Every year, Halloween poses a fateful question: trick, or treat? Tradition insists we choose one or the other, but a lesser known — and more radical choice — exists as well: to both Trick and Treat. Contradictions can be liberating, and nothing demonstrates this better — with a gross, ghoulish glee quite amenable to All Hallow's Eve — than The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.

Based on an infamous series of Topps Chewing Gum stickers, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is at heart a coming of age story. Dodger is an awkward teenager who attracts bullies like a magnet; he can hardly round the block without receiving a beating. Worse, he's fallen for the local tough's main squeeze, Tangerine, an aspiring fashion stylist willing to literally sell the shirt off her back to make it to the big time. Injected into this stale, age-old story are twelve pint-sized moppets, the Garbage Pail Kids, who quickly befriend Dodger and vow to do whatever it takes — including felony theft — to help Dodger capture Tangerine's heart.

Infused with pertinent commentary on the nature of beauty and solidarity, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie asks that we respect everything society despises —
flatulence, halitosis, urinary incontinence, magic mucus, neo-Marxist breaking and entering, talking alligators, people with names like "Cap'n" and "Juice." It is a challenge, no doubt, but a rewarding one: infused with a subtle self-reflexive subtext (e.g. watch as the Kids invade a Three Stooges film screening), TGPKM is a bitterly charming coming-of-age corrective to the saccharine John Hughes, more absurd than a David Lynch fever dream, and far more socially aware than a Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie safari. No wonder it was quickly pulled from theaters upon its 1987 release.

For more on this film, please see my August 2006 review featured in Bright Lights Film Journal, "Taking the Word of a Talking Alligator: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie Reconsidered".

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