Garbage Pail Kids | |
---|---|
Voices of |
Tara Strong Cree Summer Noam Zylberman Michael Fantini Alyson Court |
Country of origin |
United States (cancelled) Canada |
No. of episodes | 13 |
Production | |
Producer(s) | Bob Hathcock |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
Garbage Pail Kids is a Canadian cartoon series which was produced in 1987, based on the popular Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, produced and directed by Bob Hathcock and co-written and developed by Flint Dille. Due to controversial themes, it never aired in the United States. However, it did air in most countries in Europe.
The series stars the characters Split Kit, Elliot Mess, Terri Cloth, Patty Putty, and Clogged Duane as gross looking kids with abilities to help others. In the first two episodes, they have normal alter-egos, which transform into their "Garbage Pail" identities; later episodes show them exclusively in their Garbage Pail looks (it is never explained how their Garbage Pail personae became permanent).
The show also features parodies of Hollywood famous movies like the Indiana Jones series, Superman, Conan the Barbarian, King Kong, and The Fly. It also has segments between stories, such as "Garbage Pail Groaners" (jokes) and "Would We Lie To You?" (facts).
CBS ordered an entire season, and heavily promoted it in the run-up to the 1987-88 season. However, it was abruptly pulled a few days before its debut, and was replaced with an extra half hour of Muppet Babies, which was expanded to 90 minutes in order to fill the time-slot after Garbage Pail Kids was pulled from the schedule.
CBS removed the series from their schedule, following protests from Action for Children's Television, the National Coalition on Television Violence, and the Christian Leaders for Responsible Television (a part of the American Family Association). The reasons given were that the series ridiculed the handicapped, glorified violence, and served mainly as an infomercial for the cards.