#Garbage Pail Kids Animated Series Coming to HBO Max from David Gordon Green, Danny McBride

The Garbage Pail Kids will return via HBO Max. Per a new report from THR, the WarnerMedia streaming service has partnered up with Topps, Torante, and Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures to develop a new animated series based on the gross characters from the 1980s trading cards. While some of the original trading cards are a little risque, the idea is for the new cartoon show to be family-friendly and appeal to audiences of all ages.

McBride and his Rough House partner David Gordon Green were inspired to reimagine Garbage Pail Kids because of their love for the original trading cards and Saturday morning cartoons. The duo, along with Josh Bycel (Solar Opposites), will write and co-create the animated series for HBO Max. McBride, Green, and Bycel will also executive produce alongside Rough House’s Brandon James and Torante TV’s Noel Bright and Steven A. Cohen. No names have been announced for the voice cast.
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A series of sticker trading cards, Garbage Pail Kids was first released by the Topps Company in 1985. Each sticker card features a parody of a Cabbage Patch Kids doll, usually with some kind of pun-based name and particularly disgusting artwork. Because of the vile illustrations, the cards were controversial at the time, leading to many schools banning them completely. Of course, that only made them more popular with kids of the time period who’ve since grown up as lifelong Garbage Pail Kids fans.

There was in fact a previous adaptation of a Garbage Pail Kids cartoon in 1987. It was released in the UK and Canada in the late 1980s, but due to its controversial content, the cartoon never aired on television in the United States. The show spoofed popular movies of the era, like the Indiana Jones movies, Superman, and Conan the Barbarian, and featured characters from the cards like Patty Putty, Clogged Duane, Split Kid, Elliot Mess, Terri Cloth, and Trashed Tracy. Luckily, fans got to finally see the GPK series in its entirety when Paramount Home Entertainment released “Garbage Pail Kids: The Complete Series” on DVD in Region 1 on April 4, 2006.

For better or for worse, a live-action movie adaptation was also released in 1987. Directed by Rod Amateau, the movie is widely considered to be among the worst movies ever made, though it has also developed a large cult following partially due to that very reason. It followed a group of live-action Garbage Pail Kids (Greaser Greg, Valerie Vomit, Ali Gator, Foul Phil, Nat Nerd, Windy Winston, and Messy Tessie) befriending a young boy (Mackenzie Astin). Universally panned, the movie has a 0% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

McBride and Green have also gotten a crack at another popular franchise by rebooting Halloween in 2018. The two co-wrote the movie with Jeff Fradley with Green serving as the director. For this year’s sequel Halloween Kills, Green returned to direct using a script co-written with McBride and Scott Teems. They’re also behind the upcoming third installment of their trilogy, Halloween Ends, which will hit theaters in 2022. Rough House Productions partnered up with Miramax, Blumhouse, and Trancas International Pictures for the slasher movie sequels.

A release date hasn’t yet been set for Garbage Pail Kids on HBO Max. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.

Topics: Garbage Pail Kids, HBO Max