The world has experienced a dire dearth of the signature comedic stylings of one Danny McBride, whose attempts to pull off back-to-back productions for horror sequels Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends were totally thwarted by pandemic delays. McBride and director David Gordon Green are currently wrapped with the former Michael Myers sequel, and as everyone waits for Ends to start filming and potentially conclude the franchise, the two filmmakers have landed a follow-up project that's (s)not what I expected, but I'm majorly excited about all the same: a Garbage Pail Kids TV series!
That's right, one of the rudest, crudest and lewdest form of collectibles will soon become a streaming TV series, because pop culture demands such things. Danny McBride and David Gordon Green are teaming up once again as co-creators and co-writers on a Garbage Pail Kids animated TV series for HBO Max, according to THR. Aiding them in this trash-covered journey will be Josh Bycel of Hulu's Solar Opposites fame. But guess what? This won't be the normal R-rated fare that McBride is known for.
The Garbage Pail Kids series will skew younger than the Halloween films for sure, with HBO Max aiming to make the animated project something that can be watched by family members of all ages. The idea was inspired by the childhood love that both Danny McBride and David Gordon Green had for Garbage Pail Kids as well as Saturday morning cartoons in general. So that's likely the kind of vibe we can expect from it. Except, you know, probably with as much raunchy, ribald and gross-out humor that the creative team can get away with under the "family-friendly" umbrella.
For anyone who somehow didn't grow up adoring these hellacious Cabbage Patch Kids parodies, the Garbage Pail Kids started off as a line of Topps trading cards in 1985, with each card featuring one of the titular kids, whose name was a word-play reflection of whatever his or her malady, mutation, disposition or abnormality was on display. The backs of the cards usually either had fun details or were meant to serve as pieces of a larger tableau, but the main draw for these cards (at least for me) was seeing what ridiculousness they'd come up with next, whether it be a super-clever name like Sy Clops or the inclusion of gross scratch-n-sniff inserts. Here's hoping Danny McBride figures out a way to bring Smell-o-vision to life with this new animated series.
This will be the second Garbage Pail Kids cartoon series, with the first being produced back in the trading cards' initial heyday of 1987. But even though that show featured parodies of popular U.S. fare such as David Cronenberg's The Fly and Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones, the 13-episode series never actually aired in the States due to the subject matter being deemed too controversial. It is, however, available on DVD through Paramount Home Entertainment.
No news yet on when to expect Garbage Pail Kids to hit HBO Max, but stay tuned for more from yours truly, Nasty Nick, as well as Drippy Dan(ny) McBride and Doomed David Gordon Green.
