I had some Garbage Pail Kids when I was younger. People always act surprised when Garbage Pail Kids come up in conversation, but seriously, none of us will ever forget … Scotty Potty, Adam Bomb, Corroded Carl and Junkfood John — just to name a few. Some other fun names of Garbage Pail Kids are Dirty Harry, Rob Slob, Varicose Wayne, Fake Jake, Shrunken Ed and Cheeky Charles.

The Garbage Pail Phenomenon was pretty amazing. Four men started it and then got Topps Cards to carry the first series. Art Spiegelman was one of the four. He also wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus II. For those of you who don't know, Maus II is a cartoon about the holocaust (which Art's father was a survivor of) in which Jewish people are depicted as mice and Nazis are depicted as cats. It is often hardbound, so we are talking serious comic-book action.

Another creator of Garbage Pail Kids was Mark Newgarden. I couldn't dig up anything on this guy, but he was involved in the comic business as well. The third creator was John Pound. This guy, as well, was a comic book artist. He did most of the illustrations. His artwork is renowned in the comic book world. He also recently came up with a set of trading cards called "Meanie Babies." And the fourth creator is Jay Lynch who wrote for Mad magazine, Bazooka Joe comics, did illustrations for the Chicago Sun and worked on some underground comic books.

If you'll remember, back in the '80s, a popular toy for girls to have was the Cabbage Patch Kid. These big-headed, dimpled, orphan children didn't offer boys very much. They had birth certificates to fill out and cute names. It was really way too much responsibility. Boys had little they could do. We could pretend that the Cabbage Patch Kids didn't exist by immersing ourselves in He-Man or GI Joe. But it is hard to do when your neighbors won't stop riding around on their new Cabbage Patch Big Wheel, and every commercial break during afternoon cartoons boasts of the latest Cabbage Patch Kid. They were always coming out with new ideas: Oriental Cabbage Patch Kid, Black Cabbage Patch Kid, Teething Cabbage Patch Kid and First day at school Cabbage Patch Kid. The only real answer to this invasion of girl culture was a direct attack.

And thus, the Garbage Pail Kid was a knight in shining armor. I don't mean to make it sound like it was only for boys. There were many noble girls fighting for the cause as well. But it was kind of known that the Cabbage Patch was girl territory and if you were in it — and a guy — you wouldn't be considered a boy for very long.

The first series of Garbage Pail Kids cards came in 1985. There were 15 series total. All in all there were 620 cards, but each card had a twin. A twin was the exact same card with a different name on the bottom. For example, Up Chuck and Heavin' Steven, and Boozin' Bruce and Drunk Ken. So all in all, there were actually 1,240 Garbage Pail Cards to collect — plus at least one was a triple. There were also different, bigger collectibles, too. The very, very first card — card one, series one — was Nasty Nick, and his twin Evil Ed.

Garbage Pail Kids can still be found today. They can be bought and sold on the Internet. The most expensive price you'll encounter is $225 for the box set of series one. The prices of individual cards are actually quite reasonable though. Maybe someday we'll have a Garbage Pail Kids of Notre Dame. We could even create some of our own. Like Patty O'Splatty, or Father Plutoni Tom, Tony Screw Driver or Father Edward Sore in the Face.

The Garbage Pail Kid Phenomenon was rather short-lived, thanks to worried moms. Moms hated Garbage Pail Kids. They were repulsive and often depicted things that couldn't be mentioned at the dinner table. There was going to be a Garbage Pail Kids cartoon in 1988 on CBS Saturday mornings, but it never aired because so many concerned mothers called in.

The legacy did move on though. Garbage Pail Kids went international. In France they were called "The Trash Can Kids" and in Australia they were called "The Garbage Pail Gang." They were almost all bootleg cards. There have even been sightings of GPKs in Israel. In a sense, they will live on forever, and like most great ideas, their spread can't ever be stopped. We can only hope that future generations will be creative enough to solve social problems using methods similar to those of the Garbage Pail Kids.

PS: Sorry there are no pictures of GPKs here. I would have gladly put some here if they let me.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

• Out of the garbage and into the history books
  
• Renowned composer gives lecture at SMC