In the beginning, there were Wacky Packages. Then, in the mid 80’s came Garbage Pail Kids. A direct spoof of Cabbage Patch Kids,  Garbage Pail Kids stickers were just silly. Whereas Wacky Packs were more spoofs of products, GPK were spoofs of the dolls, each with gross/silly names and pictures.

Ya had to collect them all. You just HAD TO.

And I thought they were gone. But dammit, they’re not, and I love that. A bunch of new products are rolling out, so let’s start with the most preposterous.

Yeah, that’s breakfast cereal.

I’d eat the SHIT out of that cereal. yes, it looks like pink Rice Crispies with Lucky Charms ‘mallows but who cares. At 1am, it looks good.

Minor bummer, the cards in the cereal aren’t standard GPK cards, they’re GPK cereal cards. Could be cooler for some, I suppose. One person I showed them to found it neat that there were cereal trading cards. Me? Not sure.

Also, there was a can of soda.

I can’t say enough how much I love the art on this can. The primary colors, the basic drawing, I just love it. As to what’s inside it….not so much. More or less, it’s Red Bull with a minor amount of cherry flavor.  It isn’t good. Again though…who cares? It’s cool.  And this isn’t a cereal and soda review site, it’s a candy review site. So let’s get to that.

OK now we’re talking. Just for a moment, look at the bar on the right.  That’s absolute success if you want to gross someone out. Normally with branded candies like these, it’s mostly about packaging: what’s inside is generally boring rebranded candy.

Not this time.

The “Leaky Bar” : Green citrus frosting filled white chocolate. What the actual f*ck.

GAAAH IT’S GREEEEEEEN! This is amazing.

Don’t TELL me you’ve seen something like this before, because you haven’t. Hats off, GPK! It looks incredible. As for the taste…well, it’s not bad. But the white chocoalte interplay with citrus is a bit weird. Not repelling, just not incredibly tasty. Wonderful to look at though.

But here, kids-here is the one you’ve been waiting for. The “Blasted Bar” :  Cherry popping candy in milk chocolate.

Do you know how many chocolate bars with popping candy I’ve tried? At least 5. It’s not a new novelty, but I’m gonna say this loud and clear: this bar is the best one.  And it’s not particularly close.

Why?  Because the popping candy in this one is super poppy and tangy, and keeps on a poppin’ way longer than the others I’ve tried (and the others are ALL upscale confectioners). That almost continual popping really takes this thing into a different place. Is the milk chocolate stellar? It’s at least as good as a Hershey bar. So that combo of good chocolate and cherry popping candy…it just works and I really truly loved it.

I’ve looked around and I think it’s too early to find inexpensive web links for these bars. If I was a betting man, I’d say you can find these in stores like “It’s Sugar” and kitschy mall candy stores soon. Keep an eye out for them if you’re a GPK fan, or frankly, if you like fun and interesting chocolate bars.