Marketing Deconstruction - Blog Posts

These were coveted precious artifacts for us kids; they were talismans in the truest sense like the root ancient Greek verb TELEIN, "to initiate into the mysteries." They validated and confirmed some of the hollow absurdity, stale lies, and frayed seams we were starting to notice about the adult world.

So we mounted them everywhere, carving our territory with heiroglyphs. We pasted Wacky Pack stickers where we'd always see them: on school books, desks, nights side tables, lamps, walls next to our beds. They served as wards that would stay blindness and ignorance from descending on us, save us from becoming like the sullen violent adults that surrounded us. The Storied stickers were a comfort, but also like a rallying call of transgression that poked the fake world in its eye.

We're a whole generation raised simultaneously under two religions: Consumerism and Anti-Consumerism. Wacky Pack and their spiritual cousin, Mad Magazine both in their own way, stood shoulder to shoulder with the stories of Jack London, John Fitzgerald, Roald Dahl and Mark Twain, that didn't talk down to us like we were imbeciles.

They felt special, like a secret visual language, intended for us, acknowledging our minds.

WACKY PACK WHIZ BANG

VISIONS OF VINTAGE WACKINESS

Topps Wacky Packages Series 16

Circa 1976