Trash Bag Bunch was released in 1992 by Galoob, a company you’ve never heard of, nor you would be surprised to hear no longer exists – extinct like the crumbling goodwill I hold towards my childhood memories concerning the Trash Bag Bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I have many good memories of these Trash Bag Bunch toys — all good memories in fact, so what brought about this newfound disdain towards my childhood recollections of the aforementioned Trash Bag Bunch?
Well… UGH… first, in the interest of making dramatic storytelling as dramatically trolly as possible in the fashion of every great journalist and news source — I will squash down the hate and depression I now feel from gazing once again upon the Trash Bag Bunch and leave you hanging until the end of the article on the big reveal as to why toys (and specifically this toy) can lead one into a spiral of depression, contempt, and disgust regarding their childhood and even question who they are now as an “adult.”
Imagine a toy that you really really really wanted as a kid. Got that toy in your head? Great! Now give me that toy — I’m taking your toy, putting it into a black sack, throwing this sack onto a pile of matching sacks and mixing those sacks up until you can’t tell which sack holds your coveted toy. Sounds like a good time, right?
No… no, this does not sound like a good time, you say. Wait! Wait! I’m not finished! What if, instead of trying to discern your coveted toy by opening each sack randomly, I could pad the letdown, dejection, and desperation you felt each time you opened the wrong sack by making the process more “fun?” But how, you ask? But why, you wonder… why can’t I just give you the toy you really, really want? The answer to all these questions according to the geniuses of the now defunt Galoob company — kids are stupid!
Since I bought multiple Trash Bag Bunch depression devices toys as a kid (or rather, my parents bought them for me, as kids aren’t strong enough to comprehend the rigours of capitalist labor), I apparently was one of the idiot elite Galoob was targeting with their Trash Bag Bunch “toy” and… MAJOR spoiler… nope, this is not the big reveal as to why these toys have brought about a pit of never-ending desperation and despair into my life, so keep reading cheater…. or skip to the end… or click on an ad so I can eat dinner tonight… whichever works.
Why, why the hell would I buy a toy that was so random and brought no insurance toward actually receiving what I wanted? Trading cards, Beanie Babies — sure, there are a lot of unknown pieces of trash kids collect, but I can assure you that the common gotta-catch-them-all “collectable” mind trap of buying crap you don’t need, did not apply towards selling kids Trash Bad Bunch toys. Why? Well… to explain that… you know what, what’s more important are the pictures. Pictures of these god awful “toys” that have no articulated movement, toys that were haphazardly painted by sweatshop workers, toys that mostly look like copies of each other, and overall not very fun to play with. No one in their right mind would ever think these toys would one day be valuable. Check these ugly beauties out:
Yup, Sgt Wastnot, looks like Kpt. Kollector, but with a gun and a shirt on. Witness the above Trash Bag Bunch, these creepy looking monsters and robots with non-descript faces, Trash Bag Bunch’s villain foils are so crazy, so ugly, so evil — wait… wait, uh, what (does more research) — wait, those are the “good guys” of Trash Bag Bunch (WTF)… these are the “villains”:
Haha, really funny, let’s all poke fun at the stupid looking toys and the stupid looking kids who “collected” them. These toys are soooooo stupid and LAME!!!! Trash Bag Bunch are LAME hahah haha…. Ha…. Ha… … Whoa whoa cowpokes, I didn’t get to the best part about these ugly pieces of crap.
Remember that annoying black “trash bag” the toys came in that would NOT allow you to see the toy inside and ensured you got the same damn figure you hated time and time again? Yup, that bag. That “trash bag” was what you were really buying, and all that mattered. That bag was the most amazing thing in the whole damn world to ten-year-old you and me because you see, that bag the Trash Bag Bunch came in… was like magic, and if not magic, made you feel like you were playing with toxic chemicals. Witness this 100% totally accurate company product shot of said magic/hazardous materials in action:
Check out that photo! See the foam around the toy as the water dissolves the bag and “dangerous” chemical reactions commence as the toy is revealed? Without looking at videos that would point to the truth, I can still say with 100% certainty that when you put a Trash Bag Bunch sack into water, the following happened: the bag would slowly dissolve as bubbling white foam appeared, and billows of chemical smoke arose from the bag, creating reactions so volatile (hovering flies or your sibling’s fingers beware), you were now emitting dangerous chemicals into your immediate surroundings. So no, the process was not to reveal some crummy toy you suckered your parents into buying, you had a full-on dangerous chemical pollutant at your fingertips (Editor’s Note: ironic as the toys were meant to spread an environmental message). This dangerous toxic reaction happening is 100% the truth and my memory is in no way impacted by nostalgia or wanting to think I was a cooler and not as dumb as some kids as I probably and most certainly was. Basically, the trash bag the Trash Bag Bunch toy came in dissolved in water and revealed a random toy figure inside and I was stupid enough to want to watch this process more than a few times.
Whenever you go back in time and revisit cherished games, toys and memories you held as a kid, there can be a certain — WTF was I thinking that goes along with the nostalgia. A realization that, no, no you were not always so amazing and yes, yes you once had the mental capacity of a well-trained golden retriever. But, no, no these facts have no bearing on the distress, duress, or depression I alluded to at the beginning of this novella. Nor am I depressed over some loss of childhood nostalgia or that I again remember something better than it was in reality. Nope, revisiting these Trash Bag Bunch memories has brought me into a huge endless pit of depression and despair because…
They made a playset that let you rebag and dissolve your figures over and over again, and my parents most likely spent days, weeks, and hours plotting to keep the knowledge of this playset’s existence from me because they had something stupid like “bills” to pay the utility company or whatever. The cowards. I would have been careful and responsible with the toxic chemicals Trash Bag Bunch’s bags put into my possession. So many hours of lost fun, lost thrills of dissolving a Trash Bag Bunch figure and almost melting the house down — all those potential memories lost. Now THAT is lame.
Sorry to ever doubt you, Trash Bag Bunch.
Relive your own trash fantasies with this vintage Trash Bag Bunch commercial:
Do you remember the Trash Bag Bunch? Let us know in the comments.
- The original designers, Mel Birnkrant and Andy Kislevitz, called them The Garbage Bag Gang – the name was changed as it was too similar to Garbage Pail Kids.
- The whole premise of the Trash Bag Bunch was about recycling and the environment, a common theme of the early ‘90s along with the likes of Captain Planet.
- The heroes were called the Disposers, while the villains were called the Trashors, and each figure was around 1 inch tall.
- Daryl Cagle, a prolific cartoonist whose work you have no doubt seen – he’s worked with Jim Henson’s Muppets, slate.com, and msnbc.com to name a few – created the artwork for the packaging.
- Galoob has been around since 1957, is most famous for creating Micro Machines, and was bought by Hasbro in 1998.
- The original designers, Mel Birnkrant and Andy Kislevitz, called them The Garbage Bag Gang – the name was changed as it was too similar to Garbage Pail Kids.
- The whole premise of the Trash Bag Bunch was about recycling and the environment, a common theme of the early ‘90s along with the likes of Captain Planet.
- The heroes were called the Disposers, while the villains were called the Trashors, and each figure was around 1 inch tall.
- Daryl Cagle, a prolific cartoonist whose work you have no doubt seen – he’s worked with Jim Henson’s Muppets, slate.com, and msnbc.com to name a few – created the artwork for the packaging.
- Galoob has been around since 1957, is most famous for creating Micro Machines, and was bought by Hasbro in 1998.
1 thought on “Trash Bag Bunch: Toys Your Parents Bought to Shut You Up”
Can’t really tell where the sarcasm is and isn’t. Galoob was pretty well known in the 90s; besides these and micromachines, they released the US version of the Game Genie which was the first cheat device I had ever heard of (with Gameshark and Action Replay replacing them out in the 32bit world and beyond). Anyways I unironically enjoyed these things as a kid, and while it wasn’t perfect, the numbers on the bags generally corresponded to the order they were listed on the character sheet so it was possible to find the one you actually wanted (although I gave up on Incinerator after getting the goofy bald guy instead, but it worked for Grimestopper and Putor as well as most others). Pretty much just painted Monster In My Pocket figures which were the next big thing for a bit without much staying power, just like Stone Protectors and Skeleton Warriors.