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I’ve written before about sticker albums, where you buy packets of stickers in order to build up a full collection, and can swap with your friends any that you get doubles of. Â The same basic principle also applied to Bubblegum Cards.
Bubblegum Cards were generally sold in packs of around five or six picture cards with a piece of bubble gum to chew on whilst you looked at the new additions to your collection.
Personally I disliked the bubble gum, which was a large pink slither of hard, tasteless gum which splintered when you first bit into it, leaving your mouth full of cheek cutting wedges. Â But enough of the gum, it was the picture cards that were the important thing!
I personally remember two sets of Bubblegum Cards, one for Star Wars, and another for the Superman films, which probably dates these cards to just before the eighties, but that’s close enough for me. Â Each set of cards was further split into colour coded series which had images from the different Star Wars and Superman films.
To make keeping track of which cards were missing a bit easier, each card was numbered. Â This also meant that by following the cards in order you could retell the story of the films in a comic book fashion. Â The cards normally also included a small amount of text to describe the depicted scene.
I seem to recall there were other similar collections based on Marvel or DC superhero characters that came as stickers rather than picture cards, but I only have a vague recollection of these. Â Obviously these sets of cards were primarily aimed at young boys given the subject matter, but I’m sure there must have been some more girl orientated sets as well.
So do Bubblegum Cards still exist today?  Well, yes and no.  I don’t think you get them with bubblegum any more, but you can certainly buy what are now known as Trading Cards.  These seem to be slightly more expensive than I remember the old Bubblegum Cards being, and whilst some are literally nothing more than collections of images, many such as Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards are also collectable card games, where buying more cards means you have more options when playing against your friends.
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Does anybody remember the Garbage Pail Kids cards? And Pacman cards that could be played by scratching off the foil dots?
I certainly remember the Garbage Pail Kids. They’re on my list of future things to write about, but I should really have mentioned them here too I guess.
I don’t remember the Pacman ones though.
How about wacky packages?
Not sure I know what they are? Are they a bit like Lucky Bags, where you had an assortment of little toys and sweets in a packet?
I still have a decent collection of Garbage Pail Kids stickers (around 2-300 hundred – a few series’). The thing I was talking to someone about the other day was something I vaguely remember buying from the ToniBell that used to park up outside our school.
I’m sure it was bubble gum, but it came in a box – a bit like a matchbox and included a popstar badge. Black plastic badge with the artists name in shiny/glittery writing.
Can’t remember for the life of me.