COUNTER DISPLAY BOX — TWO VARIATIONS : 30 COUNT OR 48 COUNT
ARTWORK : JOHN POUND



TRADING CARD PACK — NO WRAPPER CODE



GUFF! COMIC — INCLUDED CY-CLONE BONUS CARD



ADVERTISEMENT SHEET — DESIGN BY MCNABB STUDIOS — 8.5 x 11 INCHES



MAIL-AWAY BINDER OFFER — FRONT & BACK — MEASURES 10 x 11.5 INCHES



MAGAZINE COVER — TUFF STUFF'S COLLECT! — JANUARY 1998



MAGAZINE COVER — NON-SPORT UPDATE — VOL 9, NO.1 FEB-MAR 1998

— Various Autograph Cards could be located in randomly in the Meanie Babies boxes and signed by artist John Pound. The autographs could be found on any of the three promo cards produced for the set, signed on the front, with an 'Authentic Comic Images Autograph' sticker on the backside. 500 cards were signed by Pound in total.



— Besides the base card set, there is also a Parallel Sticker Set that contains a blank, completely white reverse card back to collect. Card #61, the checklist card, has card information only on the frontside since the reverse card back is blank.

— The Promo Cards were distributed prior to the set being released and contained a GPK-like yellow nameplate. The nameplate was dropped for the regular release with the card showing the characters names in one of the six various colors found within the Meanie Babies header. The reverse card backs give a nice break-down of the set.



— Cards #3 UPCHUCK the Duck and #35 DOWNCHUCK the DUCK are either the Same Character, vomiting after stuffing its gullet and stuffing its gullet before vomiting, or they are antithesis twins.

— As pictured below, card #59 GRRRILLA the Gorilla is the only card character that uses the Meanie Babies Logo Header as part of the card humor.



— A deluxe, three-ring Meanie Babies Binder was offered on the back of the wrappers for only $19.95 and came with nine, nine-pocket pages; pictured above in the 'Product Overview' section.

— The first parody set to have random Chase Cards located within the packs—not including the promo cards and bonus card. Besides the harder-to-find Autograph Cards, the Sketch and Omni-Chrome card could be found randomly in every box of Meanie Babies, averaging one sketch card and 3 chromium cards per box. The Sketch card reverse backs give a humorous account of the history of the three characters that John Pound created and contain the color rough for the final card image. The Omni-Chrome reverse card backs are in a vertical presentation rather than the horizontal layout of the base card and has an altogether different rhyme.



— Unfortunately, there is No Puzzle within the release; the blank sticker backs would have been ideal for several puzzles.

— A Guff! Comic featuring the Meanie Babies was produced by Dark Horse Comics around the same time the series was released, featuring a storyboard by Jay Lynch and final artwork by John Pound. As an added insentive, the comic included a Bonus Card (CY-CLONE the Sheep)whose image cannot be found in the regular base set and whose artwork is on the front of the comic; featured above in 'Product Overview' section. The reverse card back layout is more like the vertical presentation of the Omni-Chrome cards backs.



Card #38 SWAMPY has a Cabbage Patch Kid doll floating in the sewer water—the brand that led to the Garbage Pail Kids brand and to John Pound's second parody assigment for the Topps Company after the Wacky Packages.

#57 HOT LIPPS

— Comic Images had artist John Pound helmed the entire Meanie Babies set himself containing 61 different card characters; almost roughly 20 more images than a regular Garbage Pail Kids set; ie. Pound completed 41+ pieces for the OS1 set. The entire first printing sold out but the Beanie Babies' lawyers politely asked with a cease and desist letter that Dark Hourse not reprint the cards, let alone think about a second series. Card #45 POUND the Groundhog is a self-named card after the artist's last name and is reminiscent of the Whac-a-Mole game—which is called Mole Buster in Japan when translated to English.



— During 2003, artist Jay Lynch was commisioned by the Topps company to create character drawings for a potential new parody set called Garbage Pail Pets. Although the product was never produced, Lynch developed three pre-production pen and ink concept sketches for the proposed set. Instead, Topps slightly rendered and eventually released the unpublished OS16 set from 1988 re-titled All-New Series from their non-sport card division. The idea is very similar to the 1998 Meanie Babies set by Comic Images, though the Garbage Pail Pets are a parody of the GPK format. The artwork was redrawn by artist Mark Pingitore and included in the Garbage Pail Pets subset for cards #1 through #3 for the 2015S2 30th anniversary set.



— Artist and writer Jay Lynch wrote all of the limericks on the reverse card backs for the set and mini-profiles; his writing is exceptional as usual, and is very reminiscent of the profile backs of some of the earlier GPK card backs.