30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story

30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story (2017)

*** (out of 4)

If you grew up in the 1980's then you will obviously remember the notorious and controversial Garbage Pail Kids. Yes, those revolting cards that parents, certain religious groups and various others were outraged about. This documentary, 30 YEARS OF GARBAGE: THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS STORY takes a look at their rise in popularity and everything that happened because of it.

If you're a die-hard fan of the cards then there's no question that you're going to have a good time with this film. If you're not a die hard, well, you should still enjoy this documentary but you'll probably feel that it goes on a bit too long. I fell into that camp as I did collect these cards as a kid but I'm not overly crazy about them anymore.

What I enjoyed most about this documentary is that it does a good job at detailing how these cards came to be, early production meetings are discussed and we also get a good idea of why the cards were so popular. We get interviews with several of the men who were there at the start of the series so we get some very good behind-the-scenes details about the cards. There's also some nice stories covering the controversy behind them and an eventual lawsuit from the Cabbage Patch Doll people.

The movie that was based on the cards are also discussed and there are some fun stories told here by some of the cast members. As I said, there are a lot of details here about the production of the cards but to me the documentary did feel a tad bit too long for its own good.