YMMV / The Garbage Pail Kids Movie

• Adaptation Displacement: In some circles, this movie is better remembered than the trading card series that inspired it.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Some places in the United States did criminalize being “ugly” in public as recently as 1974. Of course, they obviously did not go as far as to have "ugly" people executed as this film does.
• Angst? What Angst?: No one seems particularly bummed that the other Garbage Pail Kids are presumed to have been executed while breaking out the main gang. Even Dodger doesn't show much concern when Manzini tells him. Though really, can you blame them for not caring?
• Anvilicious: You know the movie's message that it's wrong to discriminate against people for being different is being handled in an overbearing manner when part of the film's plot involves a prison that captures and executes people for being different called the State Home for the Ugly.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Notoriously so, considering the cards that inspired it. Unsurprisingly, many offended parents came out to boycott the film once they saw it with their kids, becoming a notorious flop in the process.
• Awesome Music: For all the film's problems, the end credits song "You Can Be a Garbage Pail Kid" by Jimmy Scarlett is admittedly pretty catchy, sounding a bit like a cross between the Beastie Boys and the Insane Clown Posse.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The portraits with the moving eyes at the beginning? It's never explained, beyond a vague implication that Manzini is fond of collecting magical items.
  • The reference of the Garbage Pail Kids being aliens through the implications of the trash spaceship.
  • The part where the Kids break out in song, since there are no other musical numbers; moreover the sequence comes out of nowhere in the middle of another scene.
• Bile Fascination: A borderline literal version, considering how much vomit, snot, pee, and other bodily fluids the titular kids excrete throughout the film. The only reason anyone seeks it out is out of curiosity that it's as awful as it sounds.
• Broken Aesop: The argument that true beauty is on the inside does rather fall flat given that the GPK are just as horrible on the inside.
• Designated Hero:
  • The Garbage Pail Kids prove themselves to be so horrible that they make Juice and his gang of bullies look like saints in comparison — they steal things, vandalize property, harass others (to the point of starting fights), and even insult the two people who look after them. Their leader even bites off peoples' toes. The only characters who can be arguably worse than them are the people behind the State Home For The Ugly.
  • Captain Manzini is intended to be the Big Good, but the most heroic thing he does is spring the Garbage Pail Kids from prison… so that he can imprison them again inside a trash can! But then again, given all the stuff the kids do, Manzini's probably the only hero who's worth rooting for in the movie.
• Fight Scene Failure: When Dodger and Juice get into a brawl at the fashion show, Dodger turns into a taller, older man who is not Mackenzie Astin.
• Narm: Blythe's incredibly forced laugh. Tangerine shakes her head at it.
• Nausea Fuel: Given how disgusting the source material was, this isn't surprising.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Garbage Pail Kids themselves. The costume department probably didn't intend to make them this horrific-looking, but they are.
  • The whole concept of the State Home For The Ugly, since it's a place where people considered "ugly" or otherwise abnormal are imprisoned and executed.
• Padding: There are several long, dragged-out scenes of the Kids just interacting with each other. Typically, scenes like this are used for character development or exposition, but here a lot of the dialogue scenes contribute very little to the film's story. Particularly of note is a three-minute sequence of the Kids just playing a prank on the bullies by redirecting a sewer pipe into their toilet, then a hot tub.
• Retroactive Recognition: Prolific voice actor Jim Cummings voiced Greaser Greg and Nat Nerd in this film; this was one of his earliest voice acting jobs.
• Rooting for the Empire: As… idiotic as the idea of the State Home for the Ugly is, the fact that they want to outright murder the obnoxious protagonists (less so the fact that they also want to murder Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Santa Claus) makes some people want to root for them merely for that reason alone. The "kids" belong in that place, no question about it.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The ship at the beginning of the film is a model that clearly looks like a "not-quite-finished" model in front of a half-assed painting of Earth.
  • The Garbage Pail Kids themselves; already too creepy and ugly for words, it's painfully obvious that they're all just crudely made rubber suits, with poorly functioning mouths and lifeless eyes to boot. The way they look and move makes them fall deep into the uncanny valley.
  • In one scene, Tangerine picks up Dodger to go to the fashion show. As they start a conversation it is daytime when they leave, and in the next shot, it is nighttime.
• Squick: Considering the premise, the film is practically made of this.
  • Perhaps an unintentional example, Dodger smelling Tangerine's hair. Regardless of the actors' actual ages, it still makes for an uncomfortable scene. As does her returning the favor by apparently nibbling his ear later on.
  • Tangerine and Dodger hitting on each other. She is in her twenties (or, at least, looks so) and he is almost fifteen but looks quite a bit younger. Shockingly, Tangerine's actress was then only a year older than Dodger's actor and they even dated in real life, which somewhat lessens the blow.
  • The Kids themselves fart, piss on, and threaten people every other minute despite wanting to be acknowledged. Greaser Greg even has a switchblade. They are just nasty in every sense of the word.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The vile nature of just about all the characters including the eponymous children and their dark, gritty, uninviting settings certainly lend themselves to this big time.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously:
  • Anthony Newley, who played Captain Manzini, stayed to the end of this movie because he believed in the project. This was his last film.
  • Drew Struzan created a great poster for this not-at-all-great movie.
• Uncertain Audience: So, this is supposed to be a children's movie, however, there is a good chunk of gross, often self-loathing adult humor, disturbing imagery, and repulsive characters one would expect to see in adult shows like Family Guy or South Park, that is more likely to turn its targeted audience away from the film than attract them. Unfortunately, adults are less likely to be drawn to the movie either for its childish elements and juvenile writing.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Garbage Pail Kids, who engage in all sorts of unsavory acts including — among others — biting people's toes off, fighting, vandalism, theft, and pranking or insulting innocent bystanders.
  • Captain Manzini, who insists on shielding the kids from the prejudices and evils of the real world but also wants to shove them all back into the garbage can they came from, making all his efforts at the former highly hypocritical. (Though at the end, when he fails to do so and they run off, he figures it might be for the best.)
  • Tangerine is either this or Unintentionally Sympathetic. If we were not supposed to feel sorry for her, then this somewhat fails due to the hints of how Juice abuses her, the investment she has in her dream, and the way the actress plays her remorse in the end as genuine. But if we were supposed to feel sorry for her, it's a bit difficult to get past the statutory rapist vibes she gives off with her entire manipulative, abusive relationship with Dodger.^note Various details about her character imply that she's at least in her early twenties, while Dodger is stated to be 14-going-on-15. Ironically, Tangerine's actress was actually 15, and was only one year older than Dodger's actor.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This film got away with a PG rating and is based on a franchise popular with boys aged 9 and up. However, amongst many, MANY other things we have underage drinking, thuggery, assault, a few curse words, near-nudity, implied genocide, sexual abuse, and murder. This drew the wrath of parents as well as cast member Jim Cummings and got the film withdrawn from theatres only weeks after its premiere. This resulted in the film becoming one of the bigger box office bombs of 1987 and derailing the franchise as a whole; a Saturday-Morning Cartoon based on the characters was set to debut on CBS that fall but was pulled due to the controversy.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • The outfits for the actors portraying the Garbage Pail Kids are easily some of the most hideous and unconvincing costumes put to screen.
  • Dodger and Tangerine's outfits. Most of the blatantly Eighties fashions of the time also count.

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