Minister says boycott Garbage Kids gum

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 32

Minister says boycott Garbage Kids gum

PA Wellington Parents and shopkeepers should boycott a range of bubble-gum cards showing mutilated cartoon children, said the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Mrs Shields. The Garbage Pail Kids stickers which come in bubble-gum packs, were tasteless and offensive, but did not appear to break any law. “I would suggest that responsible traders and parents boycott this product,” Mrs Shields said. “Parents of children who already have these stickers will undoubtedly consign them to the garbage can where they belong.” Mrs Shields said parents and children alike had told her they were concerned about the stickers." The cards sold with Topps chewing gum have stickers on one side showing Garbage Pail Kids in various nasty situations: Christine Vaccine, with a syringe needle going through her arm; Bloodshot Scott, who totes his protruding eyeballs in a wheelbarrow; Blown Joan, whose brains were swished out by a hair

drier; and Filled-up Phil, whose head is plugged with corks. The flip sides are small comic strips, lists of other cards to collect, or parts of bigger jigsaw puzzles. A Wellington mother disgusted by the cruelty and violence shown on the cards has confiscated them from her young children.

“I had not really looked at the cards closely until I saw an item on the television news about them last night,” the woman said. “I was- horrified to think that as a responsible mother I had been allowing this to go on so long.” Topps chewing gum is distributed by Sweetline Distributors, of Palmerston North, who get the gum from Regina Confections in Auckland.

A Sweetline spokesman said the company had had "one or two” comments about the cards.

“The vast majority of people don’t have any problems with them,” he said. He believed the Garbage Pail Kids shipment was imported from the United States.