Trash Can Tots Complete Series Stickers 🗑️ Vintage 1980s NOS Vending Set, 10 Strips / 30 Characters

Size: 6 1/2 x 1 1/2" ~ strip. Each set includes 10 strips, ensuring that you have the complete series from the factory box.

Ten strips, three characters apiece, thirty pun names in all — this is a complete 1980s Trash Can Tots run in one go, still uncut. They vary a little one to the next, the way anything printed by the thousand does, but you're getting every Tot in the run, not a partial set with the good ones missing.

🪙 One Turn of the Knob at a Time

These never sat on a toy store shelf and never came wrapped in a wax pack. You found Trash Can Tots exactly one place: the vending machines parked by the exit of the grocery store, the laundromat, the pizza joint — the same machines that spat out bouncy balls and plastic capsule toys. Drop your coins, turn the knob, and a strip of three dropped out. That's it. That's the whole retail experience, and it's why almost nobody who bought these as a kid ever ended up with all thirty — you got whoever the machine handed you.

The site Dinosaur Dracula reviewed these once and I think they nailed it: the art looks like "the work of a second grader. An extremely awesome second grader." That's not an insult, coming from people who love this stuff — it's exactly the charm. Compared to the cards these were riffing on, the gross-out here is dialed way down. Nobody's getting nightmares from Fat Pat and her lollipop.

🗑️ The Cards They Were Ripping On

You can't talk about Trash Can Tots without talking about Garbage Pail Kids. The Topps Company put those out in 1985 as a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, with art from Art Spiegelman, Mark Newgarden, and painter John Pound. They settled with the Cabbage Patch people in 1986 and had to change the look. Schools banned the cards outright, which of course made every kid want one more, and there was even a movie in 1987 — one that's since landed on more than a few "worst films ever made" lists.

Trash Can Tots is one of the cheap vending-machine cousins that whole craze spawned — same idea of gross, pun-named little kids, aimed at the same crowd, on a fraction of the budget.

📋 All Thirty, Name for Name

Half the fun with these is just reading the names out loud. Here's the complete cast in this set: Juicy Lucy, Richie Reject, Dirty Gertie, Fat Pat, Robin Hood, Phone Bill, Sweat Sock Scott, Skinnie Minnie, Cruddy Buddy, Square Clare, Amazing Grace, Skeevie Stevie, Cheesey Charlie, Peg Leg, Willy Wart, Cryin' Brian, Smellin' Helen, Runny Nose Rose, Ima Hog, Macho Joe, Door Matt, Airy Mary, Crude Jude, Mike Spike, Snotty Dotty, Spottie Scotty, Book Mark, Boney Tony, Betty Spaghetti, and Rockin' Ronnie.

There's a second Trash Can Tots run out there with a totally different cast — Slobby Bobby, Nerdy Gertie and the rest — so if you've seen names that don't match this list, that's why. This set is the other complete series, all thirty, start to finish.

No maker's mark on these anywhere, no copyright line, no date — just the "Trash Can Tots" banner and thirty names I'd happily match up against anything Topps ever printed.