Returning in 1973 as stickers, Wacky Packages created 16 more series until 1977. These 5-cent satirical packages would soon prove popular, to the point of passing up Topps' sports cards in sales. While there were a few complaints, and even an eventual lawsuit that went in Topps' favor for the cards, the brand was showing staying power.
However, it would start to peter out after this heyday. Once 1985 rolled around, only that year and 1991 would see series, with 1992's series being canceled. The brand would see a return to form in 2004, with sporadic releases throughout the years. New artists would contribute to the series, along with the shift to an online market in the 2020s: first attempting a weekly release, then shifting to a monthly one.
The brand would have a multitude of non-card merchandise pieces as well. This includes t-shirts, posters, and plastic "World’s Smallest" versions of the parodies. The brand would also create a variety of spin-offs, such as "Wonky Packages", parodies of the existing parodies, and "Wacky Ads", expanded versions of the stickers. However, possibly one of the biggest spin-off cases of note for the brand was from something that didn’t happen. A sticker that was drafted for the 1985 series, but never was released, would instead become the basis for another huge Topps franchise: Garbage Pail Kids.
Tropes associated with Wacky Packages include:
- Affectionate Parody: Topps makes sure to point out that all the parodies are in good fun. Each wrapper has a disclaimer that points out how the products, the ones owned by Topps as well, are all neat items."Hey, the stickers that Topps Chewing Gum created are all in fun. The products we're spoofing — including our own — are all good ones, no kidding. So, enjoy!"
- Black Comedy: One of the draws of the series, especially during more recent years. Taking familiar products and their mascots and twisting them in various ways, often with bodily harm and mutilation. It's jarring, yet makes for fun satire at the same time.
- Bland-Name Product: The major creative point of the brand. Taking the product's name and doing a "close enough" mangling of the name.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The original run of the series, even with violence, would avoid showing blood. Starting with the 1991 series, physical gags got far bloodier, with more visceral attacks and blood instances.
- Bowdlerise: In the beginning of the brand, cigarette and alcohol parodies were common. Later in the brand's life, especially during the online era, these were relegated to only "retro collection" special releases.
- Clapper Gag: Old School Series 10 includes a sticker for "The Cracker", a parody of The Clapper. Instead of clapping to turn things on and off, one cracks their knuckles instead.
- Cucumber Facial: Parodied in the sticker "Spa-ghettios", a parody of Spaghetti-Os canned pasta. Turning the pasta concept into a "tomato and cheese sauna" for rejuvenation, the spa patron on the package instead has two of the round-shaped noodles over her eyes.
- Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: A common style addition to characters on the cards are half-lidded eyes with green or blue eyeshadow on them to give characters a "lower intelligence" design. The color added to the eyes was a pure accident, coming from a color editor error from "Topps' Joke Books" designs. Instead of giving the eyeshadow to just the female characters, all characters with droopy eyes were given them, regardless of gender. This stuck for Topps' designs, and would become a recurring trait for Wacky Packages.
- Faux Furby: Fitting the "parody everything" nature of the brand, a few stickers have parodied Furby. These include "Furbeast" (1st 2014 season), "Hurlby" (1st 2015 season), and "Fearby" (December 2020 weekly).
- Guest Strip: A non-comic variant. During the weekly releases of online purchases, each week would contain a "guest sticker", a parody designed by a guest artist.
- "Jaws" Attack Parody: One parody in the original series was a parody of the original Jaws book, satirized as "Gums", the world’s oldest shark.
- My Little Phony: As to be expected from the brand willing to parody everything, a variety of My Little Pony spoofs have made it through the series, one of them even being called "My Little Phony".
- Official Parody:
- The 1982 cereal promotion packs, meant for the album but teased in cereal promotions, were found in Ralston Purina-branded cereals. This included brand new exclusive stickers that were specifically parodies of their cereals, including the ones the packs were actually in.
- 2016 saw the "Wacky MLB Series", a collection of stickers created of fictional products made in reference to the real Major League Baseball teams and labeled by the franchise.
- A case of a never-happed official parody came in the plans for the cancelled 2014 Star Wars series, which was cancelled after announcement.
- Parody Commercial: Some series have included "Wack-O-Mercials", fake advertisements for products, on the back of some stickers. Some will be for previously-released Wackies, while others have been for wholly original creations. Some series instead create fake coupons as parody advertisements.
- Reference Overdosed: Due to the parody-reliant nature of the brand, multiple real-life things, from products to television programs, are strewn throughout the brand.
- Roadkill for Dinner: "Hill Billie's", a parody menu of the Chili's restaurant chain, labels itself as "The Roadkill Grill". Such options on the back of the sticker for the menu include "Gourmet Gopher", "Roadkill Ribs" (in motor oil BBQ sauce), and "Possum Pie" (which is just pretending to play dead).
- Satire/Parody/Pastiche: The big draw of the brand: taking recognizable real world products and warping them to either have some fun, make a point about the brand or real life, or both.
- Self-Parody:
- Topps isn’t afraid to parody its own franchises. From its candy brands to the sports cards, to Garbage Pail Kids, no Topps brand is exempt from being turned into a parody. Even Wacky Packages themselves have been parodied in the line!
- Mars Attacks! in particular is ripe for the parody, to the point that there is a series of Wacky Packages called "Attacky Packages", Martian versions of existing Wacky Packages spoofs.
- Spoofing Spoofiness:
- The whole draw of the "Wonky Packages" subseries. Taking existing parodies from the line, and giving them their own parody, twisting them further from their original source.
- The "Attacky Packages" subseries takes a much more nuanced take on parodies of parodies, by keeping with a theme. This series takes original Wacky Packages parodies and gives them an additional Mars Attacks! theming, keeping them in line with each other, while also retaining the double parody nature.
- Take That!: While the whole series rides on biting satire of the current world, one sticker in particular manages to become a jab by hardly being a parody at all. The "Crappy Magazine Covers" sticker was this sticker from the "Old School Series 1" set of stickers, a parody of Fleer's Crazy Magazine Covers series. The parody brings up how Fleer's series was very obviously attempting to cash in on the popularity of Wacky Packages, but also brings this up by using the actual gags Fleer did on the image.
- Toilet Humour: As the series went on, far more gross-based gags, primarily related to snot and poop, were added to the line, in fitting with more modern levels of child humor, despite the fact that the cards often are purchased more as a "nostalgia" case nowadays rather than by kids.
- Yonkoma: Starting in the middle of the 2022 online releases, the "Wacky Pals!" series of comics were created, a four-panel gag comic using characters from existing stickers. The final panel is always an image of the sticker, capping off the joke.
