In mid-2011, with the popularity of The Trash Pack toyline starting up, the inevitable happened: an animated series was created to tie-in, created by Mondo TV with licensing from Moose Toys, the toyline’s creator.
The story takes place in Garden City, the town that Ray and Jenny, the main humans of the show, live. The two of them are the son and daughter of Webb, the owner of Trash Town, a robot-run dump. Garbage trucks bring the trash into the Sorter, and robo-haulers are programmed to sort them in the various dump locations.
One day, while playing around one of the robot-haulers, Ray and Jenny discover a flat piece of chewing gum that miraculously pops up to life to frighten a discarded piece of pizza and an apple core: living garbage! The dump turns out to be the home of the Trashies, garbage that was disposed of improperly by humans and came to life.
Keeping the secret of the Trashies, Ray and Jenny help them with their big new mission: to stop Mr. Binner, a slob of a business man in Garden City. Not only does he litter, which means more Trashies are created, but he’s also certain that the Trashies are alive as well, and it’s up to the heroes to prevent him from doing any more damage.
Despite airing in Greece, Spain, and its home country of Italy, the show, meant for an English-speaking market to start, never made it to the country it was supposed to. The press boasted 26 episodes, each 13 minutes long in length, but even the countries that got it, never received this amount. All that remains from this show are seven episodes, translated into both Greek and Spanish, and the theme song in English, along with the information of what was supposed to happen. The show appears to have been made with an English audience in mind, however, as signs in the show remain in English.
A second, more successful attempt at an animated series would be released in 2013, via a web cartoon.
The Trash Pack cartoon provides examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The garbage trucks and robo-haulers are often animated in CGI thanks to being vehicles. Unfortunately, the 3D models of the robo-haulers are missing their eyebrows, leading to them to jarringly disappear and reappear when they are animated traditionally for closeup and talking shots.
- Adaptation Name Change: As a difference from the “gross” names of the toyline, the characters featured in the Mondo TV series were given “cuter” names:
- Putrid Pizza became Cheezy.
- Scum Gum became Bubblz.
- Rotten Apple became Pips.
- Blow Fly became Buzz.
- Smelly Sock became Patches.
- Sour Snail became Shelly.
- Stench Fries became Frittes.
- Wasted Banana became Narna.
- Toxic Trash Rim became Toxy.
- Adaptation Species Change: Putrid Sardine, originally a sardine can in the toyline, is a juice box in cartoon. He still retains his green juice and crumple-made unibrow in the cartoon, however.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Greek dub of the cartoon uses a theme song that features the instrumental of the original toyline's commercial song, rather than the show's original theme song.
- Animal Jingoism: Trash Rat is easily startled by Scabby Cat in this iteration.
- Animated Adaptation: One of two for the toyline. This one did not last long at all, however.
- Animating Artifact: An odd foaming slime will automatically appear on poorly-handled garbage that will soon become a Trashie.
- Banana Peel: Narna, despite being a full rotten banana, still has the ability to trip up others.
- Brother–Sister Team: Ray and Jenny are the two to know the secret of the Trashies, along with allies in helping stop Mr. Binner.
- Bullet Seed: Pips is able to perform this with the leftover seeds remaining in his core.
- Butt-Monkey: Shelly is put into peril the most of the characters, being used as bait against a giant squid and being made the plank-walking victim in a pirate game.
- Canon Foreigner:
- The humans in the show were made only for this series.
- The robo-haulers are only seen in this iteration of the franchise; despite the fact the garbage trucks were made for toys.
- Socksy, Patches’ twin brother, only exists in this show.
- Cool Board: When at Garden City’s plaza, Ray’s often on his skateboard, most often performing tricks on the edge of the town’s fountain.
- Down in the Dumps: Trash Town in this iteration, while still being a pretty heavy dump, is surprisingly clean for what it is. Each type of garbage has its own location thanks to the work of the Sorter.
- Evil Twin: Socksy, Patches’ twin brother, is meaner than his brother. He’s even willing to put others in danger just for the fun of it.
- Flies Equals Evil: This iteration of the franchise is the only one to avert this in the case of Buzz. Here, he is a helpful and friendly fly, used as a scout for the other Trashies.
- Gender Flip: Bubblz, Shelly, and Scabby Cat are made female characters in the show, in contrast from their toy counterparts.
- Green Aesop: This iteration of the franchise tones down the grossness, replacing the trashiness with an anti-littering environmental message.
- Gross Gum Gag: While Bubblz is less disgusting than her toy and webseries counterpart Scum Gum, she's still a chewed up wad of gum that was brought to life due to poor littering conditions.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: Socksy is much more intact than Patches, who has a splatter on his back and "wear lines" on his toe and sole areas.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the other iterations of the franchise, this show is pretty much devoid of gross nature, focusing more on the environmental message over the grossness of garbage. Despite this, the Trashies remain the same in design as the toyline.
- Nuclear Mutant: Toxy is a case of the nuclear waste itself being the villain. He’s a mutated container of toxic waste, and is especially dangerous to the others.
- The Pig-Pen: Ironically, despite the characters being living garbage, it’s Mr. Binner that’s the grossest member of the cast. He has stains on his shirt, constantly has a stink cloud following him, and drops garbage from his briefcase.
- Pink Means Feminine: Bubblz is made a female character, compared to her toy counterpart, all due to the fact that she’s a pink piece of gum.
- Power Glows: The Trashies, thanks to being “uplifted” from common garbage, have a white glow surrounding them.
- Reading Foreign Signs Out Loud: The Spanish dub features use of this, as all the signs in the show are in English.
- Rollerblade Good: When she’s in Garden City’s plaza, Jenny’s often on roller skates, to compare with Ray’s skateboard.
- Secret-Keeper: Ray and Jenny are the only ones that know of the existence of the Trashies.
- Sticky Situation: Bubblz often gets stuck to items that she grabs onto, having to be pulled off of them by slightly heavy force.
- Talking Animal: Buzz is not a standard Trashie here. Rather, he is a fly that somehow gained the ability to speak. He’s able to communicate with both the Trashies and humans.
- Tomboy: Jenny is just as energetic as her brother, loves to roller skate, and appears to have no feminine hobbies whatsoever.
- Worm in an Apple: Pips, despite being reduced to a rotten apple core, still has a worm sticking out of him. The worm does absolutely nothing during the series and acts as a character design, rather than a living creature.
- You Dirty Rat!: Trash Rat is portrayed fairly unsympathetically in this show, with Scabby Cat having to scare him off.
- Your Size May Vary: Bubblz has the tendency to change sizes in shots whenever necessary. She’s been the size of the other Trashies, to being small enough to stick on the bottom of a soda can.
