Bizarre Holidays

When Topps launched Bizarre Holidays on its website on March 31, 2020, during the thirty-fifth anniversary year of Garbage Pail Kids, the project looked like a modest four-week diversion for April. The concept was simple enough, taking classic characters from the original series and tossing them into fresh gags that mocked obscure daily calendar observances, with the card backs recording the exact date and holiday being celebrated. Demand proved steady enough that the four-week test expanded across the rest of the year, ultimately stretching into a fifty-two-set weekly marathon that carried over into early 2021.

The paintings rotated across familiar franchise veterans, with artists including Brent Engstrom, Joe Simko, David Gross, Neil Camera, and Joe McWilliams contributing work to yield five new pieces split across traditional A and B name pairings. In April, buyers received just those ten base cards. Beginning in May, Topps sweetened the package by including a single colored parallel card with every set, rotating borders through green, purple, red, light green, deep blue, pink, yellow, and deep purple as the months rolled on.

The art leaned heavily on nostalgic fixtures, sending familiar faces into weird seasonal rituals with cards like ADAM Fools Day, Blasted BILLY, PB & J MAY, and Rotgut GUS. In April Week 1, cards 4a Librarian LINDSAY and 4b Booger-Book BROOKE even slipped in a visual nod to the R.L. Stine book Welcome to SMELLVILLE. Print runs disclosed after the seven-day windows closed revealed a core following, with tallies routinely landing between 440 and 650 copies. June Week 4 hit the high-water mark at 650 copies, while June Week 1 took a brief dip to 478 copies when the sale period was trimmed by an observance of a Tuesday Black Out for Black Lives Matter.

Several errors occurred over the course of the weekly releases. Website product descriptions for May, June, July, and August incorrectly stated the phrase "month of April", and several collectors who opened May Week 2 reported that their promised green parallel cards were missing entirely. The planned final chapter, March Week 4, was completed by artists by its March 23 target date, but Topps never put it up for sale and offered no explanation to curious fans.