InterGOOlactic Mayhem

InterGOOlactic Mayhem arrived in late November 2023 as that year's Series 2, steering Garbage Pail Kids into outer space with a sci-fi theme that Topps had begun soliciting from artists in the spring of 2022. It holds an unusual spot in the modern schedule as the first release designated strictly for hobby distribution, carrying a prominent note on the boxes declaring it a hobby product only. Because major retail stores like Target and Wal*Mart were prioritising chrome card stock at the time, traditional store aisles received none of it, leaving collectors to purchase packs either through local card shops or directly from the manufacturer online. Topps offered two box formats, dividing the product into standard hobby display boxes and collector boxes, with each format receiving a distinct character on its wrapper design. Regular packs carried a suggested retail price of $2.49 for eight stickers, which dropped down to five cards in packs carrying a special insert, while individual packs from the collector boxes retailed separately for $4.99.

Smokin' Joe McWilliams opened the checklist on cards 1 through 25 with entertainment tributes tilted toward adult characters, David Gross took cards 26 through 50 with his own caricature-heavy pop culture parodies, Brent Engstrom painted cards 51 through 75, and Joe Simko handled the final stretch from 76 through 100. On the card faces, Topps printed the card numbers exclusively in black ink, which created an unintended legibility problem whenever a number settled against a dark celestial background. Turn the cards over, and the backs piece together a sprawling puzzle illustrated by series veteran Tom Bunk, who assembled the scene using a paste-up technique in a MAD-inspired style. There were no card variations to hunt down in the base run.

Collector boxes delivered three guaranteed inserts per box, providing one GPK Morph card, one Kosmic Krasher, and one entry from the eight-card Wacky Packages Plantery Provisions set, with ten different GPK patch cards inserted as random bonus pulls. Standard hobby boxes supplied the home for twenty Time Warp cards, which featured their own autographed versions numbered to 50, alongside Tom Bunk's ten-card Space Farce insert.