About Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 4 (Base Set)
Following the success of the first three Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series, Topps decided to stay the course and create yet another Garbage Pail Kids series. This new series was the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 4. The original United States Garbage Pail Kids Series 1 came out back in 1985, and the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 4 marked the 20th anniversary of Garbage Pail Kids. Topps chose to incorporate the anniversary into the All-New Series 4, so they had artist John Pound create a new painting of the Garbage Pail Kids icon Adam Bomb / Blasted Billy. The painting had the character bursting out of a cake, and the cake had "20 Gross Years" written on it in frosting. Topps also wanted to do something special for the die-hard collectors, so they had some of the Garbage Pail Kids artists create one of a kind sketch cards. The sketch cards could only be found in the hobby boxes and not in the retail boxes. The sketch cards were the items that really helped sell the series, and some of the individual sketch cards ended up selling for significantly high amounts when they were listed on auction. Topps created a couple of insert card sets that were new to Garbage Pail Kids. There was a game card set of 36 and a tattoo card set of 10. While these items were to appeal to children, most collectors found the items severely uninteresting. Topps decided to still stick with the scratch 'n stink cards, but for the All-New Series 4 there were on 12 scratch 'n stink cards to the set, which was half as many as there were in the All-New Series 3. There was one blister pack and three different bonus boxes created by Topps for the All-New Series 4, and each of the items came with a bonus card. With so many items to collect, the bright green color used for the boxes was a good way to signal that a large amount of cash would be needed in order to complete the series. While there were subtle improvements with the artwork, there was still a long way to go to get the artwork back to how it looked in the original series. Even with all of the gimmicks created for the All-New Series 4, Topps has not done enough to keep interest in Garbage Pail Kids and to reach out to new collectors. The All-New Series 4 may have marked the 20th anniversary of Garbage Pail Kids, but Adam Bomb / Blasted Billy may not see too many more anniversaries.