45. Slacker Jack

• Published Date:  December 2005
• Parody Subject:  Cracker Jack 99¢ snack bag
• Concept Writer/Artist:  Frank Santopadre/ Jeff Zapata
• Painter:  Tom Bunk
• Connections:  The classic Cracker Jack box was the subject of one of the very first Wacky Packages, "Cracked Jerk", in 1967.

Art Stages

Final Painting "Slacker Jack" was painted for All-New Series 2, but Topps held it back from the final line-up——possibly because the company had an arrangement to produce Cracker Jack baseball cards at the time. Fans' first look at the title came courtesy of artist Tom Bunk, who provided a scan of the finished painting to the curator of Barren Aaron's Garbage Pail Kids References Guide to post on that web site. (The scan is re-posted here by Aaron's permission). Later, a Topps flyer that advertised the Official Collector Album showed a mock-up of the "Slacker Jack" sticker in an album pocket. The flyer was probably developed at a stage when "Slacker" was still included on the ANS2 checklist. Promotional material for ANS3 which announced "Slacker Jack"'s inclusion in the set also revealed that the art had been changed to eliminate an insect and another foreign object among the corn kernels." On Bunk's scan (and on some subsequent promotional material), the parody of the Frito-Lay logo in the upper right of the "Slacker" package bag reads "Staw-away" instead of "Stow-away."