Hostess Wacky TV Show Cards

Let's take a look at these quirky collectible cards from the Seventies

Wacky Packages ruled in the seventies. These wonderfully illustrated stickers featuring famous consumer products redone with hilarious names were everywhere. My sisters were avid collectors, and they stuck them everywhere—on books, the walls of their closets, and the heavily-stickered door that led to our basement. They had so many that they started showing up in our family junk drawer. That is where I discovered them years later, along with other Wacky-inspired products, like the Wacky TV Show Cards from Hostess.

Hostess was, and is, a manufacturer of tasty baked treats. Throughout the years, they would attempt to sweeten the deal of purchasing a box of Twinkies, Cupcakes, etc. by including a premium like a collector’s card. These cards and the boxes they came in have become more valuable over the years as people want to reclaim what was, to many, a fleeting but meaningful childhood memory.

I say fleeting because these cards, while fun, were often treated as disposable by the kids who received them. Fun for a quick smile, but then placed somewhere where they could be easily damaged and then discarded. So it is remarkable when any of these cards, especially ones with very limited availability, manage to survive. Any cards or stickers that survived in my household were the ones that were effectively discarded and forgotten in our family junk drawer. There, they might not have been preserved, but they were in a stable space, especially once they were buried a bit.

The Wacky TV Show Cards all feature an image of a television set. Over the TV set is a funny take on an existing TV show, and on the TV, you will see an illustration of that name. That illustration sometimes, but rarely, has any real connection to the show they are referencing. So if you are unfamiliar with the TV shows of the seventies, a lot of these will be completely lost on you. Fortunately, many of them are easy to figure out. By reimagining TV shows with absurd names and whimsical illustrations, these cards, much like Wacky Packages, provided a form of subversive humor that appealed to both kids and adults.

I am not very good at identifying art styles, but a lot of cartoons and comics of this era featured this style. I have heard it referred to as psychedelic or post-sixties. Maybe I see a similarity to School House Rock, which I have heard people compare to the works of Heinz Edelmann, Milton Glaser, and Push Pin Studios. However you might describe the art on these cards, it’s a very accessible style, and you can see why kids would love it.

The reverse side of every card had the card’s number in the set and a wacky TV fact and riddle (which was more of a kid joke). The riddle also had a cute illustration featuring an anthropomorphic television set acting out the riddle in some form. Here is an example from the back of the Flea’s Company card.

The offer for these cards was brief. They were released in September and October 1978, just in time for school, and were only available while supplies lasted. With each purchase of specially marked boxes of Hostess products, you could get three cards, and the collection had a total of 48 cards. So if you hoped to score all the cards, you would need to purchase a minimum of 16 boxes in a two-month period. That was assuming you could find boxes that had the cards you were missing.

Your best bet? Collect ‘em and Trade ‘em. This was the staple of the schoolyard. Bring your cards with you to school and trade something else you have to get them. This was a bit more difficult with cards like this, but not impossible, especially for motivated kids. When Star Wars cards started showing up on products, the trade on those was heavy. In a pinch, you might also be able to buy them from your friends or trade another card type to get what you want.

Being so limited and difficult to obtain, it shouldn’t be surprising that the cards are fairly uncommon to find out in the world. They do show up on auction sites, and prices are mixed. People will post them in response to their rarity, but with low demand, those prices will often go down. So if you do decide to collect them or complete your collection, be patient and you should be able to get the cards you need.

As I mentioned, they made a total of 48 cards. Each of them references a TV show that ran or was syndicated in the seventies. Can you figure out what shows they correspond to? Any favorites or ones you can’t figure out?

1. The Walnuts

2. The Rock Files

3. Captain Klunkeroo

4. Smell The Truth

5. The Cod Couple

6. Roper Room

7. The Flying Bun

8. Welcome Back Critters

9. Mush

10. Barnaby Bones

11. Laff-Out

12. Hoppy Days

13. What’s Not Happening

14. Charlie’s Angles

15. The Price Is Wrong

16. Let’s Make A Meal

17. Shove Boat

18. New Super Fiends

19. Tar Trek

20. The Hatch Game

21. The Flintrocks

22. Thunder Dog

23. Hoagy’s Heros

24. Brawl In The Family

25. The Tardy Boys

26. Starchy And Hush

27. American Handstand

28. Candied Camera

29. Bad Times

30. Operation Overcoat

31. Snitch

32. Greasy Addams

33. One Way At A Time

34. She Haw

35. Hollywood Scares

36. Barney Chiller

37. Little Mouse On The Prairie

38. The Arfies

39. The Souper Bowl

40. Flea’s Company

41. The Bratty Bunch

42. Blunder Woman

43. The Six Million Dollar Mess

44. Eight Is Too Much

45. Wild World Of Shorts

46. Mild Kingdom

47. No Soap

48. Bestiched

Hostess Wacky TV Show Cards were a very limited release on a product that wasn’t available in every market in the United States. If you were lucky enough to get a few, they have probably been stuck in your memory. Whenever I see the more famous Wacky Packages, I can’t help but think of them, and as a TV fan, wish they had been more broadly available. The scarcity of these cards only adds to their intrigue, making them a rare and sought-after collectible for enthusiasts of vintage memorabilia and seventies pop culture.