Four years after the parody attempt of
the Trash Can Trolls, in 1996, Topps tried once again to re-live the
popular format of the Garbage Pail Kids with an original, non-parody
spin-off called the Bathroom Buddies with original content. A 44
card test set was followed by a longer 66 (the original 44 + 22 new
images) card set with twins were produced and mainly distributed outside
of the U.S. to Canada and Australia, but also released regionally within
the New York area (similar to the OS1 GPK test run). Several artists,
including John Pound, Tom Bunk, Jay Lynch, XnO (aka Chet Darmstaedter)
and Den Beauvais were responsible for these gross bathroom humor cards
art directed by Ingar Westburg. The trading cards came packaged
with either 4 or 5 per plastic or foil pack, depending on the print
run.

“I think I drew roughs of maybe 90% of the Bathroom Buddies that
were released. I did the roughs–and John Pound, Tom Bunk, Xno and others
did the paintings from the roughs. The first 2 cards, Clean Dean and
the Mummy one I had to draw pretty detailed, to show to the owners of
the company to get the series approved. John Pound then painted them…and
the owners okayed that. then I just did quick roughs and John, Xno,
Tom Bunk and the other artists figured out the drawings of the rest.
Mostly I just do roughs and others do the finished art.” —
Jay Lynch, per email, circa December 1999

—
The Artwork Scale on
the box of both print runs is different; The image on the 2nd print run box is
slightly decreased where you can see all of the artwork, whereas the image is
cropped at the bottom of the 1st print run box—cutting off the lower bathroom
characters found on the ‘Walls of Wizdom’ card backs.

—
The set has only one Puzzle;
found in both the test set and regular set releases.

—
Unlike most sets, card Numbers
can be found on the front side and reverse back of each card.

—
Besides ‘GREENDAY‘, artist
Tom Bunk inserted several Shout-Outs into his bathrom
humor artwork by writing on the walls for cards #3. The name ‘Ira’ can be seen
in red at the bottom of the wall for Ira Friedman at Topps, the name Anna can
be seen on the right-hand side which is Bunk’s daughter and the artist’s name
can be identified in two different locations, ‘TOM‘ written
in large letters off to the right and ‘BUNCH OF BUNK‘ found
in the lower left-hand corner. Bunk’s son’s name, ‘BEN‘,
can be found on the artwork Tom painted for card #24.

—
The regular set has two cards with the Same
Forename; cards 14B Desperate DAN and 31B DAN Lather.

—
The Checklists in both
sets are quite different; the test set checklist is horizantal with the toilet
bowl character and the card stating ‘Series 1’ and the regular release having
the typical Topps checklist that is vertical with no images.

—
The Wrappers
for both print runs are different; he first test set wrapper does
not have the Topps logo on it and the plastic packs contain 5 stickers,
whereas the second release wrapper has the Topps logo, Bathroom
Buddies is written in metallic because of the foil wrapper and the packs
contain only 4 stickers now.

—
Topps has released all fourteen images
(twenty-eight cards) of Tom Bunk’s previously unpublished Bathroom
Buddies 2nd Series material, all
three images (six cards) of John Pound’s pieces, two images (four cards)
by Xno [unverified], two images (four cards) by Denis Beauvais, and
one image (two cards) by John Cebollero, within value boxes, exclusive
to Target, as bonus cards within their Apple Pie (In Your Face!), Prime
Slime Trashy TV, ADAM-Geddon, Battle of the Bands, We Hate the 80’s,
Oh, the Horror-ible, and We Hate the 90’s setes from 2016 to early 2019.
The toilet paper roll nameplate has been replaced by a black and white
GPK nameplate and the ™ (trademark) is missing from the header.

— Within
the his artwork, artist Tom Bunk often infuses a few family members
and self shout-outs. For cards 3a Classy CLAY and 3b DALE Dump, collector’s
can make out “TOM IS A(N ASSH)OLE“,
“IT’S BUNK” and “BEN
WAS HERE!” (for his son) & for cards 13a BO-wl and 13b
Swirl LEE, on can identify “TRASHER TOM“,
“TOXIC BUNK“, “ANNA
BANANA” (for his daughter), and “SPEEDY
BEN” (for his son).

CLICK TO VIEW SERIES 1 + SERIES 2 TRADING-CARD
IMAGES & ANNOTATED NOMENCLATURE

CLICK TO VIEW BUNK ARTWORK FOR SALE

CLICK TO VIEW BUNK ARTWORK FOR SALE

—
Topps artist John
Pound completed fourteen images for the 1st Series Bathroom Buddies
set and three paintings for the unpublished 2nd Series Bathroom Buddies
set. In 2005, John Pound provided images for all three original
artwork paintings that he finished for the Topps Company. The second
piece contains Pound’s Woo-woo eyeball character (not Eyewiz). ‘JP
WAS HERE‘ can be seen under the paper towel dispenser in the
third piece pictured below, John Pound’s self- tagged initials.

—
The third main contributor to the Bathroom
Buddies sets, XnO (aka Chet
Darmstaedter), completed five paintings for the 1st Series set
and potentially two paitings for the unreleased 2nd Series set; later
published as subsets within the thematic sets from 2016—2019. XnO
is most notable for his Dinosaurs Attack! artwork that was released
in 1988 by the Topps company where he completed a majority of the work
for the set. Darmstaedter is known for his ‘lowbrow art’ or pop surrealism.

—
The fourth artist to contribute to the
Bathroom Buddies set(s) is Denis “DEN”
Beauvais, who completed one painting for
the 1st Series set and two paintings for the unreleased 2nd Series set;
later published as subsets within the thematic sets from 2016—2019.
These two pieces of artwork were located on his website for sale under
a ‘Misc.’ artwork tab that included the ‘Bathroom Buddies’ title for
the image to cards 6A Constipa-TED and 6B Dead FRED. More information
directly below.

Beauvais is known for his monster artwork; but it is unknown if the
two additional artwork images below are directly tied to the Bathroom
Buddies sets as either 1st Series rejected pieces, 2nd Series unpublished
pieces, or not associated with the Bathroom Buddies property, but they
would both fit in nicely with the bathroom humor. The dracula image
has been printed within the 2018S2 Yearly set and the werewolf within
the 2019S1 Yearly set. Many thanks to collector Esteban de Jesús
Valencia Castillo for bringing this artist to my attention.

NOTE: THE ‘AB’+ BLOOD TYPE (UNIVERSAL
RECIPIENT) ON THE TUB HANDLE AND THE ‘DEN.’ SIGNATURE ON BOTH PAINTINGS

—
Artist and writer Jay
Lynch completed the concept artwork for the set and wrote the
‘Walls of Wizdom’ (= words of wisdom) reverse card backs. Several images
were slightly changed by the artists for the final artwork; below is
the artwork for card images #1 and #17 and two concepts that did not
reach fruition for the 1st Series, although the gelatin mold concept
did make it to the 2nd Series. Per Jay Lynch, “Topps had me compose
a letter to the Boston Board of Education, suggesting that they use
the series as a teaching tool in classrooms; this was done to get the
[cards] banned in Boston as a publicity stunt for that release.”

—
An early tight-ink submission sketch,
for the eventual cards of 19a Undersea LEE and 19b Scuba SAM, shows
the evolution of the Bathroom Buddies Character
Design… artist Jay Lynch states that, “This is the old
style character. Should be replaced with Idiot-Boy”, where “Eyes
go above mask”. This is important since all artwork would later
contain the ‘Idiot-Boy [& Girl]’-styled eyes as a rule. Lynch also
suggested that, “Could he spear a turd instead of a fish?”;
the header actually covers this area on card, but I’m assuming it’s
still a fish. The art director suggested, “Fish border on T.P.
[roll]”, which did not occur on card, and to “Reveal he comes
out of bowl” with a thumbnail sketch, which did come to fruition.

—
The Topps company had artist John
Cebollero try his hand at painting a Bathroom Buddies image based
off of a Jay Lynch concept but it was never printed; Cebollero posted
the image to social media in October of 2017. Cebollero went on to paint
at least one piece for the unpublished second-series set, that were
later published within the GPK thematic subsets in 2018; Cebollero posted
a picture of card S2 16a Flushed FELIPE and stated, “Something
I painted for Topps years ago. Unfortunately, the Bathroom Buddies card
set was pretty much a DOA experiment.” and “[Yes.] I think
I did about 4 or 5 for the set.” Including this unpublished image,
only one made it into the 2nd Series set.

*

BATHROOM BUDDIES —
BOWL OF BUBBLE GUM

Bathroom Buddies Toilet
Bowl Candy & Gum Dispensers
were released in Canada in 1996 with gum filled toilet bowls and a tank
holding a sticker with bathroom humor on it, but no images from the
set were used on the stickers, only on the display box. Bathroom Buddies
toilet bowl candy dispensers were also released in the United Kingdom,
but the stickers within the tank portion of the toilet bowl had miniature
images from the Bathroom Buddies set. The total number of stickers within
the set is unkown since the stickers are unnumbered. Tank pictures provided
by collector Robert Griffin.

PRODUCT #785 — UPC: 0-41116-10785-6
TOILET UPC: 0-41116-00785-9
NOTE: STICKER IMAGES FOR CARDS #16 AND #19

BABES IN TOILETLAND
–> BATHROOM BUDDIES

The 1996 Bathroom Buddies release
was actually a revamped and approved concept from December 1995 that
originated from a submission pitch by Jay Lynch from September 1994
titled Babes in Toiletland, a title parody
of the popular 1986 film, Babes in Toyland, starring actors Drew
Barrymore and Keanu Reeves. This important piece of history was brought
to my attention on May 04, 2024, by humour card collector & toy
enthusiast, Casey Roberson, whom had recently visited the Billy Ireland
Cartoon Library at Ohio State University (in Columbus, OH) for research
on a future publication. Amongst several Bathroom Buddies tight ink
roughs were the Babes in Toiletland images and letters of submission
to Len Brown. We unfortunately lost Lynch in 2017, and with the assistance
of Roxanne Toser (of Non-Sport Update & Philly Non-Sport Card Show
fame), a generous sample of his large collection of art was donated
to the library.

JAY LYNCH ‘BIT’ PITCH DATED 09/22/94 & LYNCH ‘BB’
CONCEPTS PAGE DATED 12/12/95 —
HEAVILY EDITED FOR SITE
NOTE: ‘150,000 VOLT FLUSH’ SKETCH BY ALEX WALD CAN BE VIEWED FURTHER
BELOW

JAY LUNCH ‘DOREST DUMPER’ SKETCHES + ALEX WALD ‘HOT SEAT’
SKETCHES —
HEAVILY EDITED FOR SITE
NOTE: “NEEDS WHEELS, I KNOW…” COMMENT BY ALEX WALD

The 1st Series second print-run character, for cards 28a Hot RODNEY
and 28b Racin’ MASON, is the only toilet on wheels, and the only
conceptualization from the Babes in Toiletland submission pitch that
made it into the later Bathroom Buddies set. Perhaps the the private
act of relieving oneself wasn’t relatable on wheels.