When Wacky Packages ruled

By Todd Leopold
CNN

(CNN) -- I blame Wacky Packages for making me the man I am today.

Though there have been attempts to bring them back, Wacky Packages' heyday was in the early '70s.

At 9 years old, I became hooked on the Topps-brand sticker series of product parodies, which recast Cap'n Crunch as "Cap'n Crud" and Nestle's Quik as "Nutlee's Quit" ("Explodes Instantly with Milk").

From there, it was a short trip to Mad magazine, "Saturday Night Live," National Lampoon, punk rock, trolling used-book stores and record stores, and indulging in other mind-rotting activities (memorizing trivia, creating puns) until I became the skeptical, disillusioned writer you have before you.

So, to Wacky Packages, I can only say: Thank you.

Not that Topps, or more specifically illustrator Art Spiegelman and writer Jay Lynch -- goaded by Topps' Woody Gelman and Len Brown -- knew the import of the work. In the preface to the new book "Wacky Packages" (Abrams), a collection of the first seven series of the Topps cards, Spiegelman -- yes, the same Art Spiegelman who won a Pulitzer Prize for "Maus" -- remembers the creation of Wackies as being "a dream job," but something that would probably be forgotten.

"It was all done as Part of a Day's Work, much like the way early comic books were made: they certainly weren't made as art, they weren't sold as art, and they weren't thought of as art," he says in the book's introduction. "Wacky Packages just formed an island of subversive underground culture in the surrounding sea of junk."

Lynch, a childhood friend of Spiegelman's who worked on Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids and other Topps series, agrees.

"I didn't know they were that memorable until about 12 years ago, with the Internet," he says in an interview. (Several Web sites have been devoted to the cards, notably Greg Grant's Wacky Packages pages.) "Before that, I didn't think of it as any more important than the other series."

an the LA paparazzi be tamed?

By Peter Bowes
BBC News, Los Angeles

The Los Angeles paparazzi are as much as part of Hollywood life as the studios, celebrities and publicists.

Snapping stars is big business for the legions of photographers who stake out the clubs, restaurants and shopping malls of Beverly Hills.

But all that could change if new laws are brought in to curb the activities of the paparazzi.

In recent months there have been some ugly incidents in which photographers are widely believed to have overstepped the mark.

The day Britney Spears was taken from her home on a stretcher and ferried to a local hospital, scores of tabloid photographers swarmed around her ambulance.

Flagrant flouting

A police helicopter and a dozen officers on motorbikes were drafted in to escort the singer, at a reported cost to the local authority of $25,000 (£13,000).

"We can't afford to drain that type of resource from the police department," says Dennis Zine, a member of the Los Angeles City Council.

Photographer Nick Stern thinks new laws would curb press freedom

"We need to come up with something to control the situation. Normally somebody is in an ambulance and it gets to the hospital without any kind of impediment.

"In this particular case it was impeded because of the paparazzi."

Tabloid photographers have also developed a reputation for flagrantly flouting traffic laws. Many will think nothing of rushing into a busy street with a camera at the ready if it means they can get a shot of a celebrity in their car.

"Everyone thinks they're going to get the photograph of the century," says Mr Zine.

"It becomes a mob mentality. It's like a pack of wolves, a swarm of bees going after their prey. That's the issue that we really need to contend with and we need to come up with a solution."

Another widely-reported skirmish involving the paparazzi occurred when actor Matthew McConaughey went surfing in Malibu.

'Tropic Thunder' pushes envelope and then some

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- There's no question "Tropic Thunder" takes chances.

Ben Stiller, left, and Robert Downey Jr. are among the stars of "Tropic Thunder," a Hollywood satire.

Tom Cruise almost unrecognizable as a foulmouthed, foul-mannered movie executive? Check. Mockery of action heroes, Method actors and gross-out comedians? Check. Challenging stereotypes at every opportunity? Absolutely.

But casting Robert Downey Jr. as a black man? Well, that might be a bit much.

Or maybe not.

In "Tropic Thunder," a comedy about self-absorbed Hollywood types making a "Platoon"-style war movie, Downey plays Australian actor Kirk Lazarus, a multiple Oscar-winning performer who gets so involved in his roles that he forgets to come out of them. He's a man constantly looking for ways to transform himself for his art.

So, cast as a black man in the war movie, Lazarus decides to dye his skin surgically.

Downey -- no slouch as an actor himself -- has often been seen as one who immerses himself fully in his roles. That kind of dedication prevented the character from coming off as offensive, said Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote and stars in "Tropic Thunder."

"I give all the credit to Robert," Stiller told CNN. "I felt he really was so committed to that character, the guy that was playing that guy, that as an audience you bought his sincerity. Very few people, I think, could pull that off."

Brandon Jackson, who plays hip-hop star turned actor Alpa Chino (say it fast), agreed.

"Robert was black the whole time. My mom came on the set and she thought it was Don Cheadle," he told CNN. "I'm serious. That's how black he was."