Sources: Wikidata. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie arrived in 1987 from Atlantic Releasing, a low-budget attempt to translate Topps' notorious trading card line into a feature. It landed amid controversy, condemned by critics and parent groups alike, yet it has endured as a strange artifact of eighties merchandising cinema, a curio prized by collectors of both film ephemera and the original card series it sprang from.
This cell pairs Dodger, played by Mackenzie Astin, with Tangerine, played by Katie Barberi, the film's human leads amid the puppet ensemble. Their shared presence marks one of the story's connective threads, the ordinary teenage world brushing against the Kids' chaos. For collectors, a 35mm cell holding both actors together is a direct link to the human side of a production remembered mostly for its creature work.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm color release print of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area.
Edge print
Edge print reads reversed as 'S.A.T.E.' consistent with emulsion-up placement; full key number sequence not legible in this capture.
Base & colour
Base shows a warm yellow-amber tint typical of processed color print stock; dye image appears saturated with strong blue values, no obvious fading.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive color image; all three frames appear to be from the same continuous shot, consistent with a release print of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987).
Era check
The variable-area optical soundtrack, warm amber base, and saturated Eastmancolor-style dye image are all consistent with a mid-to-late 1980s theatrical release print.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000062953
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
