Friday, February 23, 2024

1990 Confex Nasty Tricks

 Today on APTBNL, we've got a wax pack of Nasty Tricks, from 1990.



Each pack contains 6 cards, 8 stickers, and 1 stick of bubble gum. Here's an image of the back of the wrapper:




It appears as if there were 68 different individual cards in the set, and 64 different individual stickers. Underneath the flap, the text states that these were made and printed in Argentina. The copyright is for a company called Confex Inc., based in New Jersey. 
 
First up, let's look at the 6 cards.




Sheep dipping is an actual, literal thing where farmers dip their sheep in a liquid solution to keep the wool free from infestation (mites, flies, ticks, and lice).
 
Look closely, and you'll see that each card is separated into two panels, with a perforation. So even though the wax pack says "6 cards", you really get 12 wacky tricks. Good value! The cards are made of a thick, tan-colored cardboard. They're blank on the back.




The Director of the Venus Beauty Academy is Venus DeMilo. Mildly clever. As for the bottom panel, 1990 was still "peak skateboard" time, so it's understandable why this one would have been created and included in the set.




The text on the top panel seems like it would a good fit for the back of a Garbage Pail Kids sticker. And I suppose the bottom card was designed to try to fool your friends or family when you're playing Monopoly with them.




I don't know why you'd want that ID. Maybe it's meant to give to a friend. As for the Nashinul Speling Sosiety, I can appreciate that joke. 
 



I think lots of kids would have wanted quite a few of those homework exemption cards. As for the eye chart, I was searching for a joke within all those letters, but I couldn't find one.




Finally, here's a klutz training certificate, and one of my favorites of the bunch, "Intergalactic Exchange Student".


Now the stickers, which came two per sheet, and were numbered.


 
The housefly got the worst of the piece of nasty gum that was in the wax pack, as you can see.




This one has a little damage, too.




The fake ink blot is a nice touch. I might have stuck that on someone else's homework.




As for these two, I'd recommend decorating your notebook or Trapper Keeper.


So that's that. For the first time ever on APTBNL, a wax pack of Nasty Tricks from 1990!
 
Have you ever heard of this set? Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading.

3 comments:

CaptKirk42 said...

Never heard of it, but it does seem like a fun set. At first glance at the pack I thought it would be a poorman's Wacky Packages, but it is more sort of a poorman's business card parody set.

Fuji said...

Very cool! I actually have a couple of the cards from this product, but had no idea what set it was from. Thanks!

gregory said...

CaptKirk42: "Poor man's business card parody set" is a great way of describing it!

Fuji: Glad this post helped you solve the mystery! Interestingly, a checklist does not yet appear on TCDB. It turns out a lot of those panels and stickers were printed in various combinations. It'd be a lot of work to try and figure them all out.