He was handed a minimal budget and the task of building seven animatronic mutant children who had to emote while vomiting, urinating, and breaking into musical numbers about being yourself.

THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987) was directed by Rod Amateau, a television veteran whose credits stretched back to The Burns and Allen Show.

The animatronics were built by MacKinnon and Saunders, who would later go on to far more dignified work on Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Mars Attacks!

The plot involves a bullied teenager, a magic garbage can, an antique shop, and a fashion designer villain who wants to skin the Kids for their hides. There is a song called "We Can Do Anything" performed in a nightclub. There is a sequence in a State Home for the Ugly. There is a character named Valerie Vomit.

The film was marketed to children. It was rated PG. Parents who took their kids were, by most accounts, horrified.

Topps had produced thirteen episodes of a Saturday morning cartoon as a tie-in. Parent advocacy groups pressured CBS into cancelling it before it even aired.

The film was pulled from theaters quickly and savaged by critics. Siskel and Ebert devoted an entire segment of their show to it, with Ebert calling it one of the worst films he had ever seen.