The Wacky Pack


 * This article is about the comic book. For the protagonists, see The Wacky Pack (characters).

The Wacky Pack is an American comic book series and media franchise centered a group of imaginary friends that consists of Miguel, Rhett and Arthur. The series was created by Mala Miles and first published by Bear Bones Comics in September 1987 and ended in December 2001.

The Wacky Pack franchise began as a comic and expanded into advertising, movies, TV series, video games, theme parks, and toys.

History
The Wacky Pack was first conceived in 1981. Originally, the group was supposed to have six members, but Mala wanted to make the group smaller, which instead had three members. Mala came up a name of the group, called The Wonder Squad!. Other rejected titles for the group include The Epic Team, Crazy Group, Team Ron, Three Cool Guys and Ron, Co. Mala then also came up the names "Ron, Don and Jon" (original names for Miguel, Rhett and Arthur) for the three members as a temporary name for the starring characters. The name was never meant to be final, due both to the name sounding "too twiny." The characters were effectively small, imaginary white human boys by August 1982, finally re-titled The Wacky Pack, but were still referred to as "Ron, Don and Jon" because final names had not been formulated yet. Mala chose to base Ron as a "awesome, wacky and intelligent leader of the group", for Don as "annoying and rude" and for Jon as the "youngest one who is scared of anything like spiders, etc."

On March 5, 1983, Mala drew the first sketch of Ron, Don and Jon. Liking how the sketches looked, Mala later came up another character named "Lay". Mala stated that "Lay" was chosen because of its similarity to the Lays chips. Mala described the character as "the group's brother and a boy genius." He later drew a sketch of Lay on that same day. Mala then had a idea to make characters that describe as "small, cute, funny, imaginary elves with little self-control who work for the group." They were originally just simply named as elves but Mala wanted the name more funnier, which he later called them "Lars", although Mala said that the name Lars is actually a common male name in Nordic and German-speaking countries. However, Mala later heard that the name "lar" is actually the name for the lar gibbon, a primate in the gibbon family Hylobatidae. Then Mala ignored it and kept the name.

In November 1983, Mala decided to finally rename the characters Miguel, Rhett, and Arthur. The characters (including Lay and the lars) first appeared on Mala's children's picture book Can You Be So Wonderful? in 1984. In 1986, Mala announced that the characters would be the main characters of his upcoming comic book series that he is working on, titled The Wacky Pack, which slated for a 1987 release. The first issue of The Wacky Pack was originally set to be released in June 1987, but Mala wanted to make more time to work on the comic book series. It was instead later pushed to September 1987 by Marvel Comics.

Characters
The Wacky Pack is a group of imaginary friends that consists Miguel, Rhett and Arthur and the main characters of the series of the same name. However, their brother and scientist/inventor Lay is not actually one of the members of the group, although he's one of the main characters of the series. They first appeared on Mala's children's book Can You Be So Wonderful? in 1984. Then they later appeared in the first issue of The Wacky Pack by Dark Horse Comics in September 1987, where Miguel, Rhett, Arthur, Lay, and the lars were transported to Earth from the dying planet of Wackizia.

The Wacky Pack's arch-nemesis is Lord V. He is the Lars and the Black Group's leader and boss.

Films
Paramount Pictures began a trilogy of computer-animated Wacky Pack films, with the first film, titled The Wacky Pack, released on November 27, 2011. It was directed by Jeff Fowler and co-directed by Mala Miles. The film stars the voices of Zachary Gordon, E.G. Daily, Nicky Jones, Jake T. Austin, Jenny Slate, Sarah Jessica Parker, Nick Offerman, Amanda Bynes, and Alan Tudyk.

The film received generally positive reviews by both fans and film critics, with critics praising its humor and character development. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $439 million in the United States and $538 million worldwide. A sequel to The Wacky Pack, titled Wacky Pack 2, was released on November 21, 2014. A prequel/spin-off, titled Wacky Pack and Lars was released in 2016 as a direct-to-video film.

Television series
An animated television series based on the comic book series was created by series' creator Mala Miles. The television series was aired on Fox Kids on October 16, 1993 and ended on March 3, 1997.

DVD releases
Coming soon!

Crossovers
Coming soon!

Merchandising
Coming soon!

Theme park attractions
Coming soon!

Video games
The Wacky Pack have appeared in video games made for most major game consoles (including Nintendo's NES, Super NES, and Game Boy systems GameCube, Sega's Game Gear, Master System, Genesis and Sega CD systems, Sony's original PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and Microsoft's Xbox) and for the PC.