I regret I don't have any Christmas-themed objet's d' Topps to share this year but have no fear -a whole buncha of product updates from Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins are here!
What's odd is that the lip-licking kid has been redrawn (a tip o'the Santa hat to Mark Newgarden for that observation). It's slight but the two images not the same. The fruits orbiting his head are new as well. I get the additions to his noggin's solar system but the changed main image is a little mystifying. Also of note, the gum count has doubled, to 160 pieces of "ballgum" as they say up North:
The back panel is fruity:
The U.S. box had a Bazooka ad but in in Canada a side panel recreated the image from the (U.S.) box top, with the sparkly gumballs in orbit.
Speaking of fruity gum, a Wild Cherry Flavor Mates wrapper also exists:
That makes five flavors now:
Banana
Fruit Punch
Grape
Orange
Wild Cherry
Interestingly the Banana and Fruit Punch flavors are clearly identified as having "Imitation Flavor" on the main "splash" of their wrappers and both of those carry a commodity code. The Orange and Wild Cherry flavors only note natural and artificial flavors in the ingredients indicia and carry no code, so I wonder if they predate their imitation brethren? The codes started sometime in 1966 and while there could have been tests of the product, or a tweaking of ingredients it may have just been a matter of timing on each wrapper's design and implementation.
I'm still looking for a good scan of the Grape wrapper and any other variants that might exist but this blurry image (also from Lonnie) is inconclusive as to what is written thereon, but don't believe I see a commodity code or any large "Imitation Flavor" wording, so it adheres to the present "no code/no imitation" protocol:
Lonnie also sent along a much more vivid partial box cover scan that makes me think our flavors have maxed out at five:
That's all four known individual fruit flavors indicated, with fruit punch implied, I guess! That's some enticing artwork but I don't think it helped sales much.
When Topps issued the 1967 Funny Travel Posters set, they were also wrangling with their first Wacky Packages issue. I've mostly stayed away from the Wacky's here as they are so well documented elsewhere but of the eighteen different mascots depicted on the Madison Avenue poster I've been dissecting here for the past two weeks, eight appear in the first run of Wacky Packages. Often referred to as die-cuts, the 1967 release is the ur-Wacky Packages set and it featured gummed-backs, meaning you had to moisten what was a die cut subject to get it to stick.
It's hard to believe now but it wasn't a massive success, although it did have at least three press runs including at least one into 1968, which also seem related to cease-and-desist letters. As would be the pattern, a number of subjects were withdrawn when these letters were received by Topps, so those stickers were pulled and replaced by another on the sheet. It would be the 1973 series of peelable stickers that truly kicked off Wacky-mania although it pretty much was created using the same Art Spiegelman roughs (his first major Topps assignment) and Norman Saunders finished artwork that kicked things off in 1967.
Here's what the original 1967 release looked like when presented to the youth of America, thanks to a killer image I found over at wackypacks.com:
Right away, you can see two of the brand mascots from the Funny Travel Posters set were used on the box. Let's start with the duck.
The Quaker Oats Quaker from the poster set was, like the other mascots depicted, done relatively straight:
Not so much with the Wacky stickers:
And there's no way that wasn't meant to look like Donald Duck! Plus, he appears to be a little stoned, which may be intentional given the involvement of Spiegelman.
Our other box inhabitant is a bit more stern and menacing:
Yikes! Well Mr. Clean does seem capable of taking care of himself I'd say. As seen below, he clearly worked out.
Alongside our earring-ed friend, we have two other mascots that made their was onto Wacky Packages. As mentioned above, Topps always included something of their own when poking fun at other products. As most of you probably know, they began this form of self protection with Gadzooka:
Meanwhile, in the land of hangovers:
Kinda funny how that actually has come to pass, right White Claw fans?
Cracker Jack got roughed up a bit. Compare this...
...to this:
Ouch!
You have to wonder what Li'l Green Sprout would have thought of his dad had he ever seen this:
Quite a change from our smiling friend here:
He's a thirsty one it seems, but the parody version sure looks like fun!
We conclude this silly series under a gray cloud:
Morton Salt actually used the "When it rains it pours" slogan to demonstrate that its salt would still flow in inclement weather. I'm assuming there was some kind of tackiness problem with all salts on rainy days before then but who knows? Well, it looks like Topps knew:
Other mascots from the Madison Avenue poster would appear in later releases of Wacky Packages, but these eight were the original imposters!
Picking up where I left off before Turkey Day weekend, this will continue my look at the Madison Avenue entry from 1967's Funny Travel Posters. First though, here's a look at the retail wrapper and box:
Pretty eye-catching but the box is even nicer, with excellent mini-poster reproductions from the set beckoning:
The set was remaindered by Topps, so it clearly wasn't a big seller. They sloughed it off as part of a promotion called Sale-A-Bration that packaged together several languishing sets that presumably had a nice discount when ordered as part of the deal. Based upon the commodity codes of other sets in the promotion, it looks to have been a 1968-69 endeavor.
You can't see it but the back panel of the box has a playful version of the the curved Topps logo, with some little kids playing about it:
Now, back to Madison Avenue....specifically the bottom row of the poster:
Let's start with the Morton Salt Girl and move left. She is still one of America's most identifiable brand mascots after a mere 110 years. Her look had evolved quite a bit since her 1914 debut and Topps looks like they used the 1956 version for the poster; it would be updated yet again a year later:
If you have a sweet tooth, or even if you don't but have had it foisted on you at a ballgame or kids party, you know that Cracker Jack has been filling dentist's coffers for over 125 years. The Sailor Boy logo is just as well-known as the Morton Salt Girl and, as it turns out, it originally depicted the founder's son and his dog Bingo, who both debuted in 1918. There is a Topps connection or two with the snack as they put out a two panel set commemorating the first 1982 Cracker Jack Old Timers Classic played in Washington DC that year:
About 200 Million boxes of Cracker Jack are sold every year and that sometimes seems like the number of uncut panels Topps printed up of the set back then as well! The game, which was a charity event, was well-advertised and televised nationally so Topps got a lot of publicity for what I believe was a handout at the game and also a premium offer. Luke Appling, 75 years young, took 61 year-old Warren Spahn deep in the bottom of the first, which was a pretty big story when it happened:
My favorite part of Cracker Jack is the elusive peanut, as it nicely rounds out a handful of this stuff, and I'll bet it's not a coincidence Mr. Peanut is sauntering by the Sailor on the poster. More iconic branding from 1918 here kids:
After a relatively stable ninety years or so, the monocled, walking legume with the elegant top hat has turned into a creepy, nightmarish looking thing-yikes!
Next up is Nipper, the longtime mascot for RCA Victor. Any number of mutts have been portrayed as the music loving canine over the years, so the one Topps used looks more approximate than specific. Heres' a more classic looking version:
Alka Seltzer is still with us, although you can just use baking soda dissolved in water to get the desired relief and save some dough. The brand mascot was known as Speedy, although he morphed from an earlier character called Sparky in 1951. Speedy was retired in 1964, although it was well-known enough to be featured by Topps and it eventually returned in the mid-70's and has been seen sporadically since. Here's a 1976 version in wonderful stop-motion animation that features a song some of you may have had burned into your brains if you are of a certain age:
Next up, using a method that was also used in Wacky Packages for '67 and forever after, we see Bazooka Joe. Topps would always include their mascot, or a brand of theirs, in the product parody sets. This would theoretically stave off lawsuits but it sure didn't stop the cease and desist letters! The post-Wesley Morse version of Joe was trending toward this look, as seen three years later on this 1970 Bazooka Bits pouch:
Mr. Clean here reminds me of the little sanitation worker who cleaned up after the Muses at the end of Peabody's Improbable History. He still looks pretty much the same today as he did when introduced in 1958, although he was an actual human being then:
Finally, we get to our last mascot, one from Pillsbury's Funny Face drink mix, which really completes a spiral of sorts! The drink mix powder competed with Kool-Aid but as I recall it, wasn't nearly as good and featured some nasty artificial sweetener. Funny Face had killer graphics and commercials though and their mascots, at least the non-racist ones, were rad. Here's one now:
I mentioned 1967 Wacky Packages earlier, didn't? Well eight of the mascots here were also parodied in the inaugural set of stickers and I'll take a look at those next time.
Some time ago (almost exactly seven years to be precise) I took a look at the 1967 Topps Funny Travel Posters set, one of their classic large format sets of the late Sixties. One of the posters therein thoroughly mocks Madison Avenue and in doing so, portrays several character mascots loved by generations of consumers, So I thought it would be fun over this week's post and next's to break down the roster, almost of of which were eventually animated, and seen on television about a gazillion times, some of which are very much still still in use today. In addition, I'll follow up with a look at the various Wacky Packages products that lampooned the products represented below the next time or two out.
Here is the poster, featuring Wally Wood and Wood Studio art and my favorite of the 24 in the set:
Let's start in the upper left corner of this tour de force. Since 1870 that red devil mascot, in one form or another, has adorned cans of Underwood's products, only one of which - their ham sandwich spread - is actually "deviled", and it may be the oldest food trademark in the U.S. It's changed over the years (haven't we all?) but its continual use for over 150 years is quite impressive. I'm partial to said deviled ham myself and also like their liverwurst spread.
Next is the jumping Hertz man as we move Southeast. I'm not sure he was ever animated, so this is one of the two or three mascots on the poster that is a bit fanciful in execution. OJ Simpson famously portrayed him a few years after the poster was created but the character has been represented by many actors over the years.
I will not show OJ but here is a 1960's classic and brassy commercial that gives you an idea of how this looked in "real" life:
The Jolly Green Giant is next and boy is he prominent! Once again, well known and still used as a mascot today for Green Giant products. The original giant was created by Leo Burnett, an ad man who became so well known that he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century. It's worth noting his classic "ho ho ho" catchphrase was not quite yet in use when Topps issued the set.
The character climbing up the Jolly Green Giant is not the little Green Sprout (a 1972 creation) but rather the mascot for Peter Pan Peanut Butter and in fact the product initially used the Disney version of the character before it turned into the one seen on the poster, which lasted about a decade:
The JGG is holding a pitcher of Kool-Aid and gives us yet another mascot in use today, the prosaic Kool-Aid Man! Known today for his wall-breaking entrances, that gimmick was a few years away still in 1967. here's a compilation of some of the earlier "breakthroughs":
Leaping leftward, we get the Esso Tiger filling up a car full of Snap, Crackle and Pop, the three Rice Krispies mascots. You know them well but did you know the Rolling Stones recorded a song for a TV commercial about the cereal? Yep:
This seems to have required some aforethought as it's easy to think Tony the Tiger was doing the pumping but it's not the Frosted Sugar Flakes mascot overfilling the tank. It's this guy, a favorite mascot of mine as a kid:
I am not 100% certain that the leaking tire on the car, which is being punctured by a knight in armor on horseback from an old series of Ajax commercials, isn't also something from Madison Avenue like a tire commercial but I can't find anything on point. Meanwhile, Ajax is stronger than dirt:
In the middle of all is the the Quaker Oats Quaker:
And let's not forget my favorite cereal character of all time, Cap'n Crunch. The Jay Ward commercials that ran for years featuring his crew of Alfie, Brunhilde, Carlyle, Dave and Sea Dog were as good as many cartoons of the day, if not better; no surprise as the studio launched Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle, among others. Jay Ward Productions animated Quisp & Quake of course and several other cereal and snack brand commercials that were staples of weekday after-school cartoon programming and the Saturday Morning kiddie shows. Cap'n Crunch is too cloying for me these days but the sweet memories live on:
Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes passed along this little bit of fun some time ago and I'm just now managing to show it. I would have bought this product had I seen this box:
That looks really cool, right?! I'm estimating it as early Sixties, based upon the box-bottom indicia:
Can't say I've seen many, if any, 80 count boxes from that era but this was one.
Another weird one was Giant Bubble Gum, which I believe was a twist wrap product from around the same time, maybe even a smidge earlier. This is courtesy of Lonnie Cummins:
A short time ago I took an unexpected peek at Topps Flavor Mates gum, which was one of the things packed into the mysterious Wild Animal Surprise Box. It's a byway in Topps history but the highlighting of Imitation Flavor is not something they would often promote. Here's a Fruit Punch flavor, to go along with the previously seen Grape, Orange and Banana:
I think that commodity code ends in a -9...
...so it's 1969 addition to the line as the Banana flavor included in the Wild Animal box dates to 1968, while the Orange has no code that I've seen and the Grape is indeterminate due to lack of a good scan.
Finally, how about some original artwork for Gold Rush, as painted by Norm Saunders, as shown at normansaunders.com:
What's really neat about that artwork is his children, David and Zina, were the hand models:
Gold Rush was always a favorite of mine and when it was all chewed up, which didn't take very long, you got a little pouch that could hold all sorts of things:
Sorry, no Turkey Bubble Gum to show as we approach Thanksgiving!
Topps was chugging along with all sorts of esoteric non-sports issues as the odometer rolled over from 1969 to 1970. This was about year four of an internal underground comix and pop-art influence on Woody Gelman's New Product Development Department (NPD) that was peppering the youth of America with wildly inventive offerings, one of which was an interactive set of 24 subjects called Funny Doors.
It's impossible to miss the connection from which Funny Doors were sprung, namely 1968's Laugh-In subsets of Knock-Knocks and, prosaically, Funny Doors. These both featured a small, hinged piece or two that opened up to reveal a funny saying on the under-flap and also an illustration that peeked through. Topps refined the concept a bit and came up with a pretty humorous set. Here is a typical example:
You can see the hinges for each little door; slightly bending the card allowed the purchaser to pry them open with their thumb, thereby ensuring a form of limited self-destruction that Topps seemed to revel in.
The setup was ingenious, with the inside surface of the door sometimes offering a word or short phrase that related to the revealed illustration.
When printed front-and-back, the card was folded over and then sealed by Topps. As you may have surmised if unfamiliar with the set, these measure 2 1/2" x 4 11/16".
I've not seen enough of these in fully opened form (my set is 100% unopened) to know if there was something on the backside of each door but based upon this stack o'proofs from an old Huggins & Scott auction, I'm going with only some having this little extra appended on there:
The wrapper almost says it all:
Note the 1969 commodity code. It's possible the set was green-lit in 1969 and released in 1970 but that 423 product number could cement it in '69; more research is needed there. And I say "almost" as there was a surprise inside the pack, a checklist card!
Standard-sized, it would have bounced a round a bit in the pack. It had instructions on the back:
Some original art has popped up over the years, it's pretty neat:
A tissue overlay is known for this piece, it has some of the "inside" line art still extant and glue spots where some fell off:
I can't swear I've seen a retail box for the set but surely one exists as cards from the set, while assuredly not easy, can be found and that wrapper shown above is post-test.
