Very Nice

All sorts of wondrous non-sports items have been popping up of late, including some really tough Topps test cards. Today's entry is Captain Nice, a failed 30-card test set from 1967 TV show that featured the exploits of a mild-mannered chemist named Carter Nash. Trying to exploit the camp-superhero craze that began with Batman, with a good helping of Marvel-esque angst, the show bombed, despite it being the product of Buck Henry's crazed mind; the success he had with Get Smart clearly could not carry this unfortunate turkey. Launched as a mid-season replacement show on NBC in January 1967, it lasted fifteen episodes and bit the dust by the end of August.

Given its lackluster network showing, Topps created a test set that was bound to fail. Despite the show being aired in color, the cards, which were rendered in black-and-white - albeit with a colorful cartoon on the back of each one - were kind of a letdown. It's a bit odd but Topps hadn't really yet got around to using full color for their TV show related tests in 1967, which I'm guessing was due to the higher costs for color printing. Anyhoo, a proof sheet that provides a look at all 30 cartoons recently had its debut on eBay; check it out:

 

I'll provide a closer look in a sec, but first check this out-the front only used two colors and this proof didn't use the photos, while the back was a full-on four-color test.  Doesn't this look odd?

Here's the card backs, in four groupings:

These are very reminiscent of the cartoon used on the backs of most Land of the Giants cards.

Super colorful, right?

Assuming the show had seen more success than it did, I wonder if the test would have done better featuring the cartoons on the fronts.

Topps repeated the top row of the sheet at the bottom, hence the count of 30 subjects vs an array of 33 cards. Kinda weird but not unheard of with licensed characters.  Here's the row-by-row breakdown:

1 2 3

29 19 14

10 26 10 (more on this shortly)

29 13 23

18 21 11

5 15 25 

12 20 7

22 9 24

4 17 27

8 6 30

1 2 3 (repeat of first row)

You will note there is no number 16 and thanks to the images over at Trading Card Database (click on over, it's a great site) we can see what the two number 10's look like (Topps must have glitched on the second digit):

Combo #1:

And combo B:

Yup, a real yukfest!

Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins sent over some wrapper scans that are also very interesting.  Note how the packs were sealed with the stickers that usually appeared only on the fronts of the packs; Topps used a small ingredients label with these (from a recent find) to seal the white test packs normally because of the bubble gum sold with the cards, so I wonder if this set even hit a retail test or if it got pulled just prior.

Wowsers!

Here's the intro to the show for those of you that are interested, it's pretty ghastly: