Hopped Up

Way back in 1950, when television was really starting to take off, a need, quickly voracious, for content developed. With some foresight in this mad scramble, William Boyd, who had gained fame by portraying the good-guy cowboy Hopalong Cassidy in dozens of old "oaters" that were staples of Saturday movie matinees in the Thirties and Forties, acquired the rights to and packaged up a gaggle of his old movies and had them formatted for the boob tube.  If Hoppy wasn't the first kids fad fueled by Tee Vee it wasn't far behind.  It also set the stage (sorry), along with the Lone Ranger, for a phalanx of kiddie TV Westerns to follow.

Topps took advantage and made their first major foray into licensed character products with Hoppy.  A long series of cards were issued (stay tuned for a post on these), along with a virtually unknown saddle bag pack with candy inside.  I've posted, albeit briefly, about the saddle bag before, which is a thing of wonder:

For a product made of thin carboard, it's very well-designed.  Check out the back:

Given the ingredients, I suspect the candy was like Sugar Babies, or very similar. The one thing the packaging lacks, despite the ornateness, is color. Topps took care of that with a product called Hoppy's Wagon Wheel Pops. You got fifteen pops, in a box that had some other features beyond lolly-holstering:

Friend o'the Archive Dan Bretta, provided the above color image and most of the ones below.  Here's the all important indicia:

Topps made a go of selling candy for about eight years, including a run of Christmas-themed lollipops, but shut down their Candy Division in 1951. Thanks to Chris Benjamin's Sport Americana Guide to the Non-Sports Cards, we know what the lolly wrapper looked like:

There was a nice surprise inside the box as well:

As you can see, that is puzzle number two.  California Carlson was one of Hoppy's sidekicks and a kid could have a rootin' tootin' good time connecting the dots there to cipher what he was up to with that lasso. We'll get to a count momentarily but the big prize was the advertised picture of the star of the series on the box back. Mr. Bretta sent me images of two of these. I think I'll dub this one "Hoppy Gazing":

Here's Hoppy atop his horse, Topper:

You can see how the box lid fit over the box bottom, like old sets of record albums.  I have one of these myself, (a proof) and scans of two others:

It's muddy but that upside down wording states: "Please note: Every box of Hoppy Wagon Wheel Pops features one of six Hopalong Cassidy portraits and one of six Hoppy Pop Puzzles"

So good clues there, although I'm not sure why that statement isn't on all the other portraits I've seen so far except this one:

The pictures with the statement are all smaller and show a lot more white border than the ones without it and I wonder if Topps reissued Hoppy Pops again in 1951 before their license ran out. This one doesn't look cut down but check out Hoppy's gun-it looks hand drawn! There's a lot of added whites on the jacket and hat too, which is quite possibly the handiwork of Ben Solomon.

It's plausible they each come both ways but that needs to be verified somehow and these are now hard things to find.

Right now we have one Puzzle:

#2 California Lassoing

While 5/6ths of the portrait checklist is as follows:

• Hoppy Gazing
• Hoppy Atop Topper
• Hoppy Next to Topper With Gun (and Topper looks partially illustrated to me)
• Hoppy in Relaxed Pose
• Hoppy Pointing Gun In Front of Mountains

I'd love to get the portrait checklist finished off if anyone has the last subject handy but think finishing the puzzle checklist off could be "California Dreaming."