And That's The Truth....pffffttttttt

1968 saw a number of wildly inventive sets come out of the increasingly underground-centric New Product Development Department at Topps. Woody Gelman's gang of hirsute pranksters sure look like they got a green-light from the company's top brass to go wild once the move of production facilities to Duryea was fully wrapped up, as many of the designs coming out of Brooklyn thereafter were in sync with the hippie and psychedelic zeitgeist of the next half-decade or so. Their most zeitgeist-iest set of all, with the possible exception of Nasty Valentine Notes in 1972, was 1968's Laugh-In.  At a time when Be-Ins and Love-Ins were becoming daily television news fodder, the  creation of a TV show that embraced the counterculture turned out to be a master stroke by NBC and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, while very much a product of its times, was the (sometimes) quite funny result.

Dan Rowan and Dick Martin's blackout-centric sketch comedy show premiered on NBC in January 1968 but had been preceded by a September 1967 special that did so well the network placed a fourteen episode order. It replaced The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (covered mostly here Topps-wise, and which was a Mid-Century Modern visual wonderland) and took off immediately. By the time Laugh-In ended six seasons later in 1973, 140 episodes had aired. The show spawned a pair of stars (Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin most prominently) and featured a handful or two of well-known secondary cast members such as Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley and Flip Wilson, with a fluid supporting cast that kept things somewhat fresh from season-to season. Early on several catchphrases (memes today kids) such as "Here Comes Da Judge" and "Your Bet Your Sweet Bippy" quickly made their way into hip conversations. 

High-profile guest celebrities of all ages and eras, including Richard Nixon, Jack Benny, Ringo Starr plus many others were the norm. The top-rated network show during its first two full seasons, it snagged seven Emmy Awards before things ran their course as viewer fatigue waxed and the influence of the Sixties on popular culture inevitably waned.

Merchandising opportunities presented themselves immediately and among the tie-ins was a gloriously irreverent and colorful 77 subject set issued by Topps that featured six distinct subsets and 24 bonus subject sticker inserts. Taking past influences into account for some of the designs and foreshadowing several others that would soon be unleashed, Laugh-In is a thoroughly fun romp through a very strange time.

33 Color Photo Cards, with a kitschy joke added via word balloon, kicked things off, each with an equally colorful puzzle piece on the reverse (more on  those in a bit). Here's Goldie:

And here's a puzzle piece:

Four puzzles can be made, three consisting of nine pieces and another with a mere six.  They feature what are pretty much the aboriginal catchphrases from the show. A really killer proof of all four exists:

Why poor Dan Rowan didn't get puzzled will have to remain a mystery. The 33 photo cards would have been proofed separately at this point and while I don't have the appropriate front scan, it's clear this isn't a mix-and-match situation as its each photo front card was backed by one distinct and discrete puzzle piece. 

These were followed by 12 Knock-Knock cards that incorporate elements of another subset (more on this is a minute):

Did I mention this was not a highbrow show?

11 Necklace cards follow and these were designed to be chained together.  It's an idea whose time came and went immediately I'd say:

Yes, repetition of themes in the set was legion!

Topps soldiered on, next adding 6 Finger Puppet cards.  These are almost always found with the holes punched out:

The even referred to each subject by name in a specific way on the reverse:

9 Funny Door cards come next and these are somewhat similar to the Knock-Knocks. This might be the most gloriously far out design in the entire set:

As noted above, these and the Knock Knocks essentially use the same gimmick. 

The set concludes with 7 Foldee cards, bringing back a design first used in 1963 and 1966, but stretched back to a forebear in 1949's Funny Foldees. Here's Arte Johnson and Ruth Buzzi:

Joe Anne Worley is the star of the card back here:

Laugh-In cards were issued in 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" standard size and the subsets were all grouped together consecutively in the main numbering scheme.

Elements from this set would be repeated in the 1969 Topps Pak o' Fun set, 1970's Funny Doors (post coming soon) and a smattering of others, including 1988's Pee Wee's Playhouse. 

There is a proof sheet known for the 44 card block of the "other" designs, all lined up nice and neat:

I cannot find images of any press sheets so can't say whether Topps composed all 33 color cards across 132 slots (in a 4x array), then all 44 cards across another 132 card slots (3x array), or if they mixed and matched.  Given that the 44 non-photo subjects all feature either metamorphic or die-cut cards, I suspect the latter.

24 yellow insert stickers, which measure 1 15/16" x 2 15/16" came in the packs.  The were dubbed Goldie's Laugh-Ons and they continue the themes found on the cards:

The stickers were blank-backed:

The wrapper is a little staid to my eye, given the riotous treatment given the cards:

That chemical magic set was also offered on the Bazooka Toppscience boxes.

The retail box though, is a thing of groovy Pop-Art beauty:

A black color process proof of the box exists (sold from the Topps Vault some time ago) and it's a true marvel:

One oddity I have noticed with this set is a non-random intermixing of Topps and OPC cards in many lots when offered for sale. I have no idea why this would be a thing, it's so far beyond the US/Canadian osmosis in any other vintage Topps set I've encountered that there must be a story there.

Laugh-In is really out there as Topps, which was basically run by middle-aged Jewish guys from Brooklyn, leaned into the freakier side of things at a time when it was not necessarily safe for them to do so from a business standpoint.

Candy, Man

Way back in 2009 I posted about the 1951 Baseball Candy set and, as part of what is now a mostly obsolete series of observations, examined how this multi-faceted set might have been assembled and distributed by Topps.  To refresh your collective memories, Baseball Candy was an overarching marketing name and its constituent parts were comprised of what is now considered by the hobby at large to be five separate sets: Red Backs, Blue Backs, Connie Mack All Stars, Major League All Stars and Teams. The latter three were exactly twice the size of the first two, so they all fit neatly together for packaging and printing purposes when the two card panels of the Red and Blue Backs rode along. You can click around on the labels at the right for more details if you like but this is how Topps decided to take on Bowman in the start of what some (not me) have dubbed the Bubble Gum Wars.

There is evidence that the Connie Mack All Stars and Teams were printed together (note the sliver of brownish-orange along the right side of the Mack card)...

That's a color match for sure:

It also seems the Red Backs could have included in at least one, if not two, of the Connie Mack/Teams press runs, thanks to this oddity -a favorite - that resides in my collection: 

It's possible all three red reverse sets could have been arrayed on the same press sheet but it's not a given, even with that with that Senators reverse as they may have run a waste sheet or two. But it sure seems possible. I've not yet seen scans tying the Blue Backs and Major League All Stars together like this; fingers crossed though. 

Topps had issues with distribution of Baseball Candy, and of course there are three Major League All Star cards that are true hobby rarities. I won't get into why and how today (which I have refined since my 2009 post) but I believe combinations of those three rarities (Roberts, Konstanty, Stanky) and the Teams cards could have brought the entire Baseball Candy set down.  Ignoring those Teams cards, which are somewhat scarce in their own right, the blue-themed sets are relatively tougher than their red-themed counterparts and seem to have had only a sole press run, vs. at least two for the Red Backs and Connie Mack All Stars.

This raft of problems left Topps with a bunch of undistributed Red Backs (and Connie Macks), plus a smaller amount of Blue Backs (and possibly MLAS cards) and they had to find ways to dump their excess inventory.  Topps was relatively new at this but had already come up with several solutions for reselling some earlier sets that involved primordial Fun Packs and, for the Red Backs, (and a scant amount of Blue Backs) they blew them out in 1952 in packs of Doubles:

These were marketed a hailing from T.C.G. and had no caramel or other confection in the packs:

But there was also something called the Trading Card Guild, which I believe was created by Topps to:

a) funnel cards to non-confectionery markets, but also

b) dump excess inventory, and

c) possibly allow for third party selling of "dead" sets by sellers like Sam Rosen.

Back in my 2009 Baseball Candy post, (what the heck here it is, take some of it with some salt) I did mention panels of Red Backs had been seen in Trading Card Guild packs that were elongated and made of red cello but until recently I had never seen one.  Well, thanks to a recent Lelands auction, we now have eleven of these sighted, with ten entering the hobby via said auction.  I managed to snag some scans of the packs before they were overwrapped following verification.  As you might imagine, it's a veritable sea of red:

Wowsers!  Flipping them over, one held a surprise:

Yup, that is a Connie Mack All Star (featuring Mickey Cochrane) at bottom right!  What you can't really see is the indicia on these packs but thankfully I have a couple of the wrappers in my collection and it reads like so:

These could have been used for any of the sets Topps issued in two card panel format from 1950-51 (there were eight counting Baseball Candy as one big release) and you can see the 1951 copyright at right.  The oddity here is really the Topps For Toys reference, a division they had originally created around 1948 to market a game. I believe these red cello packs were the last gasp for their toy division.

As mentioned, eleven packs were found but only ten made it to the auction block.  Well it looks like the Luke Easter/Yogi Berra combo was withheld, and I think it could have been consigned by a big time Yankees collector who simply held on to a killer pack:

So here's the thing-could some cello packs of Red Backs potentially have a Connie Mack All Star sandwiched within? If a similar Trading Card Guild pack of Blue Backs ever came up, could it also have a Major League All Star card hidden within?  Questions, questions...

The Last Pale Light In The West

Last week's peek at Hopalong Cassidy lollipops and candy promised a look at the cards released by Topps in 1950, and here we are.  It's not hard to describe the impact Hoppy had on early children's television - "massive" comes to mind quite easily - but he also had outsized influence for Topps. Their first set using a licensed character, Hopalong Cassidy sold and sold and sold,  brought a larger card size (2 1/16" x 2 5/8") and also kicked off a Topps marketing campaign dubbed "Save 'Em-Trade 'Em" that would encompass eight different sets in total.  A cross-promotion with Bond Bread also saw Topps Hoppy cards included with loaves of bread.  

I've previously covered the various Hoppy packs in a post still holds up and you can click on over HERE to see them.  I will show the penny packs, as I think this was what most kids would have seen, based upon the number of surviving wrappers and packs:

You can see the "Save 'Em-Trade 'Em" slogan endlessly repeating on the white wrapper as well:

The release of the set was somewhat complicated.  Topps originally prepared eight separate sub-series that used actual titles from the film depicted and contained anywhere from 21-24 "episodes" accordingly. Each was taken from the more recent Hoppy movie releases (the film release dates range from late November 1946 to July 1948) and assigned a unique color sepia overtone.  This is how the first 186 cards break down:

Numbers	Title	Color	Subset Total
1-23	Dangerous Venture	Blue	23
21-47	Borrowed Trouble	Brown	24
48-71	Hoppy’s Holiday	Pink	24
72-95	False Paradise	Light Green	24
96-117	Unexpected Guest	Black	22
118-141	Devil’s Playground	Dark Green	24
142-165	Fool’s Gold	Red	24
166-186	The Dead Don’t Dream	Purple	21

You will immediately note that there are some odd subset totals when it seems like 24 cards per title would have been the goal. This makes some sense, partially because it's neater but also because there are suggestions that the press sheets used for this size of card during this era had an array of 96. If you break the above into two groups of four, the first totals 95 cards while the second comes to 91. It's possible Topps messed up the "Dangerous Venture" subset for the first group and then had some kind of similar problem with the second but I don't believe that's the case.  Also in the mix: not enough stills were provided to them to get a nice, even 24 subjects per title, or perhaps there were not enough usable images for some. There is also the possibility titles were subbed out and replaced with newer ones as sales figures came in and that could even have included seeding of just a couple of cards from an upcoming title in with the then current titles.

Here's a look at each title:

 

The sepia tints are not all as subtle as that pale looking blue; this brown is pretty much on point:

 

Whereas pink is tending a shade toward red I'd say:  

Those are lining up a little weird, sorry.  I wanted to highlight the fact these can have odd cuts, like the one seen on "Hoppy's Holiday" in glorious pink. Some more now, light green first:

Can black really be a sepia tint?  Topps sure thought so:

Here's some dark green for ya:

The Hopalong Cassidy graphic on the series 5 and 6 cards is smaller than those from the preceding four, which makes me think that first group of four was all printed, or at least designed, together.

Moving on with red:

And a very purple purple:

The graphic regains its size for the last two series of the "low numbers" as you can see above. The highs really do have shockingly bright colors and can't be classified with the tinted cards. They have even more funky cuts sometimes than their predecessors:

Ignore the pumped up color on the last one, it's not mine and I had to nab it from eBay.

Each of the first eight titles also had a companion header card inserted into packs that was printed on foil-these are very desirable, scarce and also a condition nightmare today. While the cards are not widely graded by PSA, the foils, at least relatively speaking to the rest of the set, are. Of the 126 foils submitted to PSA, none grade higher than a 6, with the majority ranging from 1's to 4's. Here's a group shot, from an old Huggins & Scott auction:

Those are in what I would call typical condition for the foils. I wonder if Topps was playing at the "silver screen" with these?  The backs have details on the length of each "movie":

Those may have been withheld until the second batch of four titles were unleashed; it would have been odd for Topps to commit to two series before seeing how the first one sold. A late release of high numbers followed, covering two 22 card series, both in the same garish colors seen above, which look like overexposed Day-Glo and stand in stark contrast to the muted sepia tones of the first eight:

187-208	Silent Conflict	Multicolored	22
209-230	Sinister Journey	Multicolored	22

We know these came later thanks to the five cent wrapper, which is also a scarce item:

You can see the original eight subset titles listed on the nickel pack wrapper, also indicative of packaging once both series were being issued..  These were sold in panelized form, with two cards per panel, and scored, leaving little nubs behind when separated:

Again, scarce items today. Some foils were also panelized and as such, almost impossibly rare now (and show the nubs quite well in relief):

If you tote it all up, there's 230 cards plus the 8 foils. That a whole lotta Hoppy!