Schlemiel Schlimazel

Every few months I post about some in house Topps productions used to pitch ideas by the Product Development team to the brass. Many of these mockups take existing cards and have added artwork or they take a photo from a third party and added a couple of design elements. One such mockup is for Laverne & Shirley, the long-running show from the 70's and early 80's.

Long thought of as very difficult test cards, these are clearly meant for in-house use only:

You can see here the blue border was stuck on since it's deteriorating.  The show logo and the word balloon are also add-ons, as is the photo itself-the whole thing is an art department creation.  This one is in a little better shape:

While very rare, these are not in the same category as tests and final proofs but are true corporate treasures from Topps. In fact, if you go to this Robert Edward Auctions listing from a while back, you can see these two cards on a presentation board.

Three other shows rumored to exist as cards: Green Acres, I Dream of Jeannie and F Troop, may in fact have been sighted as presentation board mockups.  Another rumored set is called Dixie but there was never a TV show by that name that I have been able to find. I want to keep digging for scans of those cards. SInce there wer no more than a handful made, they are quite elusive!