There are some Topps sets that live multiple lives.  Topps was an international company very early on in their history, well before they started putting cards into packs and by the mid 70's were established in a couple of dozen countries at least, usually through local licensing deals. Licensees used Topps artwork from US sets for the most part, although sometimes it was the opposite (like the Beatles B&W sets they rushed out in the US that originated in the UK). You could easily fill a book with how they did business in the UK alone during this time.  Canada though, was always their go to secondary market, through a long time association with O-Pee-Chee, of London, Ontario.

I've been trying to piece together a rather devilishly related grouping of cards that start with the 1968 Topps Crazy TV test set and also two semi-related issues with a decidedly Canadian bent.

What I can tell you about Crazy TV is that it was tested in the US as a 22 card set (skip-numbered to 55) and then reissued twice, with at least one reissue probably just relegated to the purgatory of Topps Fun Packs; both reissues were 22 cards in length. There is some packaging material out there and I will address this aspect at the end of this post.

The original test of Crazy TV  (referred to as Type 1)  had a wood grained front and a finished back that presented a humorous cartoon gag under the guise of TV Knock-Knocks, which appeared in an "orange"colored scheme that I don't think is really "salmon" (as per most guides).  There is also a version (Type 2) with identical fronts (wood grain) to the finished cards but with a blank back that is white, possibly indicating a proof, possibly not.  The third type of Crazy TV has a coral colored obverse, with a plain brown back that shows signs of having been in a wax pack. The coral color is darker than the traditional salmon Topps used in the late 60's that allegedly appears on the back of the Type 1 cards and also some other sets that Topps definitely put into Fun Packs.

Here are the various variants:

Type 1, the "regular" test issue and it's more "orange" reverse:



Type 2, possibly a proof with this white back:



Type 3, in "Coral" with a tan/brown back that looks to have been issued in a wax pack:



In terms of lightest to darkest colors, I see Salmon, then Orange in the middle and then the darker Coral. Its hard to tell from my scans but "Gut Smart" is darker than (the pretty racist) "Eye Spy" and it's quite obvious when you compare the two in person.  We'll get to Salmon momentarily but need to go north of the border first, then nip south again before heading north one last time.

As far back as when I first cracked my earliest non-sports reference books--the Sport Americana guides of the late 80's early 90's--I have struggled to understand why Crazy TV, a series called Knock-Knocks (note the lack of a "TV" prefix) and another called Ton O' Laffs have all been lumped together under the Crazy TV rubric but thanks to Friend o'the Archive Terry Gomes, who is deep into Canadian card research and wrote a comprehensive article on the various Ton O' Gum issues that appeared in The Wrapper #299, I now have a clearer understanding.

Terry sent a scan of the US Ton' O Gum wrapper that was an illustration for his Wrapper article.


That commodity code indicates the product was greenlit in 1968 by Topps and in fact, the original iteration of Ton O' Gum may have been a US test of the larger Bazooka slabs that followed in the 70's. I make it to be from 1968-69.

Check out this link to Worthpoint, showing a US pack contents, namely two wood grain Crazy TV cards (there are two different "Gut Smart" cards in the set), two Ton O' Laffs and a single Knock-Knocks. All the non-Crazy TV cards are red bordered so I guess when Topps dropped the "TV" from the name they changed the color from orange too. In fact, Terry purchased this exact pack and opened it but that is not his scan! He has advised all cards in the pack were blank backed, so the Crazy TV examples are type 2.






You can see a card through the back of this pack too.

Cherry seems to have come last and does not seem to have been issued in a vertical pack format:



Yes another card. Hang tight, almost there, gotta get to the day-glo eye-popper from Terry first!


Far out man!

OK, so you got one card (sometimes 2, sometimes none per Terry) with your slab of gum.  These were red bordered Ton O'Laffs backed by Rigolons (a French translation of Ton O' Laffs) and the set is complete at 55 subjects. Terry sent me these to show:



John Bell's Canadian Non-Sports Catalogue indicates the packs sometimes came with two cards, one being an OPC Hockey card and Terry's article confirms it was of the 1974-75 variety. It's certainly an interesting way to burn off excess stock.


So here's the thing-there are versions of Ton O' Laffs (coral front, back is blank but from a wax pack) and Knock-Knocks (salmon front, tannish, unissued looking back) out there:


Seems to match the Coral Crazy TV, no?



Where did these come from then?  They are US issued, but when and where?  Both have 22 subjects, seemingly indicating test status. The coral colored cards must have been issued together, perhaps in Fun Packs. But these salmon Knock-Knocks are mystifying me and are definitely not from the coral Ton O' Laffs school. Is there yet another issue of these out there?!

Right now I count 8 different styles:

• three Crazy TV (Types 1,2,3)
• two Knock-Knocks (Red US, Salmon)
• three Ton O'Laffs (Red US, Red Canadian with Rigolons reverse, Coral)

When Topps wanted to really mess around with their products, they sometimes went all in.  One very odd case of reissues concerns three partial sets of cards, reprinted with Salmon colored backs and then sold only in Fun Packs, circa 1968 or '69. For added fun, these three sets may be related to a partial reissue of another set that itself has three permutations.  Confused?  Just Wait!

Our saga begins in the 1950's, with a fabulous 88 card series called Space Cards. This set is not part of all the shenanigans though but it begat a set issued around 1962 called Target: Moon. that used the same artwork,  text and deep blue backs as Space Cards but with the title changed. I've written about these two sets in The Wrapper #265 but that's a study of issue dates for the twos sets and not much else.  What is germane though is that half of the Target: Moon set also appears with salmon colored backs. Here is a look at card #1, with the three different backs (the blues are similar but one scan is quite dark):


The Target: Moon cards have three salmon-colored siblings: Hot Rods, Who Am I? and Knock-Knocks.

Hot Rods is a crazy set: it was first issued in 1964 or '65 a a set of 66 cards, printed on gray stock with a salmon colored back.  22 cards from Hot Rods were then reprinted with bright yellow backs as part of a game by Milton Bradley called "Win A Card", which also featured some reprinted 1967 Football and 1968 Baseball cards with the same yellow backs.  This makes a lot of sense as they were all reprinted on the same sheet. The Game dates to 1968.

That wasn't enough for Topps though, as Hot Rods saw a second reissue of 44 cards, which included all the numbers from the 22 card yellow backed reissue but this time they had salmon colored backs and came on either white or tan stock. Take a look at these galley shots from the Network 54 Vintage Non Sports forum to see:

























 





























The uncoated card is also, quite logically missing the instructions. We now have a count of 124 salmon backed cards.  If you just said to yourself: "Self, there should be 8 more salmon backed cards!" you are correct, sort of.  There are actually 30 more salmon backed cards.

Of these 30, eight are double printed Who Am I? cards. Indeed, all 124 of the preceding cards plus the 8 WAI? double prints all appear together on a 132 card press sheet.





















But wait, there's more.  22 cards entitled Knock-Knocks also appear with salmon backs.  We'll get into those in our next installment as right now I want to talk distribution.

The conventional hobby wisdom is that the salmon backed Target: Moon, Hot Rod, Who Am I? cards were all issued in 1969 Fun Packs. Since Fun Packs (sold in bulk in poly bags in department stores and the like) were seasonal dumping grounds for various returned and unissued Topps stock it seems a little odd these salmon backed cards did not first see issue at the retail level.

My present operating theory, which is certainly open to criticism, is that the salmon backed cards could have been intended to be a second series of cards for the "Win A Card" game.
















When said game sold poorly and was scrapped, said salmon backed cards were orphaned.  Topps hated having cards lying around the warehouse so they rolled them into Fun packs, probably for Hallowe'en.

I should note some sources consider the salmon backed Target: Moon cards to be a Popsicle related premium.  They are not and that particular disconnect stems from a reissue of the 1963 Astronauts 3D set, which happened to be retitled Popsicle Space Cards.  That too is a story for another day, although this back (cribbed from Net54 again) shows why there is such confusion:



















Stay tuned for some Knock-Knock jokes!