Hoppin' Along

Further to last month's post on Hopalong Cassidy's wide range of Topps products way back in 1950 (yup, 75 years ago buckaroos), Friend o' the Archive Lonnie Cummins has sent along some additional details relating to Hoppy Pops.

First up, we have the sixth and final b&w box bottom image for the checklist:

It's very close to the image I've dubbed "Hoppy Gazing" but you can see his gun here, so I'll call this one "Hoppy Gazing - Gun Visible" and update the checklist accordingly:

• Hoppy Gazing
• Hoppy Gazing - Gun Visible *
• Hoppy Atop Topper
• Hoppy Next to Topper With Gun *
• Hoppy in Relaxed Pose *
• Hoppy Pointing Gun In Front of Mountains

You can see the new image has the  "Please note: Every box of Hoppy Wagon Wheel Pops features one of six Hopalong Cassidy portraits and one of six Hoppy Pop Puzzles" statement underneath and I've added an asterisk above to show which pictures have been identified with this description to date. Three have it and three don't and more research is needed to see if they each come both ways.

Lonnie also sent along another puzzle from the interior of the lollipop box and it's in color to boot (sorry):

So puzzle nos. two and six are now known.  It's not at all clear if each comes in blue or other colors were used for some of these. I suspect they could all be blue, though.

A possible alternate box cover was sent along as well by Lonnie:

It's lighter than the perforated box cover shown here last month and way less vivid. I also have an unperforated flat (proof) of the more colorful version:

These are scarce items and the one that's more pastel could either be from late in the production run, when the inks started to fade a little before printing, or even evidence of a reissue.

Considering how popular Hoppy was back in the early Fifties, it's a little strange more isn't known about his Wagon Wheel Pops.

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."

Pop, Pop, Pop

I stumbled across a bit of an oddity involving Bazooka the other day and since it's something I've never seen before, figured I'd throw it out there to see what might stick (*groan*). 

In 1977 Topps introduced the Bazooka Lollipop. It sold for a nickel and according to a source I found, tasted like bubble gum (which sounds fabulous, actually):

15 comics worth of premium power for five cents?  Deal! Ring Pops were coming, though and I'm not sure where this particular product lies in the evolution of those persistently top-selling Topps pops. As I detailed a couple of months ago, Ring Pops were either introduced in 1977 or 1979 but I can't find a source to confirm this either way. I suspect their introduction was closer to 1979 than 1977 and perhaps this lolly was a precursor or even a test. Or just a failed, separate experiment...

(EDIT 4/19/21): Lonnie Cummins advises Topps filed for a Ring Pops trademark on March 17, 1975.  I suspect that is the date to allow for test marketing purposes.  It would seem then that 1977 is probably the operational year full retail commenced.  If the Bazooka lolly was a test, it wasn't for Ring Pops.)

Ring Pops became (and remain) a monster seller for Topps and they have also been selling Bazooka Pops, which have a bubble gum center, for many years now.  The 1977 Lollipop though, had no such chewability within and echoed back instead to some very early Topps products.  I'm not sure which came first but it was one of these two products, one with a Christmas theme and one with Western flair:

I lean toward Rudolph being the uber-Topps lolly as there was a 1948 movie followed by the massive  smash hit song recorded by Gene Autry that hit number one during the holiday season in 1949. The luractive but fleeting licensing deals for the franchise would probably have occurred prior to one of those events, so I make it either '48 or '49.  I cannot make out that copyright on the box and have never seen another example where the indicia might be deciperable.

As always, there's a chance Topps played catchup with Rudolph and Hopalong Cassidy was the first one in 1950, the year Topps procured a license as Hoppy-mania kicked in over his chopped down kiddie flick rerun fare that ended up as the number one filmed show on TV.  But I don't really think so.  Here's Hoppy again.

Topps had Santa Claus lollipops ready for 1951 and possibly also the year following but they shut down their Candy Division at some point soon thereafter and have to confess I'm not exactly sure when they made a pure candy play again, although it was well before the Bazooka lolly saw the light of day.

Wonder Wheel

Well pardners, a couple of Google searches with slightly altered search terms has resulted in a really neat shot coming your way in living color.  We first visited Topps 1950 Hoppy Pops about six months ago, where the wrappers for the lollipops were the main attraction.  But first they were the subject of a short article in a trade magazine in their year of issue:

The black and white photo does not do the box cover justice.  Have a gander at this:

Someone replaced the Hoppy Pops with Dum Dums for the auction (it was sold in 2010 for $720) but this is indeed the box in question.  The back has a nice photo of Hoppy that would have made a handsome display on a feller's dresser:

Now, can we find color scans of Rudolph Pops or Santa Pops? You can click that link for Rudolph but I haven't written about Santa Pops yet..  Since Christmas is still eleven months away, an out-of-season peek will have to do:

Green Trails

Well the 62nd anniversary of the premiere of Hopalong Cassidy has come and gone with nary a nod from the media.  In 1949 it was a different story and when Hoppy was a certified marketing miracle a year later there was press coverage galore.  As we saw last time out, Topps took full advantage and also had two price points on the cards. Since we are in penny arcade mode these days, a look at the penny pack seem appropriate:

The graphics are great, huh?  The copyright belongs to Willam Boyd (who played Hoppy) and we get Topps Chewing Gum as manufacturer, naturally.  Actually, I shouldn't say naturally since Topps ued about four different corporate identities in the early 1950's but that is another story!  There's also a tougher green version of the wrapper:

I'm not certain but the green packs may have held the high number part of the release with two additional episodes chronicled.  Topps though, was not don with Hoppy after the highs came out and marketed a short series of lollipop boxes.  The only two good pictures I can find are from Chris Benjamin's Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non Sports Cards Volume 2, published about 20 years ago:

There's at least one other box type out the based upon the puzzle numbering but I'd wager there were a couple more puzzles than that.  The boxes made it to the street in time for Hallowe'en in 1950.  The wrappers limned those used for the cards but with a small difference:

Those would have been twisted around each individual pop. Curiously they state "Made for Topps Chewing Gum" which is odd since Topps owned a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the time that produced candy and table syrup.  While that plant was winding down around this time, I believe it was still quite viable for another couple of years.  They may have had a Brooklyn candy plant as well, still working on confirming that but Topps may have just decided it was easier to buy lolly's than to make them.

Next time we'll look some third party cross promotions that Topps used with Hoppy.