The Straight Dopey

I was looking through my 1970 Funny Doors set the other day when I noticed something well, funny.  Card number 20, "Dopey Book Shop" is festooned with eight book titles, which are being looked over by a puzzled consumer. I realized these titles sounded familiar and sure enough, Topps did something meta here, as almost all are taken from the 1967 release of Dopey Books!

Here's the door in question:

Now my set of Funny Doors is unburst so I didn't want to open the flaps up to see each gag's payoff but I do have an image of an original bit o'artwork (with partial overlay) that shows the reveals for some of them:

I showed that specific piece of artwork when I posted about the set not too long ago but it's come in handy again, so please forgive the repeat look.  As you can see, five of the gags are revealed.  Let's take a look, shall we?  From left-to-right, then top-to-bottom and using the Dopey Book numbering, we also have five that correspond to its gags:

31. What Every Girl Should Know (A Rich Bachelor!)

10. How To Take Care Of Your Teeth (Put 'Em In A Glass)

7. I Lived With Wild Beasts (My Family)

27. How To Put A Lasting Finish On Your Car (Try To Beat A Train To The Crossing)

36. I Hunted For Buffalo (But I Got Lost And Wound Up In Albany)

Another is very close:

32. Your Career In The Movies aka Dopey Books "You Can Have A Job In Movies" (As An Usher)  

Two don't match up:

See Europe On $5.00 A Day - I assume this is some kind of French Foreign Legion joke based upon the reveal behind the door.

Hypnotism - Not sure of this payoff based upon the illustration shown above.

Text has been replaced, of course, by an image for each payoff and the artwork is not the same at all given the size restrictions, but the point is made. It was pretty cool of Topps to do something like this.

Why Do You Think They Call It Dopey?

By 1967 Topps was cranking out all sorts of interesting non-sports sets, many of which featured the sarcastic tone that was the hallmark of the MAD magazine fueled artists and writers working under the aegis of Woody Gelman. One of the more amusing sets to emerge from this creative be-in was Dopey Books.

Comprised of 42 foldable cards on thin stock, which measure the standard 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" when closed, the set closely follows the pattern seen here of a serious looking cover...

...containing a snotty gag within, centerfolded, with an accompanying humorous illustration.:

You can see the back cover here, oddly blank for all 42 subjects; a colophon of some sort would have really sealed the deal IMO:

The set may have been rushed into the marketplace, based upon the wrapper.  Many look like this:

Note the lack of a commodity code!  Those were firmly in place by 1967 but Topps goofed this one up. There's not a ton of wrappers out there but I found this guy, folded like this just for online sale:

I ran this Magic Magnet anomaly by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins, who thinks it likely that all wrapper variants should exist with and without the code. Right now, two of the three others (Chemical Magic comes both ways) should eventually also be found with it. Time will tell if the Camera and Exploding Battleship versions also come both ways but it seems like a good bet. Weird, but wrappers from the set are scarce for some odd reason, especially since the cards can be found somewhat easily.

The box and contents presented well, noting the torn Valentine sticker indicates it was repurposed for 1968 "VD Season":

Here's another box with that added sticker:

Ain't that dope?