Just Ducky

When Topps issued the 1967 Funny Travel Posters set, they were also wrangling with their first Wacky Packages issue. I've mostly stayed away from the Wacky's here as they are so well documented elsewhere but of the eighteen different mascots depicted on the Madison Avenue poster I've been dissecting here for the past two weeks, eight appear in the first run of Wacky Packages. Often referred to as die-cuts, the 1967 release is the ur-Wacky Packages set and it featured gummed-backs, meaning you had to moisten what was a die cut subject to get it to stick.  

It's hard to believe now but it wasn't a massive success, although it did have at least three press runs including at least one into 1968, which also seem related to cease-and-desist letters. As would be the pattern, a number of subjects were withdrawn when these letters were received by Topps, so those stickers were pulled and replaced by another on the sheet. It would be the 1973 series of peelable stickers that truly kicked off Wacky-mania although it pretty much was created using the same Art Spiegelman roughs (his first major Topps assignment) and Norman Saunders finished artwork that kicked things off in 1967. 

Here's what the original 1967 release looked like when presented to the youth of America, thanks to a killer image I found over at wackypacks.com:

Right away, you can see two of the brand mascots from the Funny Travel Posters set were used on the box.  Let's start with the duck.

The Quaker Oats Quaker from the poster set was, like the other mascots depicted, done relatively straight:

Not so much with the Wacky stickers:

And there's no way that wasn't meant to look like Donald Duck! Plus, he appears to be a little stoned, which may be intentional given the involvement of Spiegelman.

Our other box inhabitant is a bit more stern and menacing:

Yikes! Well Mr. Clean does seem capable of taking care of himself I'd say. As seen below, he clearly worked out.  

Alongside our earring-ed friend, we have two other mascots that made their was onto Wacky Packages. As mentioned above, Topps always included something of their own when poking fun at other products.  As most of you probably know, they began this form of self protection with Gadzooka:

Meanwhile, in the land of hangovers:

Kinda funny how that actually has come to pass, right White Claw fans?

Cracker Jack got roughed up a bit. Compare this...

...to this:

Ouch!

You have to wonder what Li'l Green Sprout would have thought of his dad had he ever seen this:

Quite a change from our smiling friend here:

He's a thirsty one it seems, but the parody version sure looks like fun!

We conclude this silly series under a gray cloud:

Morton Salt actually used the "When it rains it pours" slogan to demonstrate that its salt would still flow in inclement weather.  I'm assuming there was some kind of tackiness problem with all salts on rainy days before then but who knows? Well, it looks like Topps knew:

Other mascots from the Madison Avenue poster would appear in later releases of Wacky Packages, but these eight were the original imposters!

Wack On, Wack Err........

More Sale-a-Brating today campers!  In the wake of a post earlier this month detailing a Topps promotion that dumped excess and returned product marked with a specific bottom stamp (likely to indicate final sale) which you can revisit here, a couple of more stamped box bottoms have emerged as a result of my plea for more examples.  And one is a doozy!

Lonnie Cummins, deep in the middle of his pretty mind-boggling research concerning various Topps codes used over several decades, has come up with a couple more Sale-A-Bration items.  The first is 1967's Who Am I?:

The bottom clearly is dated with a 1967 code (and, of course, the Sale-A-Bration Deal stamp):

Lonnie also sent along a 1967 Wacky Packages box that was part of the deal, as did Friend o'the Archive Dave Schmidt.  There are two key differences between them, which I will get to momentarily.

Here is Lonnie's:

Sale-A-Brate with me!

Note the commodity code ending in 7.  Now for Dave's:

Hmmmm.....

Yup, it ends in an 8!  All else is the same though and after being taken aback, I went to the Wacky Packages Handbook by Phil Argyropoulos and Phil Carpenter and learned that Lonnie's box could theoretically contain the two rare titles Ratz Crackers and Cracked Animals, pulled and then changed due to legal threats. 

However Mr. Schmidt also advises that, as you can plainly see, the Campy Spider Soup art on the box was changed to Tasty Spider Soup, due to a cease-and-desist letter from Campbell's Soup. The Campy's sticker was also pulled/changed to Chock Full O'Nuts And Bolts but what's odd is that the wax wrapper, which featured Campy's as well, never got revised like the box art. This is probably due to Campy's getting pulled well after Ratz Crackers and Cracked Animals. Topps was quite possibly dumping a product that had been peppered with legally dubious content by sliding it into the Sale-A-Bration deal.

But which pulled stickers might be withing such a box? There's at least nine others that were changed in the series, including sticker #21, which was changed twice! I wonder if these specially stamped boxes were sleeved, with two miscellaneous boxes per sleeve? They did that in the early 70's for sure. Sneaky Topps, right? But if there was a sleeve containing two display boxes, then the cover art was hidden, which is a neat little trick too.

So that's all pretty cool and still makes me think this was a 1968/69-centric promotion, although it could easily have begun in 1967 with a Wacky-centric product dump!