The 70th Anniversary of the TV Show Topper

Topper and the Kerbys

It was seventy years ago today, on October 9 1953, that the TV sitcom Topper debuted on CBS. Topper was based on Thorne Smith's 1925 novel of the same name and its sequel Topper Takes a Trip (1932), as well as the movies inspired by the novels: Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938), and Topper Returns (1941). Topper starred Leo G. Carroll as uptight banker Cosmo Topper, who finds himself haunted by two ghosts, the fun-loving wife and husband Marion and George Kerby (played by real life husband and wife Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling). In the TV series there was an additional ghost  that was not in the novel or the movies, a St. Bernard named Neil. Like the novels and the movies before them, episodes of the TV show featured the Kerbys trying to liven up the somewhat stuffy Topper's life.

Topper did very well in the ratings, ranking no. 24 for the year in the Nielsen ratings for its second season. Despite this, it ended its run after only two seasons because CBS could not find a sponsor for the show after Camel cigarettes had dropped out. While it only lasted two seasons, it would do well as a rerun in syndication. Much of this may have been because Topper was the first fantasy sitcom, and so was unique for its era. As such it would have an impact, even if it was not felt right away. After the success of My Favorite Martian in 1963, American airwaves would be filled with sitcoms about an ordinary human being living with such unusual characters as a witch, a robot, an angel, a car that was the reincarnation of his mother, a genie, and so on. If it had not been for the initial success of Topper and its subsequent success as a syndicated rerun, we might not have My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and the many other fantasy sitcoms that have aired ever since.

In 2014 I wrote a detailed post on the history of Topper, so I won't repeat myself here. You can read my original post on the TV series Topper here.