Hoagy's Alley

An archive of media and merchandise featuring everyone's favorite alley cat gang!

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Top Cat Ben Cooper costume, from the 60s, possibly 1965 specifically. Ben Cooper, Inc. was founded in 1937 and ran all the way up until 1992. They had a wide variety of pop culture characters and figures throughout the years. If you've ever seen a photo of someone on Halloween through those years with a character mask and essentially a body suit with the character on it, instead of the character's actual costume, it was most likely a Ben Cooper costume. But the gorgeous masks are what really make these costumes iconic. Top Cat was offered with one of two colors for the mask, black or red. I personally enjoy the red mask more, I think it pops better. The costume itself, too, has quite nice artwork on it. Benny the Ball popping out of a trashcan in the background is a nice touch.

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Top Cat and his gang, sans Brain and Fancy Fancy, were featured in a Heathcliff comic September 12, 2021 with a multitude of other cats from other cartoons, comics, books, etc. Heathcliff does indeed throw the sickest parties!

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The Top Cat Wacky Wobbler from Funko, 2003. They had two other variants of this bobblehead. The Funatic Collector's Series version which was a Comic-Con 2005 exclusive, and was completely purple. Then for Comic-Con 2007 they had a glow in the dark variant that came with Wally Gator, with 144 pieces made.

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Plushes of Top Cat, Benny the Ball and Officer Dibble from Ideal, 1962. I adore their vinyl heads, and the way TC and Benny have their tongues sticking out. When looking at other images of the Top Cat, it seems his nose is never painted and this isn't just the paint being worn after all these years. Doesn't look like they painted his ears, either. A lot more attention to detail looks like it went to Benny and Dibble. Either way they're all darling.

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TV-Tinykins by Marx from 1961. They're plastic hand-painted figures. Marx released the whole gang, Officer Dibble included. They also released other Hanna-Barbera properties under this line, and also had a Disney "Disneykins" version of it as well.

Their descriptions read: Brain - "Er, gee, T.C., er, ah don't know." That's Brain for you. Empty of head, and on the uptake slow. Top Cat - Top Cat is the crafty leader of his bunch. He lives in a refuse disposal container (garbage can, to you) and comes out and into his alley when adventure beckons. His pal is Benny the Ball, and together they're the cat's meow. Benny the Ball - Benny is Top Cat's cohort. He tails him constantly. Benny is short, but his talents are long. When it comes to putting one over on the local gendarmes, Benny is a champ. Where most cats have nine lives, Benny has nine laughs. Spook - Spook is an alley cat who lives in a pad because he's a beat cat. Is that bad? Fancy Fancy - A cat has to be trim and dapper if he's going to make an impression on the girls. Girl cats, that is. And Fancy Fancy is the trimmest, dapperest, fanciest, girl craziest cat in Top Cat's alley. Choo Choo - Cats may come, and cats may go, but none go faster than Choo Choo. He's so fast he gets where he's going before he's started. Officer Dibble - Officer Dibble is the "Human" cop on the beat in the alley in which Top Cat and his buddies live. He represents the law in the alley and has a tough time with Top Cat. He and Top Cat really love each other, but they are constantly engaged in a battle of wits - with Top Cat winning most of the time.

Here's a commercial featuring the Top Cat Tinykins as well as the other Hanna-Barbera characters.

I have also seen this Tinykins postcard as well with the Benny figure on it. Whether they made these with the other cats on it as well, I do not know. Only time will tell if they ever appear floating on the internet.

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Top Cat Archive

Hello, my name is Eddie, and this is a new blog I have set up dedicated for finds of media and merchandise surrounding Hanna-Barbera's 1961 series Top Cat. It will be a collection of items I have either found on google, ebay, other's blogs or my own personal collection. I will also archive any finds of the more recent 2021 Jellystone adaption of the characters if there is any merchandise of them in the future.

Thank you for joining me!