'Back on Topps' Sophomore Season Scores Dicks

Streamy-winning web series Back on Topps returns for its second season this week with twin brothers Jason and Randy Sklar back as the bungling heads of Topps baseball card company, Leyland and Leif Topps. Created by the Sklar brothers and produced by Michael Eisner’s web studio Vuguru, the return of this show is just the second of the company’s web series, counting Prom Queen, to get a second season.

At the end of last season a Christian dating service, “Cross My Heart” (wasn’t this the name of the band in Jesus People?) rented space at the Topps offices, and now further economic pressures force cutbacks at the company. That means the brothers need to come up with something big to win back over the office, with the usual help (cameos) from MLB and NBA stars. Web series regular Jason Nash (The Shaman) is back as Stalker Guy and Brian Huskey is back as bigheaded office boss Gaylen Briggs.

This season the show landed national chain Dick’s Sporting Goods as lead sponsor and much of the show will take place in one of its stores. Technically, Eisner-owned Topps is really the primary sponsor with the real-life card manufacturer as much the part of the show as IKEA in Easy to Assemble.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Randy and Jason on a second season of Back on Topps,” said Michael Eisner in the release. “Their unparalleled knowledge of sports and pop culture, combined with their unique brand of comedy is what makes this series work.”

The series distributes through TubeMogul to a whole host of sites including My Damn Channel, YouTube, Blip.tv, Metacafe, Sling, Dailymotion and iTunes. As part of the launch however, there is also a brief (12-hour) exclusive window for new episodes on FOXSports’s MSN channel.