Topper (aka The Jovial Ghosts) is Thorne Smith's most famous work about a law-abiding, respectable banker called Cosmo Topper, married to his rather staid wife Mary. It all begins when he decides to buy a second-hand car, only to find that the car is haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners—the reckless, feckless, frivolous couple who met their untimely demise when the car careened into an oak tree. Marion and George Kerby make it their mission to rescue Topper from the drab "summer of suburban Sundays" that is his life and take him into a series of madcap adventures. He is attracted to Marion, who at one point tries to kill him so that they can always be together.
Full of urbane wit and sophisticated repartee, Topper is a hilarious, ribald comedy that was made into a 1937 film starring Cary Grant as George Kerby, Constance Bennett as Marion Kerby, and Roland Young as Cosmo Topper. Topper has set the standard in American pop culture for such humour laced apparitions as those seen in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Heaven Can Wait, Beetlejuice and Bewitched.