The pages - Page 4

Skateboard Squad made their first appearance on page 4 of the premiere issue of Cheeky Weekly, and were back on page 4 again in issue 2.  As we have seen previously, the position of features in the first two issues of the comic were displaced from what was to be their later homes due to Cheeky's introductory remarks which occupied page 2.  Having dispensed with the introductions as from issue 3, the Sunday evening instalment of Cheeky's Week took up residence on page 4, where it would become the second most regular feature on that page, appearing there in 45 issues.  However, it wasn't an unbroken run, as Skateboard Squad were back on page 4 in the 31 December 1977 and 07 January 1978 issues.  In the case of the 31 December 1977 comic (that year's Christmas issue), pages 2 and 3 were both devoted to Cheeky's Christmas Morning, thereby bumping the Squad from their usual page 3 home at the time, onto page 4.  A similar bump occurred the following week when page 2 featured New Year's Eve, meaning Sunday was advanced to page 3, displacing the brave boarders onto page 4 once again.

Sunday evening was then firmly back on page 4 until the comic dated 30 September 1978, which was the issue in which The Mystery Comic first appeared, taking up 8 pages in the centre of Cheeky Weekly and introducing 5 new strips.  The Sunday evening feature was dropped to make room, and Gran's pages moved nearer the front, meaning page 4 now hosted the second page of 6 Million Dollar Gran's story.  This continued to be the case until 02 December 1978, when Lawrie McMenemy appeared on page 4 in an ad for issue 4 of Soccer Monthly, to tell all prospective purchasers that "It's a great magazine!", and below that, with the strap line "A merry Christmas to every ghoul and boy", another IPC publication, The Shiver and Shake Annual 1979, was plugged.  This issue of Cheeky Weekly was one of those with a reduced page count due to industrial action, resulting in disturbance to the usual page layout, and the same page deficit occurred the following week when Calculator Kid appeared on page 4.

Six Million Dollar Gran's second page returned to page 4 for the first issue after the industrial dispute was resolved, dated 06 January 1979, but the following week, when Cheeky's New Year revels resulted in 2 Sunday pages, page 4 featured the first page of Gran's adventure.

Page 2 of Gran's strip returned to page 4 the following week, and remained on page 4 until the issue dated 07 July 1979, in which page 4 was the home of that week's What's New, Kids feature.  This change to what had become an established routine resulted from the introduction of Cheeky Weekly's 'new look' with this issue.  The new look introduced 2 strips (The Gang and Stage School), both of which were 2-pagers, and an ad for Mr Bellamy's liquorice sweets appeared on the back cover, evidently prompting the decision to put Calculator Kid on page 3, thereby disrupting the usual page allocation.  Charlie and his calculator appeared on page 3 again the following week, which meant that page 4 contained an ad for Weetabix, which was running a campaign featuring cut-out butterfly and wild flower pictures on their cereal boxes.

Gran was back on page 4 the following week, with the first page of her story this time.  There then followed 3 weeks when Gran's second page took up page 4, followed by 2 weeks when Gran's first page was resident on page 4.

This brings us to the issue dated 01 September 1979, when the first page of The Gang's adventure was located on page 4. This disruption to the usual order was a result of the Green Cross Code man appearing in colour on the centre pages, with a cartoon facsimile of Dave 'Darth' Prowse relating the tale of Ben who was nearly run over while attempting to retrieve an errant football.  Fortunately, all ended well as Ben remembered his Green Cross Code next time he had to negotiate the traffic.

Gran was again back in charge of page 4 for the following 5 weeks (with the first page of her adventure each time), until 13 October 1979 when the kids of Stage School displaced her.  This was due to Mr Bellamy again enticing readers with another ad for his liquorice treats, along with the inclusion of 2 pages of in-house IPC ads, one featuring a reminder that readers should order their Cheeky Weekly to avoid disappointment, and another page promoting that year's Monster Fun Annual and Buster Book.

Feisty Gran returned to page 4 for her final 4 week run in that location, from 20 October 1979 to 10 November 1979.  Three of these page 4s featured the first page of her adventure, while page 4 in the 27 October 1979 issue carried page two of that week's Gran story.  Following this 4 week swan song on page 4, Gran was unceremoniously consigned to the rear pages of the comic for the few remaining weeks of publication.

Gran's robotic presence graced page 4 on 50 occasions, making 6 Million Dollar Gran the most regular feature in that location.  The first page of the Gran strip appeared on page 4 12 times (11 times as the first page of a 3-page strip, and once as the first page of a 2-page story), the second page of her story occupied page 4 a total of 38 times (31 of which were the second page of a 3-page story, the remainder being the second page of 2-page adventures).

Paddywack became the next occupant of page 4 for 3 weeks, until he was supplanted by a Robert Nixon Soggy The Sea Monster reprint from Shiver and Shake on 08 December 1979.  However, Paddywack was back on page 4 for the following 3 weeks, until his page 4 run was interrupted again on 05 January 1980, this time by Joke-Box Jury.  Not to be deterred, Paddywack was back on page 4 for another 3 weeks.

Page 4 of the final issue of Cheeky Weekly, dated 02 February 1980, was shared by a half-page Joke-Box Jury (which despite being less than a full page still managed to include jokes at the expense of the Irish, Scots, Indians and Native Americans) and an ad for IPC's Mickey Mouse comic.