The features - Saturday Morning Pictures including Interval

For Cheeky Weekly's first 59 issues, readers witnessed the toothy funster's regular trip to the Saturday morning picture show. Special cinema shows for children had been a weekend ritual for many youngsters since the 1940s (and possibly earlier). A programme of kid-friendly films (cartoons, comedy and adventure serials), together with an opportunity to cause mischief in a darkened cinema, proved a strong attraction for many youngsters in the days before widespread TV ownership.

The first Interval. Art: Frank McDiarmid

 

There were a number of Cheeky Weekly features associated with our grinning pal's cinema visit;

In the final panels of the first Saturday page in issues 1 to 59, Cheeky would be seen entering the cinema (usually leading the charge of kids trampling the long-suffering Commissionaire in the rush to get good seats).

Then there would be a cartoon supporting feature (or, on one occasion, a magic show).

This would be followed by the Interval (of which more later).

After the break, the latest episode of the adventure serial would commence. Over the weeks, a number of features fulfilled the role of the serial;

• Space Family Robinson
• James Bold in Island of Fear
• Archie's Angels
• Sonny Storm
• The Terrible Trail to Taggart's Treasure

There would usually be a continuation of the Saturday feature after the adventure serial, commencing with Cheeky exiting the cinema.

Interval was the only Cheeky's Week feature to occur entirely within the structure of the Saturday morning pictures sequence.

11 February 1978 - a Snail-less Interval
Art: Unknown Cheeky Artist 1

 

The characters to feature most prominently in the Interval pages were;

• Cheeky (natch) who appeared in all 59 Intervals, as did Ursula.
• Snail, who was unaccountably absent for just one Interval - that dated 11 February 1978. Despite his absence during the cinema show, Snail was seen on Cheeky's shoulder in the same issue as he exited the cinema on the post-Interval Saturday page.
• Crunching Chris, whose cacophonous mastication was endured by the audience during 32 film shows.
• Snoozin' Susan, who snored through 20 programmes

Frank McDiarmid's depictions of Ursula
became more grotesque as the weeks passed

 

Some of the more unexpected characters to be seen during the Interval were Manhole Man (who emerged in the cinema via a manhole in the stalls), Knock-Knock Door, Paddywack (whose attendance at the cinema was surprising for the reason explained here) and Scruffbag, the school cat. Pet snails are of course regularly seen in cinemas.

The first Interval set the routine for most of the subsequent appearances of the feature;

Cheeky would deliver a gag to a gang of anonymous fellow cinema-attendees, who would sometimes be looking at the end caption of the preceding cartoon (occasionally using Warner Brothers' famous 'That's all, folks').

The toothy funster would insult Ursula the Usherette while selecting a snack of dubious provenance from her tray. Her responses to Cheeky's weekly ribbing were initially limited to silent fuming or guttural snarls, until she snapped in the 04 March 1978 comic and subjected the toothy funster to a retaliatory tirade that left him reeling. The lumbering lolly lady retained the power of speech in all but one of her subsequent appearances.

Walter Wurx would quite often be seen heading for an urgent appointment to check the cinema's plumbing.

As the adventure film was about to commence, Cheeky would try, and usually fail, to get a seat far from Crunching Chris, the only boy who could eat marshmallows noisily, and sonorous snorer, Snoozin' Susan.

In the final Interval panel, Cheeky and the characters seated beside him were shown in silhouette against the screen, on which the serial's title caption was being projected. One of the characters shown in the panel would give a brief recap of the climax of the previous week's episode. In a mix-up, the same recap was used in the 14 and 21 January 1978 issues - it actually belonged in the latter comic. The final panel also often featured characters looking for lost items in the dark (shoes, socks, grandad's false false teeth).

The intervals in the 26 November 1977 and 24 December 1977 issues were the only ones to be introduced by a caption, which read 'During the interval…'.

All the Intervals occupied a full page, with the exception of that which appeared in the 04 February 1979 issue, which covered a half page. The remainder of that page contained a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster which, Snail informed readers (by means of a gastropod-type thought bubble), was an extra cartoon before the serial.

In the 20 May 1978 issue, The Muppet Show's Waldorf and Statler were seen sitting in the balcony although, unlike in their TV appearances, they refrained from commenting on the goings-on around them.

In the comic dated 19 August 1978, Cheeky got a glimpse of his life 60 years into the future. It appears that the toothless funster of 60 years hence is still visiting the cinema on Saturdays, but for the Pensioners' Film Show. In an amazing coincidence, the senior citizens are enjoying a 60-year-old episode of Archie's Angels, which just happens to be the serial running in Cheeky Weekly 60 years earlier. In a further, astounding coincidence, the episode being shown this week in 2038 is the same one that Cheeky would have watched had he not been whisked into the future, meaning that the readers of Cheeky Weekly can continue to follow the Archie's Angels story uninterrupted.

Carriageway chaos occurred throughout Cheeky's Week in the comic dated 26 August 1978, as a learner driver terrified the populace of Krazy Town. Even the cinema patrons weren't safe, as the car motored through the interval.

The supporting cartoon was replaced by a special magic show in Cheeky Weekly's first birthday issue dated 21 October 1978.

The final Interval appeared in Cheeky Weekly dated 02 December 1978. In the following week's issue, Cheeky told us "Some of you readers have been wondering what I do on Saturday afternoons, after I've been to the cinema. Today, I'm going to watch our local football team". Thereafter, the Saturday pages depicted the toothy funster's afternoon pursuits. Interval stalwarts Ursula, Crunching Chris and Snoozin' Susan continued to appear in the comic after Interval came to and end.

Interval was an enjoyable part of Cheeky's Week and introduced one of the comic's most memorable characters, Ursula. However, by the late 1970s, attendance at Saturday Morning Pictures must have been in sharp decline due to the increasing number of homes with a TV, and the introduction of Saturday morning children's TV shows. Possibly feedback from readers indicated the feature should be dropped, although it seems at least one Friend of Cheeky wondered why it had ceased...

Chit-Chat 27 October 1979

Interval in the Cheeky Weekly Index

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Interval	22-Oct-77	02-Dec-78	59	0	25,27,28,29

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Interval	Frank McDiarmid	18	22-Oct-1977	25-Nov-1978
Interval	Frank McDiarmid pencils	18	12-Nov-1977	18-Nov-1978
Interval	Dick Millington	2	24-Dec-1977	27-May-1978
Interval	Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	5	14-Jan-1978	04-Mar-1978
Interval	Barrie Appleby	4	11-Mar-1978	22-Jul-1978
Interval	Jim Watson	6	01-Apr-1978	10-Jun-1978
Interval	Mike Lacey	6	17-Jun-1978	02-Dec-1978

Preceding Page	Count
Tweety and Sylvester	27
Road Runner	9
Bam Splat and Blooie	5
Wile E Coyote	5
Daffy Duck	4
Cocky Doodle	3
Henery Hawk	3
IPC	2
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf	2
Tweety	1
Hey Presto! Magic Show	1
Hickory Dickory Doc	1
Ghouldilocks	1