Cheeky Weekly Star Guests in Whizzer and Chips (part 8)

It's week 15 of IPC's 1979 Star Guest promotion so attention turns once again to Whizzer and Chips. Who has been chosen to represent Cheeky Weekly this time?

Whizzer and Chips 07 July 1979
Art: Frank McDiarmid

As you can see, this week it's the toothy funster himself who has been tasked with publicising his own comic. This isn't the first time our grinning pal has appeared as the subject of a Star Guest strip - it's the 4^th.. He's appeared twice previously as Cheeky Weekly's ambassador to Whoopee (here and here), and once within Whizzer and Chips. However, this is the first time that a Cheeky Star Guest has been drawn by Frank McDiarmid.

But hold on - can it strictly be said that Frank has drawn this Star Guest? In fact the artwork has been constructed from elements that originally appeared in the 21 April 1979 Easter issue of Cheeky Weekly, but different dialogue has been applied to the speech balloons.

Cheeky Weekly 21 April 1979
Art on this and the pages below: Frank McDiarmid

Anyway, it's good that Whizzer and Chips readers finally get exposed to Frank's version of Cheeky. Any who opt to subscribe to the toothy funster's comic as from this week will find that the title is sporting a new look (although they of course won't be aware what the old look was) and they'll be able to enjoy 31 issues before Cheeky Weekly succumbs to the customary fate of underperforming comics and gets absorbed into a more successful stablemate (in this case, Whoopee).

Cheeky Weekly Cover Date 07 July 1979 - the New Look!

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Here it is – the much-vaunted (well slightly-vaunted in last week's comic, anyway) 'new look' issue. The cover doesn't have an exceptionally new look about it, apart from the legend '* New Look * New Funnies' at the top of the page. Below the comic title (the style of which hasn't been refashioned) are teasers as to the nature of our 'new fun friends' (although one story will turn out to be not so new). The Cheeky's Week...Sunday cover strip has been dispensed with in favour of a single-panel gag but despite the overhaul, the inimitable Cheeky/Manhole Man double-act return to the front page to make their 20^th appearance on page 1.

Turning to page 2 we see that Sunday is still featuring Cheeky's paper round but there is a change in the layout as the What did YOU do today? section at the foot of the page, introduced into the Cheeky's Week features way back in the 30 September 1978 issue, is absent. This will please reader Emily Jacob of Rainham. The different style of lettering in Cheeky's speech bubble in the final panel suggests that the original text has been altered for some reason (we've seen this on a number of occasions before). Maybe in this case Cheeky originally introduced 6 Million Dollar Gran.

Frank again

However, page 3 reveals Calculator Kid has survived the revamp, as he enjoys a day's fishing with help from his battery-powered buddy. Also unscathed is What's New Kids which follows Charlie and Calc.

Any readers worried that Gran had been dropped from the comic will be relieved to see her commence a 3-page adventure on page 5, following which Cheeky and pals enjoy a titter-packed Monday. Further chuckles (some of dubious taste) follow in the form of stalwart feature Joke-Box Jury.

Cheeky Weekly welcomes the first of its newcomers on pages 10 and 11. It's The Gang, but older readers may recognise the strip as it's a retitled reprint of The Double Deckers (based on the TV series Here Come The Double Deckers) which originally appeared in Whizzer and Chips in 1971/72

Art: Robert MacGillivray

    

After a chortlesome Tuesday with our toothy pal, Disaster Des proves he didn't suffer the ultimate disaster that can befall characters at the time of a revamp, by appearing on page 13. However, Des is normally confined within the Mystery Comic which has traditionally appeared after Cheeky's Wednesday page, so something's afoot. We then encounter the second of our new groups of pals, the showbiz wannabe kids of Stage School.

Art: Robert Nixon

Following this new strip by Robert Nixon is a Cheeky Weekly stalwart by the same artist - Elephant, who is still running and enjoying an adventure in the centre pages. This is the second erstwhile Mystery Comic strip which has turned up before we've even seen the cover of that perplexing publication. We then witness the Wednesday element of Cheeky's Week, but there's no introduction to the Mystery Comic in the final panel as there has been every week since the comic dated 30 September 1978. However, the Mystery Comic's ongoing serial Mystery Boy continues on page 19, following which is a selection of Paddywack gags.

Our toothy pal returns on page 22 with Thursday's collection of corny quips, and then we discover that the Star Guest promotion continues despite the revamp, as Cheeky Weekly is paid a prank-packed visit from Whizzer and Chips' resident japester, Joker.

On the Chit-Chat page, Cheeky solicits reader opinion on the new look explaining, as we have come to suspect, that the Mystery Comic characters have been assimilated into the main comic. Overleaf we share Friday with the toothy funster, then there's picnic fun with Mustapha Million, followed by high-velocity humour at the zoo with Speed Squad.

Our chubby chum Tub, now freed from the confines of the centre pages, lumbers towards the rear of the comic, sharing page 29 with an ad for Dunlop outdoor sports equipment, after which we enjoy 2 pages of Saturday at the beach with Cheeky and his pals. Our toothy pal gets things flowing with a classic Walter Wurx gag... 

Frank once again

A back cover ad for Mr Bellamy's Liquorice Novelties brings this revamp issue to a conclusion.

As revamps go, this one isn't particularly drastic (compare it for example to the previous Cheeky Weekly overhaul). The only strips to have been dropped as of the previous issue in preparation for the overhaul are...

• The front cover's Cheeky's Week...Sunday feature, which is replaced with an untitled single-panel gag,
• The Burpo Special which had become something of a fixture on the back cover, occupying page 32 for 12 out of the last 13 issues.
• Adventure/competition feature Menace of the Alpha Man which reached its conclusion last week.

Despite losing the Mystery Comic as a grouping of strips in the middle pages, all the former MC features continue (despite not appearing this week, Why, Dad, Why? will return). Having lost the Mystery Comic we have also lost the last remaining link between the Cheeky's Week strips and the other features in the comic - remember when the comic started all the non-Cheeky strips were in some way linked to the toothy funster's world. Thus James Bold was a story that Cheeky read (later a film series), 6 Million Dollar Gran was a TV show he watched, Home Movie was a film made by Oscar etc). Now we have no such linked stories (although Snail of the Century which will start next week, starring as it does Cheeky's sidekick, will become the sole direct connection although not 'framed' by the Cheeky's Week strips as were the original linked stories).

We have of course gained 2 'new' strips, one of which is in fact being recycled. Another change is the loss of the introductory panel and What did YOU do today? sections from the Cheeky's Week pages. The remaining framing devices have also been dispensed with.

Frank McDiarmid delivers all 8 Cheeky's Week elements in this issue.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 07-Jul-1979, Issue 87 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'New Look: Stage School and The Gang' 'Manhole Man' 2 of 7 - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
4	What's New, Kids
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
7	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
8	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
9	Joke-Box Jury
10	The Gang (first appearance) reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray (first art on feature)
11	The Gang (first appearance) reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray (first art on feature)
12	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Disaster Des - Art Mike Lacey
14	Stage School (first appearance) - Art Robert Nixon (first art on feature)
15	Stage School (first appearance) - Art Robert Nixon (first art on feature)
16	Elephant On The Run - Art Robert Nixon
17	Elephant On The Run - Art Robert Nixon
18	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
19	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art John Richardson
20	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
21	Ad: IPC 'Cheeky Summer Special' 6 of 6 Ad: 'Whizzer and Chips Summer Special' 3 of 3
22	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid
23	Star Guest 'Joker' - Art Sid Burgon (final art on feature)
24	Chit-Chat
25	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid
26	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
27	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
28	Speed Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
29	Tub - Art Nigel Edwards\Ad: Dunlop Playsport (final appearance) - Art Nick Baker (final art on feature)
30	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
31	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
32	Ad: Mr Bellamy's

Cheeky's early strips

Peter 'Cheeky' Gray has posted the first 3 'Ello It's Cheeky strips from Krazy. As Peter mentions in his post, it's interesting to compare Frank McDiarmid's early Cheeky work with his later strips in Cheeky Weekly.

Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 7

New readers start here... After Cheeky Weekly folded and was incorporated into Whoopee as of February 1980 six strips that had originated in the toothy funster's title survived the merge and continued to appear in the amalgamated comic. Whoopee itself foundered in March 1985 and was merged into Whizzer and Chips. Three of the surviving Cheeky Weekly strips successfully negotiated this second merge and went on to appear in the newly combined publication, rather inelegantly titled 'Whizzer and Chips now including Whoopee'. The survivors were Mustapha Million, Calculator Kid and (appearing only twice) Stage School. Cheeky continued to appear, but as a member of The Krazy Gang, who had moved into W&C when Krazy, the comic in which the Gang originated, expired in April 1978.

Whizzer and Chips had a long tradition of sending characters from the Chips section into Whizzer and vice versa. These cross-comic forays were known as 'raids'. In this series of posts I'm chronicling the raids involving the ex-Cheeky Weekly characters who made the transition into Whizzer and Chips, all of whom were allocated to the Chips section. For the purposes of this series, although this particular manifestation of the toothy funster didn't directly descend from Cheeky Weekly, I'm including Cheeky's Krazy Gang appearances as those of an 'ex-Cheeky Weekly character'.

Following the previous raid involving an ex-Cheeky Weekly character, there was a break of 3 issues before one of our pals from the toothy funster's comic was again entangled in the murky world of cross-comic infiltration. In fact it was Calculator Kid, who had been the victim of the raid documented in the link above, who was once again targeted by the Whizz-Kids. See if you can spot the culprit in this story of Charlie being let out of school by a teacher to wander around town (wouldn't be allowed today), then scroll down for the answer...

Whizzer and Chips 06 July 1985
Art: Terry Bave

... as with the raid covered in the previous post in this series, this was a Bave-on-Bave incursion, the interloper this time being Toy Boy.

Our Cheeky Weekly pals are now falling rather behind, having suffered 5 raids while perpetrating only 3.

Whizzer and Chips Cover Date	Raider	Raided
06 April 1985	Mustapha Million	Super Steve
04 May 1985	Bloggs (Store Wars)	Mustapha Million
11 May 1985	Joker	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)
18 May 1985	Calculator Kid & Calc	Odd-Ball
01 June 1985	Animalad Mustapha Million	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky) Boy Boss
08 June 1985	Odd-Ball	Calculator Kid
06 July 1985	Toy Boy	Calculator Kid

Since falling victim to his previous raid, Calculator Kid had reverted to reprints of his Cheeky Weekly adventures. The one used above originated in the special Cheeky Weekly dated 31 March 1979. The original first panel looked like this...