Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 8

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'.

Only one week after the previous raid involving one of our ex-Cheeky Weekly chums, the toothy funster was embroiled in a further cross-comic sortie, as a victim. Can you spot the Whizz-Kid raider in this Krazy Gang tale (in which Cheeky plays a vital role in exposing dastardly dairy doings) from the 13 July 1985 issue of Whizzer and Chips? Scroll down to see the rascally raider revealed...

Whizzer and Chips 13 July 1985
Art: Bob Hill

…it's that rich rustic, Pa Bumpkin.

Whizzer and Chips 20 July 1985
I like the Catnap strip - art by Colin Whittock

This is the third time (in the post-Whoopee-merge period) that the Krazy Gang have been raided, and means our ex-Cheeky chums have suffered a total of 6 raids while perpetrating 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
13 July 1985	Pa Bumpkin	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)

Revamp 3

Revamp 3, which was introduced in the 'new look' issue dated 07 July 1979, was not as extensive as the previous overhaul that Cheeky Weekly underwent 9 months earlier. Possibly this was because it was felt by IPC's management that Cheeky Weekly was doing pretty well at the time so only needed minor tweaking. Alternatively, (and more likely in my opinion in the light of what was to occur in subsequent months) the view at executive level may have been that the comic was on its last legs and thus little more than a desultory attempt at a revival was appropriate. The main focus of those in IPC's comic office at that time was probably being directed towards the latest addition to their humour/adventure stable, Jackpot, which had made its debut just a couple of months earlier.

The most noticeable change as of revamp 3 was the loss of the Mystery Comic as a conceptual grouping of features in the centre pages (the comic-within-a-comic idea was one that IPC/Fleetway flirted with a number of times, seemingly attempting to emulate the success of their 2-in-1 comic Whizzer and Chips). However, all the former Mystery Comic strips would continue, but distributed around the comic.

3 features came to an end as of the previous issue in order to free up space for new strips. These were;

• The Cheeky's Week...Sunday cover strip, which was replaced with a series of untitled, single-panel cover gags, sometimes sharing the front page with news of various promotions
• Reprint from Shiver and Shake (see, I told you IPC returned to the 2-in-1 comic idea on multiple occasions), Menace of the Alpha Man
• The Burpo Special

Three 'new' strips were welcomed aboard as part of the overhaul, two of which featured characters who hadn't previously appeared in the comic; Stage School and The Gang, the latter being a re-titled reprint of The Double Deckers from Whizzer and Chips. The third new strip (which didn't actually make its debut until the 14 July 1979 issue) starred Cheeky's slithering sidekick in the punningly-titled Snail Of The Century.

Cheeky's daily pages were re-designed, losing the introductory Cheeky's Week title panel as well as the What did YOU do today? Diary section at the foot of the page (no doubt to the relief of reader Emily Jacob, who had expressed her dislike of this aspect of revamp 2 in the 12 May 1979 issue).

Cheeky Weekly's unique feature - the linking of all the non-Cheeky strips into the toothy funster's universe by various framing devices (such as Creepy Sleepy Tale being a bedtime story that Cheeky read to Baby Burpo, and Space Family Robinson being a film series shown during the Saturday morning pictures) expired as of this revamp (with the exception of Snail of the Century which, starring as it did Cheeky's mollusc mate was clearly linked to Krazy Town and often featured our grinning pal.)

Another small but familiar element was also dropped as of the 07 July 1979 issue - the little dates corresponding to each issue's cover date that had previously been printed on Cheeky Weekly's pages ceased to appear.

Rather surprisingly (to me, anyway) revamp 3 took place during the course of IPC's 1979 Star Guest promotion. One might have expected Cheeky Weekly's editor to delay the comic's refashioning (such as it was) until after the final Star Guest strip had appeared, just 3 weeks later in the 28 July 1979 issue. It would also have been nice to delay the metamorphosis of Skateboard Squad into Speed Squad for a few weeks until the revamp, but maybe the scriptwriter had exhausted all board-based ideas by May '79.

The table below compares the contents of the Revamp 2 issue (30 September 1978) and the Revamp 3 issue, It matches the features included in both (the first 17 rows), then goes on to...

• List those which started after Revamp 2 but which continued beyond Revamp 3 ('X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins DD-Mon-YYYY'),
• List those that were running as of Revamp 2 but expired before Revamp 3 ('X - Ended DD-Mon-YYYY')
• List those that were absent from the Revamp 3 issue but would return later ('X - Will return')
• List those which started after the commencement of Revamp 2 and ended before Revamp 3, ordered by the date on which they finished  ('Started and finished within dates')

Comparison of features: Issues 30-Sep-1978 and 07-Jul-1979

30-Sep-1978	07-Jul-1979
6 Million Dollar Gran	6 Million Dollar Gran
Calculator Kid	Calculator Kid
Cover Feature	Cover Feature
Disaster Des	Disaster Des
Elephant On The Run	Elephant On The Run
Friday	Friday
Joke-Box Jury	Joke-Box Jury
Monday	Monday
Mustapha Million	Mustapha Million
Mystery Boy	Mystery Boy
Paddywack	Paddywack
Saturday	Saturday
Sunday	Sunday
Thursday	Thursday
Tub	Tub
Tuesday	Tuesday
Wednesday	Wednesday
X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins 09-Dec-1978	Chit-Chat
X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins 26-May-1979	Speed Squad
X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins 07-Jul-1979	Stage School
X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins 31-Mar-1979	Star Guest
X - New after 30-Sep-1978: Begins 07-Jul-1979	The Gang
X - Started before 30-Sep-1978, Ends 17-Nov-1979	What's New, Kids
Cheeky's Pal Puzzle	X - Ended 02-Dec-1978
Cheeky's Week	X - Ended 30-Jun-1979
Hoi! What do you get up to all week	X - Ended 30-Sep-1978
Interval	X - Ended 02-Dec-1978
Silly Snaps	X - Will return
Skateboard Squad	X - Ended 12-May-1979
Tweety and Sylvester	X - Ended 02-Dec-1978
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf	X - Ended 30-Sep-1978
Why, Dad, Why?	X - Will return
Started and finished within dates	Ghouldilocks Start 14-Oct-1978, End 14-Oct-1978
Started and finished within dates	Hey Presto! Magic Show Start 21-Oct-1978, End 21-Oct-1978
Started and finished within dates	Winners of Skateboard and Tennis competitions Start 28-Oct-1978, End 28-Oct-1978
Started and finished within dates	Who's your Super-Star Start 18-Nov-1978, End 18-Nov-1978
Started and finished within dates	Big Four Saint Competition Start 02-Dec-1978, End 02-Dec-1978
Started and finished within dates	Feature Omitted Start 02-Dec-1978, End 02-Dec-1978
Started and finished within dates	The Terrible Trail to Taggart's Treasure Start 07-Oct-1978, End 02-Dec-1978
Started and finished within dates	Laugh and Learn Start 07-Oct-1978, End 09-Dec-1978
Started and finished within dates	Chutes Away competition winners Start 06-Jan-1979, End 06-Jan-1979
Started and finished within dates	Goonburger Maze Start 20-Jan-1979, End 20-Jan-1979
Started and finished within dates	Spaghetti Junction maze Start 27-Jan-1979, End 27-Jan-1979
Started and finished within dates	Snap Game Start 13-Jan-1979, End 03-Feb-1979
Started and finished within dates	Train Track Maze Start 03-Feb-1979, End 03-Feb-1979
Started and finished within dates	Your chance to vote Start 27-Jan-1979, End 17-Feb-1979
Started and finished within dates	Eagle Eye Start 06-Jan-1979, End 24-Feb-1979
Started and finished within dates	Ash Wednesday Start 03-Mar-1979, End 03-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Shrove Tuesday Start 03-Mar-1979, End 03-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Disaster Des spot the difference Start 17-Mar-1979, End 17-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Saint competition results Start 24-Mar-1979, End 24-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Smurfs competition results Start 24-Mar-1979, End 24-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Cheeky's Jersey Pattern Start 31-Mar-1979, End 31-Mar-1979
Started and finished within dates	Easter Saturday Start 14-Apr-1979, End 14-Apr-1979
Started and finished within dates	Good Friday Start 14-Apr-1979, End 14-Apr-1979
Started and finished within dates	Top Ten Poster Start 07-Apr-1979, End 28-Apr-1979
Started and finished within dates	Top Ten Poster instructions Start 07-Apr-1979, End 28-Apr-1979
Started and finished within dates	Cheeky Spotter Book of Town and Around Start 19-May-1979, End 09-Jun-1979
Started and finished within dates	Cheeky Hustle Start 16-Jun-1979, End 16-Jun-1979
Started and finished within dates	Who Is The Alpha Man Start 16-Jun-1979, End 16-Jun-1979
Started and finished within dates	Menace of the Alpha Man Start 03-Mar-1979, End 30-Jun-1979
Started and finished within dates	The Burpo Special Start 09-Dec-1978, End 30-Jun-1979

Dick Millington RIP

Just read on Lew Stringer's blog of the sad passing of Dick Millington. As Lew mentions, Dick was probably best known among British comic enthusiasts for his Mighty Moth in TV Comic, but he was also one of the select band of artists who on occasion stepped in to keep the fun bubbling along in the Cheeky's Week elements of Cheeky Weekly. It was always interesting to see how other hands would portray Frank McDiarmid's roster of Cheeky characters, and Dick's lively contributions never failed to raise a chuckle.