Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 32

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. However, the Krazy Gang's Whizzer and Chips run ended in the issue dated 08 February 1986. Calculator Kid survived a little longer, his run of reprints coming to an end in the 26 July 1986 edition and leaving Mustapha Million as the sole Cheeky Weekly survivor.

A month after he was raided by Whizz-Kid-in-Chief Sid, Mustapha was subject to the unwanted attention of another wily Whizz-dweller. Can you spot the irritating interloper? As always, scroll down to find the identity of the miscreant.

Whizzer and Chips 14 February 1987
Art: Barry Glennard

Yes, it's the sneaky cyclopean sphere, Odd-Ball, congratulating himself on his onomatopoeic obscuration. Mercifully he didn't say 'I made a mug of Mustapha Million'.

More raiding fun soon!

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)
27 July 1985	Joker	Mustapha Million
24 August 1985	Cheeky	Sid's Snake
14 September 1985	Odd-Ball Calculator Kid	Calculator Kid Store Wars
05 October 1985	Mustapha Million	Animalad
19 October 1985	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million
23 November 1985	Sweeny Toddler Sweeny Toddler Sweeny Toddler	Calculator Kid The Krazy Gang (Cheeky) Mustapha Million
18 January 1986	Mustapha Million	Super Steve
25 January 1986	Odd-Ball Cheeky	Mustapha Million Odd-Ball
08 February 1986 The Krazy Gang ends this issue	Animalad	Mustapha Million
15 February 1986	Lazy Bones	Calculator Kid
15 March 1986	Odd-Ball	Calculator Kid
29 March 1986	Calculator Kid	Master P Brain
05 April 1986	Bumpkin Billionaires	Mustapha Million
12 April 1986	Animalad	Calculator Kid
31 May 1986	Lazy Bones	Calculator Kid
07 June 1986	Mustapha Million	Joker
28 June 1986	Sweet Tooth	Mustapha Million
26 July 1986 Calculator Kid ends this issue	No Cheeky-related raid this issue	No Cheeky-related raid this issue
16 August 1986	Mustapha Million	Joker
23 August 1986	Sweet Tooth	Mustapha Million
18 October 1986	Winnie the Royal Nag	Mustapha Million
06 December 1986	Toy Boy	Mustapha Million
13 December 1986	Mustapha Million	Odd-Ball
17 January 1987	Sid	Mustapha Million
14 February 1987	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million

Cheeky Weekly cover date 22 December 1979

Art: copied-and-pasted Mike Lacey

It’s issue number 111 of the toothy funster’s comic and the cover is still describing 6 Million Dollar Gran as being bionic when she was clearly depicted as a robot way back in the first edition. A ‘five papers contest’ is also announced, while Cheeky engages in constabulary banter, the visuals for which have been copied and pasted from the Monday page in Cheeky Weekly dated 01 September 1979.

 

The canny Cheeky Weekly editor has not only dipped into the archives in order to decorate the cover, he’s swept the cobwebs off the Cheeky’s Week artwork that has been languishing in his desk since it was delivered to him a year ago. He wasn’t able to use it at that time as publication of our favourite comic was suspended for 3weeks in December 1978 so, with a few judicious alterations, the Christmas run-up issue finally gets an airing. I covered the lost Christmas issues a while back so I’ll be linking to those earlier posts as we progress through this week’s edition, starting with Sunday, which finds Cheeky distributing Christmas cards along with the Sunday papers.

 

The ever-impecunious Charlie is worried that he can’t afford to buy Christmas presents and as if that wasn’t bad enough, his aunt has sent him a new winter outfit…

Art: Calculator Kid - Terry Bave, Cheeky Chuckles - Mike Lacey
Not sure why Calculator Kid was truncated and didn't fill a whole page. Cheeky Chuckles is obviously a filler using Mike Lacey single-panel gags that had probably previously appeared elsewhere.

Cheeky’s card deliveries continue on Monday.

A typically unpleasant Tub episode concerns the eponymous glutton’s attempts to elicit food from various folk by faking fainting fits, and concludes with the portly protagonist about to receive a thrashing.

Art: Nigel Edwards

Then it’s Tuesday.

 

Unlike Calculator Kid, Disaster Des has no worries about funding his mum’s Christmas present, but the owner of the department store he visits is more than a little upset.

Art: Mike Lacey

 

This week’s Cut-Out Comedy Catalogue consists of Constable Chuckle jokes, and features on its cover the same copied and pasted image of the comical copper as adorns page 1.

Cheeky's Wednesday doings then come under scrutiny.

Christmas expenditure poses no problem for Mustapha Million.

Art: Joe McCaffrey

As of Thursday, Cheeky's Week artwork duties pass from Frank McDiarmid to Mike Lacey.

This issue’s episode of Snail of the Century, unusually situated on page 23 instead of its customary back cover location, isn’t held over from last year as the feature didn’t begin until the 14 July 1979 issue, but the story has been crafted to reflect the ‘Cheeky distributing Christmas cards’ theme running through the year-old Cheeky’s Week.

Art: Frank McDiarmid
Was this strip originally intended for its usual back cover location, with Snail's original speech balloon saying 'after a week of handing out Christmas cards'?

 

To compound the front cover’s incorrect description of the synthetic senior citizen’s attributes, there are 3 erroneous references to Gran’s bionic nature in her strip this week.

Art: Ian Knox

 

Which brings us to Friday.

Christmas issue and Annual excitement builds on page 27.

 

There’s a nice letter about Frank McDiarmid on the Chit-Chat page...

 

Following which Saturday rounds off the Cheeky’s Week elements of this issue.

As mentioned earlier, Snail of the Century has been displaced from the back cover this week, being supplanted by a pre-Christmas episode of Elephant On The Run.

Art: Robert Nixon

Frank McDiarmid delivers 5 Cheeky's Week elements, while Mike Lacey provides 4 (although his cover is a copy-and-pasted concoction constructed, presumably, by an art assistant in the Cheeky office).

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 22-Dec-1979, Issue 111 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Constable Chuckle' 2 of 2 - Art Mike Lacey (final art on feature)
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
4	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
5	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
6	Stage School - Art Robert Nixon
7	Stage School - Art Robert Nixon
8	Junior Jet Club Competition (single appearance)
9	Tub - Art Nigel Edwards
10	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
11	Soggy the Sea Monster reprint from Shiver and Shake - Art Robert Nixon
12	Disaster Des - Art Mike Lacey
13	Cheeky's Cut-Out Comedy Catalogue 'Constable Chuckle Jokes'
14	Cheeky's Cut-Out Comedy Catalogue 'Constable Chuckle Jokes'
15	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
16	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
17	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
18	The Gang reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray
19	The Gang reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray
20	Thursday - Art Mike Lacey
21	Why, Dad, Why? - Art John K. Geering
22	Joke-Box Jury
23	Snail of the Century - Art Frank McDiarmid
24	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
25	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
26	Friday - Art Mike Lacey
27	Ad: IPC 'Cheeky Weekly: Christmas Issue next week'Ad: 'Cheeky Annual' 6 of 6
28	Speed Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
29	Chit-Chat
30	Saturday - Art Mike Lacey
31	Saturday - Art Mike Lacey
32	Elephant On The Run - Art Robert Nixon

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 22-Dec-1979

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid	5
Mike Lacey	4

You're safe with Cheeky

I've just caught up with this post over at the Boys Adventure Comics blog. It presents an article from the July 1987 issue of the Society of Strip Illustration newsletter in which the editor of Oink!, Mark Rodgers, discusses the pig-centric publication. He also mentions that Bob Paynter, IPC Group Editor, was apparently of the opinion in 1987 that Krazy and Cheeky Weekly (from an earlier era of course) 'failed because they played too safe'.

Profile – Taff the Laff

Cheeky introduced Welsh wag Taff the Laff in the 14 July 1979 edition of his comic. Where Taff had been for the preceding 87 issues was never explained. Maybe he had only recently moved from the valleys to Krazy Town.

Taff's debut
Art: Mike Lacey

Cheeky's promise of rhyming raillery was contradicted on Taff's second appearance...

Cheeky Weekly 28 July 1979
Art: Dick Millington

...but by the time of his third outing the comical couplets had been restored...

Cheeky Weekly 04 August 1979
Art: Frank McDiarmid

In the comic dated 18 August 1979 the leek-loving lad shared a name-based quip with our toothy pal on Monday and again on Wednesday. Taff also appeared twice in the 08 December 1979 edition, but his second outing that week was in a non-speaking, background role.

Cheeky Weekly dated 10 November 1979 saw a reversal in the usual order of things as the toothy funster told Taff a joke rather than the other way round. This was one of those occasions when the panel containing the set-up was at the end of a row, and the punchline appeared in the first panel of the following row, a situation which does not make it easy to present a decent scan of the gag. I'll just tell you that Cheeky's payoff was "A Taffodil", and you can probably figure out the joke yourself.

Taff appeared on the cover of the comic dated 12 January 1980, sharing a rugby joke with our grinning hero, and the Welsh wit also appeared on the Monday page in the same issue. The laffing lad's final Cheeky Weekly appearance was in the last edition of the comic, bringing to 26 the total number of issues in which Taff appeared. He never featured in the Cheeky pages in Krazy.

Character	Total Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Taff the Laff	26	14-Jul-1979	02-Feb-1980

Count of elements by artist

Character	Artist	Total Elements
Taff the Laff	Frank McDiarmid	17
Taff the Laff	Mike Lacey	5
Taff the Laff	Jimmy Hansen	2
Taff the Laff	Dick Millington	2
Taff the Laff	Frank McDiarmid pencils	2
Taff the Laff	Barrie Appleby	1

The Rejects - Shorty

A number of the supporting cast who populated Cheeky's Week in his own comic originated in the Cheeky pages in Krazy. However not all the characters who appeared in the toothy funster's Krazy strip made the transition into Cheeky Weekly.

A year before Uncle Hamish made his debut in Cheeky Weekly, our toothy pal (at this time still sporting a 'K' on his jumper - he didn't begin wearing the sweater bearing his initial until Krazy dated 20 August 1977 in his own strip, although it was a week later before the toothy funster's 'C' jumper appeared on the Krazy Gang pages) had an encounter with another comical Caledonian...

Krazy 22 January 1977
Art: Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky's diminutive pal from north of the border made no further appearances in Krazy, nor did he transfer into Cheeky Weekly. As mentioned above, the role of frugal Scot in the pages of the toothy funster's own comic was fulfilled by Uncle Hamish.