The Whoopee! Years - Cheeky in Sweeny Toddler, and the Tom Paterson Question

In Whoopee! and Cheeky dated 28 February 1981, in addition to his regular (at that time) 4-pages-per-week 'Cheeky' strip, the grinning gagster also made a cameo appearance, alongside a cake-carrying Krazy Town crony, in that week's Sweeny Toddler episode.

Art: Tom Paterson

If I may take us back for a moment to our toothy pal's own comic (this is relevant to the strip above, so please bear with me), as we know, even the mighty Frank McDiarmid wasn't able to generate all the Cheeky pages in every issue of Cheeky Weekly. I was aware when reading Cheeky Weekly as it was being published that other artists stood in for Frank on occasion. Frank was asked about this when he was interviewed by Paul Squires for Crikey! magazine in 2009, and Frank said that he drew two thirds of the Cheeky strips in that title, a statement that I was delighted to prove correct when I did an analysis of all the Cheeky's Week artwork in 2010.

I've long had a suspicion that Tom Paterson was among the artists who were on occasion drafted in to deputise for Frank during the Cheeky Weekly years. For a period before I started writing this blog I was a regular poster on the Comics UK forum. I raised the issue of the stand-in artists on the forum, and when I proposed there that Tom was responsible for some of the Cheeky artwork, nobody who responded agreed with me, but a couple of people made the suggestion that Frank's pencils may have been inked by other artists, something which I had not considered at all up to that point (some deputising artists, such as Mike Lacey, Barrie Appleby and Dick Millington were clearly pencilling and inking their own pages). My 2010 analysis proves that some of the artwork did indeed use the  'Frank's pencils inked by another artist' method.

However I still have a feeling that Tom did have a hand in some of the artwork during the toothy funster's heyday. His work above gives us an opportunity to compare his rendition of the toothy funster with those on the page below which is from Cheeky Weekly dated 24 June 1978.

To me, not only does the style of Cheeky's appearance look very similar, the lettering on the sound effects and notes written directly onto the panel (i.e. not in the speech bubbles) matches very closely. Interesting.

Cheeky Weekly cover date 04 March 1978

Issue 20 of Cheeky Weekly features hulking cinema usherette Ursula on the front cover, apparently bent on revenge for Cheeky's merciless jibes about her appearance.  This artwork appears to have been specially produced for the cover, rather than taken from a panel within the comic as we have become used to.  The What A Cheek strip, running vertically down the page this week, features a fortune-teller-type joke.  Krazy Town's resident psychic, Crystal Belle, won't make her first appearance until July, so instead Cheeky's partner for this gag is one Madame Zaza.

On Sunday, Cheeky encounters toddler terror Baby Burpo who is worryingly polite.  What's going on?

Monday sees Cheeky sneak into the newsagents under the cover of Milkie, to read the thrilling final instalment of James Bold's current adventure, The Ghost Highwayman.

Burpo is again uncharacteristically helpful to Cheeky on Tuesday.  Now our toothy hero is REALLY getting worried.





Freaky, the alien member of Krazy comic's Krazy Gang (the gang of course numbers Cheeky among its human members), pops up on the What's New, Kids page to plug the current issue of Krazy, which is a space special.

On Wednesday, it becomes clear why Burpo has been well-behaved all week.

Burpo's pre-birthday truce comes to a violent end after this week's Creepy Sleepy Tale, as the terrible toddler uses his teddy bear to batter Cheeky about the head.

Devious, grudge-bearing Burpo takes his revenge during the rest of the week. He helps the Baker's Boy to win his bet with Cheeky on Thursday, and on Friday tells Nosy Nora where to find The Mystery Comic, so that the toothy funster has to wait until she's finished reading it.  The fiendish tot arranges for Cheeky to stand in for the commissionaire on Saturday, resulting in our grinning pal being trampled underfoot when the cinema doors are opened.

The belligerent babe is also the engineer of Cheeky's humiliation by Ursula, as heralded on this week's cover, during a rather shocking cinema interval.  Cheeky can dish it out, but can he take it?

 Cheeky finally capitulates and gives Burpo a belated gift in the final 3 panels of this week's issue.

There is no Pin-Up Pal poster this week, as the back cover carries an ad for Hovis bread, giving details of a promotion that invites consumers of said loaf to send in four wrappers and receive in return four free tickets to a Saturday morning cinema show at ABC cinemas.  Despite being on the back page, this ad is not in colour.

Reprint from Buster, Cocky Doodle cocks his final doodle this week.

Frank McDiarmid provides art on 8 Cheeky's Week elements this week, with Unknown Cheeky Artist 1  delivering the remaining 5.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 04-Mar-1978, Issue 20 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Ursula' - Art Frank McDiarmid\What a Cheek - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
4	Sunday evening - Art Frank McDiarmid
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	James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 9 of 9 - Art Mike White
10	James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 9 of 9 - Art Mike White
11	Suddenly - Art Frank McDiarmid
12	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Old Comic reprint from Knockout 'Our Ernie'
14	What's New, Kids
15	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
16	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds
17	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds\Wednesday (conclusion) - Art Frank McDiarmid
18	Joke-Box Jury
19	Thursday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
20	Bam Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster\Cocky Doodle (final appearance) reprint from Buster
21	Friday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
22	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
23	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
24	Ad: IPC 'Buster' 3 of 5 Ad: 'Misty' 4 of 5
25	Saturday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
26	Tweety and Sylvester 'Too Many Grannies'
27	Tweety and Sylvester 'Too Many Grannies'
28	Interval - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 (final art on feature)
29	Space Family Robinson 'Stampede' - Art John Richardson
30	Space Family Robinson 'Stampede' - Art John Richardson
31	Saturday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
32	Ad: Hovis (single appearance)

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 04-Mar-1978

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid	8
Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	5

Profile - Baker's Boy

Employed by bakers Burnitt & Scorchit to transport a tray of cakes around Krazy Town for no apparent reason, the Baker's Boy repeatedly fell victim to Cheeky's challenge to answer a riddle or forfeit one of his goodies.  In the 28 January 1978 issue, Cheeky set Baker's Boy the riddle 'what's black and white and fast?' on Sunday, and allowed the purveyor of pastries a whole week to supply the right answer.  Despite making valiant attempts to provide the correct solution each day (with, according to Cheeky, an extra 2 attempts on Friday although I can only see one), the hapless comestible conveyor eventually lost 9 of his confections to our grinning hero the following Saturday, on learning that the correct answer is 'a jet-propelled domino'.


It wasn't just Cheeky who preyed on the Baker's Boy's wares, a bird also appeared when Baker's Boy was drawn by Unknown Cheeky Artist1, gorging itself into ornithological obesity.



In another example of the inconsistencies that appear in Cheeky Weekly, the name Scorchit on the Baker's Boy's tray is sometimes spelled Scorchitt. Sometimes there are no names on the tray.

Baker's Boy featured in 99 issues of Cheeky Weekly, most regularly appearing on the Monday page.  In the 13 May 1978 issue, Baker's Boy appeared in the Skateboard Squad story, and he was one of the guests at Pete and Pauline Potts' party in the 6 Million Dollar Gran strip in Cheeky Weekly dated 06 October 1979.

Cheeky's cake-toting source of nourishment originally appeared in the first issue of Krazy dated 16 October 1976, and made regular appearances in that title.

Character	Total Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Baker's Boy	99	24-Dec-1977	02-Feb-1980

Missing From Issues

22-Oct-1977

29-Oct-1977

05-Nov-1977

12-Nov-1977

19-Nov-1977

26-Nov-1977

03-Dec-1977

10-Dec-1977

17-Dec-1977

07-Jan-1978

21-Jan-1978

04-Feb-1978

11-Feb-1978

29-Jul-1978

02-Dec-1978

13-Jan-1979

17-Feb-1979

04-Aug-1979

Baker's Boy - Number of appearances by Element

Element	Number of Appearances
Monday	23
Thursday	21
Saturday	17
Wednesday	16
Tuesday	13
Friday	7
Sunday	5
Suddenly	3
Cheeky's Week	1
Easter Monday	1
Happy leap year	1
Hey Presto! Magic Show	1
Interval	1
Saturday - April Fool's Day	1
Shrove Tuesday	1
Sunday evening	1

Baker's Boy - Number of appearances by Page

Page	Number of Appearances
9	10
30	9
8	8
12	8
23	8
15	7
6	6
7	6
19	6
2	5
10	4
22	4
31	4
11	3
18	3
20	3
21	3
24	3
26	3
1	2
25	2
4	1
5	1
13	1
17	1
27	1
29	1