Ed McHenry's Cheeky Panto

From the pen of Ed McHenry comes this Christmas quiz which appeared in the 26 December 1981 issue of Whoopee! Almost 2 years after its absorption of Cheeky Weekly, Whoopee! was still featuring a considerable number of strips which originated in the toothy funster's comic. Thus, along with Cheeky himself and a number of Whoopee! stalwarts, Ed draws Louise, Paddywack, Charlie and Calculator, Teacher and kids from Stage School, Mr Smith (Cheeky's teacher), Jogging Jeremy, Baby Burpo, Gloomy Glad, Mustapha Million, 6 Million Dollar Gran and Auntie Daisy. Oh, and not forgetting the toothy funster's slithering sidekick, Snail.

If my maths and comic character identification skills are fully functioning, the scene features 17 characters who originated in Whoopee! or earlier merged titles not including Cheeky Weekly (don't forget to count Chip as well as Mike), and 19 who came from strips in Cheeky Weekly (don't forget to include Calculator). I think the cat and two characters representing Ali Baba's 40 thieves are just generic cartoon creations.

The features - Teacher's Teasers

The Teacher's Teasers puzzle feature was a filler that appeared in only 3 issues of Cheeky Weekly, spanning cover dates 26 August to 23 September 1978. The Old Comic and Creepy Sleepy Tale features had made their final appearances in the 26 August 1978 comic, and the Crack-A-Joke cut-out game ran from the 02 September 1978 comic to that dated 23 September 1978. It seems that Teacher's Teasers was used to fill some spaces in the comic pending the end of the Crack-A-Joke promotion and Cheeky Weekly's revamp in the 30 September 1978 issue, in which the full Mystery Comic moved in to the centre pages.

Although it was a filler, some effort was taken to tie the feature into Cheeky's Week.  In the first instalment, Teacher introduces the puzzles, saying "Welcome to Teacher's Teasers. They'll get you thinking in time for school next week!" thus picking up on the theme of the impending resumption of school after the summer holidays which runs through the Cheeky's Week strips in that issue. Also, Cheeky and several of his pals are depicted around the puzzles.

The first Teacher's Teasers was a 2-page feature, but the two subsequent appearances were single pages.  Teacher, Cheeky and Louise appeared in the second, and Teacher and Cheeky in the third and final TT page.

Ed McHenry did nice artwork on all 3 TT features.

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Teacher's Teasers	26-Aug-78	23-Sep-78	3	2	9,10,11,14

Issues Missed In Run

09-Sep-78

16-Sep-78

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Teacher's Teasers	Ed McHenry	3	26-Aug-1978	23-Sep-1978

Preceding Page	Count
Monday	2
Silly Snaps	1

Pages per Issue	Number of Issues
2	1
1	2