The Whoopee Years - Snail

Readers of Krazy first saw Cheeky’s slithering sidekick in issue number 6 of that comic, dated 20 November 1976. Snail appeared only intermittently at first, but after a few weeks the toothy funster was rarely seen without his shell-bearing companion (except for Cheeky’s appearances in the Krazy Gang strips where Snail was never on view, probably because he was wary of being eaten by the gang parrot, Blue).

Snail followed when Cheeky secured his own comic, eventually graduating to his own, one page a week feature, and when Cheeky Weekly folded the toothy funster's constant companion faithfully accompanied him into the pages of Whoopee!

The mirthful mollusc featured on the cover of the first combined Whoopee! and Cheeky, and continued to appear in our grinning pal’s strips for the duration of his Whoopee! (and Whoopee) career. However Snail also had his own features following the merge. The first of these was a weekly untitled single row of panels (two panels per gag except for the 03 May 1980 issue where the joke was delivered across 3 panels) which appeared below What a Cheek on the Cheeky Section front cover. This series began in the third combined issue of Whoopee! and Cheeky, and subsequently appeared every week (with the exception of 15 March 1980 when the Cheeky Section cover heralded the toothy funster’s new, movie-based series) until the Cheeky Section concept was dropped after the issue dated 04 October 1980.

The first untitled strip featuring Snail - 23 February 1980. Art: Frank McDiarmid

I had previously assigned the artwork credits for all these untitled Snail strips to Frank McDiarmid, but looking at them again, it seems to me that Frank only drew them up to and including the 22 March 1980 issue. I think subsequent strips may have been drawn by the person who rendered the ET Challenge results page, and various 'place a regular order' ads, who was presumably a staff artist.

29 March 1980 - not Frank?

The untitled Snail strips harked back to Snail of the Century in Cheeky Weekly; both featured wildlife witticisms as the gastropod gagster swapped jokes with various garden creatures (although unlike in SotC, Cheeky never appeared in the untitled Snail strip). I felt Snail wasn't really a strong enough character to front his former whole page strip in the toothy funster's comic, and that he was much better suited to the single-row-of-panels format. The first 21 untitled strips were printed in colour, but the remaining 6 episodes were printed in red ink (possibly the lack of a title had confused some readers and it may be that the crimson printing was introduced to clarify the boundary between the colour What a Cheek and Snail's gags).

The final issue to include a Cheeky Section was that dated 04 October 1980, and Snail's untitled vehicle ended in the same edition. A week later Cheeky's pages were revamped and the inimitable invertebrate's appearances were for almost a year confined to the initial run of the Cheeky feature. However, as of a further remodelling of Cheeky's contributions in the 12 September 1981 edition, the toothy funster's slimy stooge was once again allocated his own feature, this time entitled Cheeky's Snail (rather prosaic, but at least it was a title). Snail's new strip was located in the centre pages, sharing that prime location with a variety of other Cheeky-related offerings. Once again fauna funnies were to the fore as gags were traded with various scuttling, crawling and flying garden residents.

First appearance of the Cheeky's Snail strip
Art: Frank McDiarmid

All 17 Cheeky's Snail strips were drawn by Frank McDiarmid, and printed in black and white with red spot colour. Following the strip's final appearance in Whoopee! dated 02 January 1982, Snail was once again restricted to appearances alongside Cheeky in the toothy funster's features. Our grinning chum's inseparable sidekick accompanied him in his last Whoopee appearance in the final issue dated 30 March 1985. A week later Whoopee was merged into Whizzer and Chips, but Cheeky's solo strips didn't transfer into the newly combined comic. However our toothy pal had been appearing in Whizzer and Chips as a member of the Krazy Gang since Krazy had folded in 1978, and continued to appear in that role after the Whoopee merge, but I don't recall ever seeing Snail in the Krazy Gang's Whizzer and Chips run.

The features – Snail of the Century

Snail had been Cheeky's faithful (but silent) slimy sidekick since issue 6 of Krazy in November 1976, but over two and a half years later our mollusc mate was elevated to become the star of his very own feature. Snail of the Century was the last original strip to commence in Cheeky Weekly, making its debut in the edition dated 14 July 1979 and completing the comic's 'new look' which had been initiated a week earlier.

First appearance of Snail of the Century
Cheeky Weekly 14 July 1979
Art: Frank McDiarmid

 

The strip (the title, which had first appeared on the cover of Cheeky Weekly dated 02 June 1979, being a play on Parsonstastic TV quiz show of the time, Sale of the Century) was a spin-off from the Cheeky's Week pages and Snail thus joined Baby Burpo to become the only characters from Cheeky's supporting cast to make it into their own regular strips (The Burpo Special in the case of the notorious nappy-wearer). Additionally, both Snail's and Burpo's own features bore titles referencing TV shows of the era.

Despite the much earlier competition in which readers were invited to send in suggestions for Snail's name, none of the winning entries published in the 22 April 1978 edition were ever used in either Cheeky's Week or Snail of the Century (seemingly not the first time IPC had neglected to use a name supplied by a reader).

Frank again

 

Although the strip was clearly set in Cheeky's universe, there was no introduction within the CW strips, since Cheeky Weekly's framing devices had been dropped as of the aforementioned 'new look' issue dated 14 July 1979. However, there was framing within each SotC episode, as at the beginning of every story the inimitable invertebrate would observe Cheeky's current preoccupation before slithering out into the garden to meet his back yard buddies. The end of each episode saw Snail return indoors to view the latest state of affairs in the Cheeky household. Snail, Cheeky, his parents, Baby Burpo and school gardener Dan-Dan the Lavender Man were the only characters from the Cheeky's Week pages to feature in SotC, and none of the SotC supporting cast appeared in Cheeky's Week.

Most memorable among the SotC characters was Weevil Knievel (whose surname underwent a number of different spellings in the early weeks of the feature), the motorcycle stunt rider. The mini motorcyclist (a spoof of course on Evel Knievel) either appeared or was mentioned in every SotC episode.

 

Snail's nephew appeared just once

 

Snail of the Century was missing from just 3 issues after its commencement, appearing in 27 editions in total. The feature was most often to be found on Cheeky Weekly's back cover, benefiting from the colour printing available in that location on 25 occasions. Frank McDiarmid drew 25 episodes, with Barrie Appleby supplying 2.

Missed opportunity for a gag -
surely Snail's fave disc is Me Shell by The Beatles

I mentioned above that Snail of the Century was a spin-off from Cheeky's Week, but really it was more like a knock-off. It attempted to relocate Cheeky's pun-fests to the back garden, but sadly Snail, while a great sidekick, didn't really have the personality to front a strip on his own. Having no arms or legs and only a rudimentary face meant the star of the strip was visually a little dull. Nor were the mirthful mollusc's mates as engaging a bunch as Cheeky's pals. Not being a fan of anything with more than 4 legs or lacking a backbone, the strip never really appealed to me.

Snail of the Century in the Cheeky Weekly Index

 

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Snail of the Century	14-Jul-79	02-Feb-80	27	3	12,23,32

Issues Missed In Run

04-Aug-79

22-Sep-79

10-Nov-79

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Snail of the Century	Frank McDiarmid	25	14-Jul-1979	02-Feb-1980
Snail of the Century	Barrie Appleby	2	13-Oct-1979	20-Oct-1979

Preceding Page	Count
Saturday 2/2	25
Ringer Dinger	1
Joke-Box Jury	1

Pages per Issue	Number of Issues
1	27

Cheeky Weekly cover date 14 October 1978

Cheeky Weekly completes its first year of publication with this 52nd issue.  There are amnesiac animal antics on the cover, as Elephant continues to evade his plastic-clad pursuer in a blown-up panel from last week's Elephant on the Run episode.  Below that, Bubblegum Boy is back on the front cover for the first time since the 13 May 1978 issue, still stranded in the sky above Krazy Town while, far below, the toothy funster engages in daft, door-derived drollery.

On Tuesday our favourite merry mollusc gets all love-struck as he meets a glamorous gastropod, and we observe a rare occurrence of Cheeky acknowledging the existence of his slithering sidekick.

Our shell-dwelling chum also makes a cameo appearance in this week's Skateboard Squad strip.

This week's cover star uses a false moustache and bowler hat to evade capture by The Man In The Plastic Mac at the start of the latest instalment of Elephant On The Run.  The peripatetic pachyderm then finds himself employed in the grappling game as a masked wrestler.  Our jumbo hero is dismayed when he spots TMITPM among the audience as his first bout commences, and the situation deteriorates rapidly when Elephant is unmasked by his opponent.  In the punch-up that ensues, TMITPM gets entangled in the ropes and our large-eared hero makes good his escape, concluding an agreeably daft episode.


Mike Lacey delivers a cracking Disaster Des page, packed with great gags.

In a rather over-familiar script idea, Calculator Kid, with the help of his electronic pal, unmasks a burly, female-impersonating jewel thief, just as a policeman happens to be passing, in his story this week.

Rounding off the comic is the back cover's Cheeky's Pal puzzle, this week a knitting-based poser featuring Granny Gumdrop.

Robert Nixon draws the main cover feature this week (albeit in a panel lifted from last week's comic), the only time his art would appear on a Cheeky Weekly cover.

One year in, and already the comic seems to be relying rather a lot on one-off fillers.  Like the Hickory Dickory Doc and Sonny Storm reprints, used in the 16 September 1978 and 23 September 1978 issues respectively, this week's Ghouldilocks feature (a reprint from Jag - see below) will not return.  Thanks to Lew Stringer who, on the Comics UK forum, identified the artist on this strip as Stan McMurtry.

Also on the forum, klakadak-ploobadoof was able to clarify where this strip had originally appeared;

"I looked through my collection and notes and this is what I can say regarding Ghouldilocks: there were two series, both drawn by the same artist. The first series had a short run in Jag and lasted only 18 weeks from October 19th, 1968 until the last tabloid-sized Jag dated Feb. 15th, 1969. The second series in Shiver and Shake began in issue No. 22 (August 4th, 1973) and enjoyed a considerably longer run of 44 episodes, ending in issue 67 (June 15th, 1974) (there was no Ghouldilocks in Shiver and Shake issue 54 dated March 16th, 1974). I was surprised to discover that only 5 of the original Jag episodes were reprinted in the second series.

Niblet, the episode [printed in Cheeky Weekly] is a reprint from Jag dated 23rd November, 1968, and it wasn‘t one of the reprints that appeared in Shiver & Shake."

Many thanks to klakadak-ploobadoof for this excellent piece of research.

All 10 Cheeky's Week strips this week feature pure Frank McDiarmid art.

UPDATE 16 March 2012 - The ever-reliable klakadak-ploobadoof has unearthed some more information about this strip;

"I have a new piece of info to add with regard to the Ghouldilocks episode reprinted in Cheeky. Accidentally I discovered that I wasn't completely right that it wasn't reprinted in Shiver and Shake. Indeed, it didn't appear in the weekly comic proper, but in 1973 IPC companion comics Whizzer and Chips, Knockout and Cor!! all had a feature called Star Guest where strips from one comic made guest appearances in the other papers. The episode that you showed was reprinted in Cor!! dated 1st December, 1973 and Ghouldilocks was introduced as a Shiver and Shake favourite."

Thanks, k-p.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 14-Oct-1978, Issue 52 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'The Elephant' - Art Robert Nixon (single art on feature)\Cheeky's Week - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
4	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	Ad: Woodcraft Village
7	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
8	Joke-Box Jury\Ad: IPC 'Cheeky Annual' 2 of 6
9	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
10	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
11	Ad: IPC '2000AD and Starlord' 2 of 2 \Ad: Bassett's
12	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Tub 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 34 - Art Nigel Edwards
14	Why, Dad, Why? 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 28 - Art John K. Geering
15	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 37 - Art John Richardson
16	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
17	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
18	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
19	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
20	Disaster Des 'Mystery Comic' 3 of 30 - Art Mike Lacey
21	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid
22	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
23	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid
24	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
25	Ad: Trebor 'Chews Music Centre Competition & Free Jeans Badges' 1 of 3
26	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
27	Ad: IPC 'Soccer Monthly' 3 of 5 Ad: 'Look and Learn' 10 of 16
28	Ghouldilocks (single appearance) reprint from Jag - Art Stan McMurtry (single art on feature)
29	Interval - Art Frank McDiarmid
30	The Terrible Trail to Taggart's Treasure reprint from Shiver and Shake - Art Eric Bradbury
31	The Terrible Trail to Taggart's Treasure reprint from Shiver and Shake - Art Eric Bradbury
32	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid\Cheeky's Pal Puzzle 'Granny Gumdrop' - Art Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 14-Oct-1978

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid	10

A taste of Snail

Bruce is taking a look at a Snail of the Century page over on his blog.  I'll eventually get round to preparing a feature post on Cheeky's mollusc mate's very own strip, but in the meantime consider Bruce's post as a taster.

The features - Calculator Kid

Although not a full-blown revamp, there was a certain amount of upheaval in Cheeky Weekly's 01 July 1978 issue.  The 2-page-a-week Space Family Robinson series had come to an end in the previous issue, as had the Suddenly element of Cheeky's Week.  The Tuesday feature was absent from the 01 July 1978 issue (although it would return the following week), and there was less advertising than there had been the week before.

Moving into some of the pages thus vacated was a Whizzer and Chips mini comic, one of IPC's sporadic mini comic promotions which would see Buster, Whoopee! and Mickey Mouse mini comics appearing in Cheeky Weekly in the ensuing weeks.  Making its debut in the same issue was the Calculator Kid feature.

In the second part of his series 'A Line In Chuckles', which was published in the summer 1986 issue of British comic fanzine Golden Fun (see also Terry's more recent autobiography), Calculator Kid artist Terry Bave says his new Cheeky Weekly strip was originally to be about a boy and his transistor radio.  After further consideration, this idea was changed to feature a boy and his CB radio.  Bob Paynter, publisher Fleetway's Group Editor, looked at both ideas and suggested that a calculator might be more topical.  It's hard to believe now, but in a late 70s world where mobile phones were still considered by most to be in the realms of science fiction, a piece of handheld technology such as a calculator was pretty exciting stuff.  Especially when you discovered you could get it to spell out the word BOOBIES.

Young Charlie Counter was given a calculator as a birthday present in the first Calculator Kid strip.  Charlie, the Calculator Kid of the strip's title, was delighted with his gift, and even more so when he realised it not only had the power of speech, but his new plastic pal was electronically prescient, able to calculate the best course of action in any situation and confidently telling Charlie, in a slightly scary way, "I am never wrong".

 

The 16 September 1978 story is typical of the series; Calculator advises Charlie to take a hot water bottle out with him, despite it being a sweltering day.  Charlie is subject to the ridicule of passing kids as he walks the sunny streets clutching his heated rubber bottle.  After being rewarded with a free cornet for warming the ice cream seller's frozen digits with his hotty, Charlie is advised by Calculator not to dispose of the now-cold water, which comes in handy when Charlie encounters a motorist whose radiator has run dry.  Grateful motorist, radiator now brimming, further rewards Charlie, in cash this time.  Calculator now advises Charlie to use the free air compressor in a filling station to inflate the hot water bottle in order that nearby fractious baby can bounce on it.  Cue further cash from happy baby's happy mum.  The strip ends with Calculator's rather smug catchphrase, "As calculated!"

Charlie crossed over into Cheeky's Week, appearing with the toothy funster on the page preceding the Calculator Kid feature in 38 issues, much in the way the Skateboard Squad's strips were often introduced by their appearance with Cheeky before their story commenced.  Crossovers with Cheeky's Week also happened in the other direction, as Snail and Baby Burpo appeared in the 15 July 1978 Calculator Kid story, and Snail went on to appear again in the 05 August 1978 and 09 December 1978 stories. Charlie and Calc were among the guests at Pete and Pauline Potts' party in the 6 Million Dollar Gran strip in Cheeky Weekly dated 06 October 1979.

A school-based Calculator Kid episode in the comic dated 03 February 1979 suggests that Charlie attends the same school as Cheeky when, in a scene set in the boys' washroom, writing on the wall reads 'Cheeky was here'.

All 78 Calculator Kid strips were single-pagers (occasionally less than a full page) drawn by Terry Bave.  Charlie and Calculator were the subject of the Pin-Up Pal poster in the 16 September 1978 issue, but that was drawn by Frank McDiarmid.  The first and last Cheeky Weekly Calculator Kid strips were in colour, as were 8 others.  The strip was absent from only 3 issues during its run from 01 July 1978 to 02 February 1980.

Calculator Kid's title panel, showing Charlie gazing lovingly at his number-crunching mate, remained essentially unchanged throughout its run, although the colouring of the background circle varied when the strip was printed in colour, and in the strip printed in the 29 December 1979 issue, the title was embellished with snow and holly.

Calculator Kid made its debut on page 24, and it hovered around that position until 09 December 1978, when it jumped to page 4.  It then slipped back slightly, and most frequently occupied page 7 until 07 July 1979 when it moved up to page 3, where it remained, with 4 exceptions, until the penultimate issue, dated 26 January 1980.  In the final issue of Cheeky Weekly, Calculator Kid was on page 16.

Calculator Kid was one of the features that survived the merge, and his adventures continued in Whoopee! and Cheeky.  At least one Cheeky Weekly strip was reprinted as Carlito Y Su Calculadora in Spanish publication Zipi y Zape in 1984.  The sample page from Zipi y Zape shown here was originally printed in Cheeky Weekly dated 04 November 1978, in black and white.  Calculator Kid reprints also appeared in The Best of Whoopee!

A profile of Charlie Counter and Calculator can be seen here.

Calculator Kid - The Whoopee Years

Calculator Kid - The Whizzer and Chips Years

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Calculator Kid	01-Jul-78	02-Feb-80	78	3	3,4,7,8,9,16,17,18,20,21,22,23,24

Issues Missed In Run

07-Apr-79

21-Apr-79

26-May-79

Profile - Snail

Snail was Cheeky's constant companion, accompanying him throughout the week, even into the cinema. A particularly fleet-footed gastropod (or fleet-podded gastrofoot), Snail would often be seen at Cheeky's feet in one panel, and atop the toothy funster's head the next. This head-borne method of travel benefitted Snail as he expended less energy while keeping up with his pal, and explains the slicked-down look of Cheeky's hairstyle.

The relationship between the two was rather odd, as Cheeky rarely acknowledged Snail's existence.  One such occasion took place in the 14 October 1978 issue, when Snail became love-struck on meeting an attractive female Snail.

The strip creators didn't give Snail the power of speech with humans, but readers could see his molluscy speech and thought balloons. He often became annoyed when the artist left him out of a few panels.




At moments of extreme stress, Snail would exit his shell at speed. Initially, these scenes were censored to avoid readers being confronted with a naked Snail, but occasionally a more liberal approach was in evidence and such occurrences were illustrated without editorial interference.




Some months into the comic's run, a competition was held to name the snail, although none of the winning suggestions were ever used in the strips.

11 February 1978

22 April 1978

Evidently a popular character, Snail eventually secured his own page in the comic, a feature entitled Snail of the Century. The title was a pun on TV's Norwich-based 'quiz of the week', Sale of the Century. In the strip, Snail was able to converse with the animal/insect occupants of Cheeky's garden, and the strip was basically the same joke-tastic tomfoolery as the Cheeky strips, but nearer the ground.

Our slithery pal made a number of guest appearances in other strips in the comic - he appeared in The Skateboard Squad strips dated 13 May 1978 and 14 and 21 October 1978, and also in the Calculator Kid strips dated 15 July 1978, 05 August 1978 and 09 December 1978.