Up to now when we've taken a look at the contents of a particular page throughout Cheeky Weekly's run, we've discovered that the position of features in the first 2 comics were somewhat different to the later issues. This was due to the presence on page 2 of a welcome from Cheeky, which was absent from all the subsequent editions. However, in the case of page 6 we find that James Bold's first adventure,
Fangs of Fear, occupied this position from the first issue up to and including that dated 24 December 1977. Nevertheless, the welcome-page-displacement-effect meant that in the first 2 Cheeky Weeklys, page 6 hosted the first part of Bold's 2-page instalment, and thereafter, in the issues up to 24 December 1977, page 2 of Bold's adventure was on page 6.
There was some disruption to what had become the established page order in the Christmas 1977 issue dated 31 December 1977, resulting from extended coverage of Cheeky's festive antics. Thus 6 Million Dollar Gran occupied page 6, while the final episode of Fangs of Fear was moved further back in the comic.
Gran's adventures then became the regular subject on page 6, all the way up to the comic dated 30 September 1978, when Cheeky appeared in a half page feature on page 6, to ask "Hoi! What did you get up to today?"
The toothy funster's enquiry resulted from the revamp which Cheeky Weekly underwent in this issue. The main change was the appearance of The Mystery Comic in the centre pages, but the Cheeky's Week features were redesigned to include a brief diary section at the foot of each page, captioned 'What did YOU do today?', with space for readers to record any significant events in their day. In the half-page feature mentioned above, Cheeky explains the purpose of this new area of the page. The remainder of page 6 carries an ad for the 1979 Knockout Annual.
The following week, two ads occupied page 6; one for Soccer Monthly, and the second for the first combined issue of 2000AD and Starlord.
An ad appeared on page 6 again in the following week's issue dated 14 October 1978, this time for Bryant & May's Woodcraft Village construction kits. Bryant & May were of course manufacturers of matches. From the drawings of the completed models featured in the ad, it seems that the company had ideas of expanding their business by producing a series of construction kits which used matchsticks as the basic building material. The pictures show completed models of a church, windmill and village shops - hardly the stuff to set the pulses racing of the Star Wars generation. I presume one of the production lines at their factory was dedicated to this project and had the 'add flammable head' switch firmly in the 'off' position. I'd hate to think what would happen if the lines got mixed up - smokers desperate for a drag would open their boxes of matches and try to strike headless sticks, and kids would find their carefully-constructed rustic idyll becoming a disaster area as it erupted into flames. The connection between toys and matches is an uneasy one today, as I'm sure it was in the late 70s.
Page 6 in the 21 October 1978 issue was the home of the Monday feature that week, but in the following issue 2 IPC ads were featured in that location; one for that year's Cor!! Comic Annual, and one for IPC's educational mag, Look and Learn.
The next week, a half-page Joke-Box Jury shared page 6 with a Shredded Wheat ad featuring Johnny Morris, of TV's Animal Magic fame, announcing that special packs of the cereal carried tokens which could be sent in to raise money for the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals. If that wasn't incentive enough, consumers of the wheaty breakfast comestible could win one of 200 cassette radios by posting off their coupons.
Page 6 had become dominated by ads at this point, as in the 11 November 1978 comic it featured an ad for the first Cheeky Annual, plus an ad, presumably aimed at those for whom the idea of matchstick modelling was entirely too risky, inviting them to enter the less flammable world of Lego.
Page 6 in the next issue featured an ad for retailer John Menzies, making their bid to attract custom in the run up to Christmas by spotlighting 5 board games, which could be purchased at reduced prices in their stores. Unlike a certain supplier of ignition material to the smokers of this fair land, Menzies had fully bought in to the late 70's zeitgeist, heading their ad 'Star Toys At John Menzies', cleverly using the familiar Star Wars typeface against a black background.
On page 6 the following week Lego was back, coupled this time with an ad for the Krazy Annual.
The furious bout of hard selling on page 6 came to an end in the 02 December 1978 issue when the Laugh and Learn feature came to rest in this location.
The following week, the Tuesday page appeared on page 6, while the next week it was the turn of page 6 to host the Monday page again.
The 13 January 1979 issue saw 6 Million Dollar Gran back on page 6, before Monday returned for another 3 weeks. This brings us to the comic dated 10 February 1979, when the reader participation feature Joke-Box Jury was to be found on the 6th page.
Monday was then featured on page 6 for the next 20 issues, but 6 Million Dollar Gran was back on 07 July 1979, and for the following 2 weeks as well.
Gran was evicted from page 6 for the next 3 weeks, by What's New Kids, Joke-Box Jury and What's New Kids, respectively. The synthetic senior citizen made a comeback for a further 2 weeks before being deposed by the aspiring performers of Stage School on 01 September 1979.
Resilient Gran was then firmly back in charge of page 6 for another 7 weeks, until the Monday feature returned.
Ads were back on the page 6 agenda in the 03 November 1979 issue when another Cor!! Comic Annual ad (this time for the 1980 offering) joined with an ad for Pop-A-Points (a range of coloured pens, as far as I can tell) to fill the page.
6 Million Dollar Gran then made one last appearance on page 6, after which our tiny showbiz chums of Stage School took over the page from 17 November 1979 until 22 December 1979.
In a surprise move, middle-eastern moneybags Mustapha Million took control of page 6 in the 29 December 1979 comic, but he was ousted in the next two issues by Monday and Joke-Box Jury respectively, before returning to page 6 for a final time on 19 January 1980.
The following week Monday returned to page 6 for the last time, and in the final issue dated 02 February 1980, Disaster Des was featured on page 6 in the first page of a 2-page set, although each page had a separate story . Presumably the editor found an unused DD page, and as Des was not going to survive the merge with Whoopee!, there was nowhere else to use it.
Count of Elements (or distinct combinations thereof) appearing on Page 6
Elements |
Total |
6 Million Dollar Gran 2/3 | 30 |
Monday | 26 |
6 Million Dollar Gran 3/3 | 11 |
James Bold 2/2 | 8 |
6 Million Dollar Gran 2/2 | 7 |
Stage School 1/2 | 6 |
6 Million Dollar Gran 1/2 | 2 |
6 Million Dollar Gran 1/3 | 2 |
Advertisement: IPC\Advertisement: IPC | 2 |
Advertisement: Lego\Advertisement: IPC | 2 |
James Bold 1/2 | 2 |
Joke-Box Jury | 2 |
Mustapha Million 1/2 | 2 |
What's New, Kids | 2 |
6 Million Dollar Gran | 1 |
Advertisement: IPC\Hoi! What do you get up to all week | 1 |
Advertisement: John Menzies | 1 |
Advertisement: Pop-A-Points\Advertisement: IPC | 1 |
Advertisement: Shredded Wheat\Joke-Box Jury | 1 |
Advertisement: Woodcraft Village | 1 |
Disaster Des 1/2 | 1 |
Easter Monday | 1 |
Joke-Box Jury 1/2 | 1 |
Laugh and Learn 1/2 1/2 | 1 |
Monday 1/2 | 1 |
Stage School | 1 |
Tuesday | 1 |