The Wednesday element of Cheeky's Week occupied page 18 in the first
2 issues of Cheeky Weekly, but in the following edition the same location
featured an advertisement for Timex watches bearing on their faces
images of Hanna Barbera favourites Yogi Bear, Hong Kong Phooey, Fred
Flintstone and Scooby Doo.
Cheeky Weekly issue 4 saw the Thursday
element of Cheeky's Week appear on page 18, and a week later in the 19 November 1977 edition the same
Timex ad got its second and final outing, the manufacturers no doubt hoping a significant number of youngsters would be adding one of the watches to their Christmas present list.
What's New Kids then ventured onto page
18 for one week before being replaced in the following issue by an ad
promoting other humour titles from the IPC stable as Cheeky asked
“Have you met my comic chums?” before introducing The Buytonic Boy
from Krazy, The Bumpkin Billionaires from Whoopee! and Whizzer and
Chips' resident prankster, Joker.
What's New Kids then returned for a
week before reader participation feature Joke-Box Jury moved in for
two weeks. Thursday then made a fleeting reappearance for just one
issue and the following week two IPC ads shared page 18 – one for
football mag Shoot and the other reminding Cheeky Weekly readers that
in addition to the four-part Spotter Book of Fun which had that week commenced in the toothy funster's comic, Spotter Books of different
varieties were also launching in the current issues of Krazy,
Whoopee! and Whizzer and Chips.
The gagfest that was Joke-Box Jury then
returned to page 18 for an eight-week chortle-packed run until, in
the 11 March 1978 issue, the 500 winners of the Friends of Cheeky
T-Shirt competition which had appeared in the 26 November 1977 comic
were listed in a rather eye-straining page of tiny text.
Joke-Box Jury returned for two
weeks before What's New Kids and an ad for Mickey Mouse comic shared
page 18. Joke-Box Jury was back for another 2 weeks, on the second
occasion sharing page 18 with an ad announcing that Whizzer and
Chips would be welcoming the survivors from Krazy into its pages the
following week.
In the 22 April 1978 edition, page 18
was once again home to a list of competition winners – this time it
was those lucky readers who had pocketed £2 each for sending
suggestions for a name for Cheeky's slimy sidekick, Snail. Any of the
prize winners hoping to see their suggestions adopted in the comic
would have been disappointed as none of the winning names were used
in the Cheeky strips.
Page 18 saw competition activity yet
again the following week, but this time it wasn't results – readers
were invited to identify 6 Cheeky Weekly characters seen in
silhouette and riding on skateboards. 25 copies of The Hamlyn Book of
Skateboarding were awaiting the successful entrants. Sharing the page
was an ad for Arena Swimwear, featuring British Olympic gold
medal-winning swimmer David Wilkie who was on hand to offer tips for
the benefit of any tiddlers hoping to emulate his watery winning
ways.
Joke-Box Jury then moved back in for a
week before another ad, this time for KP's crispy snacks Outer
Spacers, supplanted it as of the next issue with news of a promotional tie-in with big-screen blockbuster Star Wars. In the 20
May 1978 issue the gagsters of Joke-Box Jury returned, but
reduced to a half page in order to accommodate an ad for IPC girls'
title Jinty, which was running a competition with £500 worth
of Arena Swimwear as prizes.
The indefatigable funsters of Joke-Box
Jury then resumed occupation for a further week before being
displaced in the 03 June 1978 edition by a page featuring 2 ads for IPC product; the Buster
Holiday Fun Special and, in a World Cup year, the Shoot Scotland
Special celebrating Scotland's qualification for the global soccer
tournament (I suspect sales of that particular publication in England, whose national team had failed to secure a
place in the finals in Argentina, were less than phenomenal).
Page 18 was the site of further World
Cup ad action in the comic dated 10 June 1978 as sports-centric title Tiger publicised the final part of its World Cup 1978 booklet in that
week's issue – rather an odd choice to publicise the final part of
a booklet, you might think, but IPC had been plugging Tiger's cut-out
pamphlet in Cheeky Weekly every issue as from the week before it
commenced (but not previously on page 18). Presumably IPC were
conscious that this promotion would have attracted more interest had
the England team made it to the finals.
In the next edition, What's New Kids
shared page 18 with an ad for Twirly, “The fantastic flying hover
toy” from Humbrol, which looks from the illustration to be an
elastic-band-powered balsa wood aeroplane but without the wings.
As Summer really gets under way, in the
following 24 June 1978 issue Whizzer and Chips Holiday Special gets a
plug on page 18, along with an ad for IPC's imminent Mini Comics promotion, designed to boost sales of IPC product over the holiday
season.
A further 2 IPC ads were to be found in
the same location the following week – a second outing on page 18
for the Whizzer and Chips Holiday Special advert, plus an ad for the
64-page Best of Krazy, which was billed as an 'Extra Special'.
The second page of a 2-page Creepy Sleepy Tale moved in to page 18 a week later, along with its
ever-present companion, Wednesday (conclusion). A Creepy Sleepy Tale
page occupied the same slot for 2 more weeks owing to the feature
being displaced from its normal centre-pages location due to the
presence of the aforementioned Mini Comics.
Thursday then made its third and final
visit to page 18 in the 29 July 1978 issue. The following week a
3-issue run of ads began in that location, featuring Rowntree
Mackintosh's I-Spy competition, Trebor's Double Agents free
fingerprint kit promotion and (to allow the tooth enamel of Britain's
youth to recover from the sugary onslaught of previous weeks) a page
devoted to the new sport-themed Top Trumps card games.
What's New Kids resumed for 2
weeks, before sporadic filler Silly Snaps moved in followed by the
final Joke-Box Jury on page 18, bringing to 16 the number of times
the jury had visited that location (14 single-pages, 1 half page and
1 page 1 of 2, making J-B J the third most regular strip to populate
page 18). What's New Kids was then back again.
This brings us to the 30 September 1978 revamp issue, which saw the introduction of The Mystery Comic and
consequent shuffling of contents, so it's not surprising that a
feature new to page 18 (although not to the comic) turns up –
Mustapha Million. Thus began what would be a 7-week page 18 run for
Mustapha (6 weeks featuring the first page of our middle-eastern
pal's 2-page adventure, and one week when Mustapha was reduced to a
single-pager).
The 18 November 1978 issue saw fellow
Mystery Comic star Mystery Boy get shifted on to page 18, but
Mustapha was back in the next issue. A week later, in the first issue
to be truncated due to industrial action, Calculator Kid took up
occupancy, but was supplanted in the next edition (also suffering a
reduced page-count) by Disaster Des.
Count of Elements (or distinct combinations thereof) appearing on Page 18
As the industrial problems worsened,
Cheeky Weekly was among the IPC titles that were absent for the following 3 weeks, returning to the somewhat depleted newsagents'
shelves with the issue dated 06 January 1979. In this edition a
semblance of normality was restored as Mustapha and his millions
moved back to page 18.
However, things were shaken up just a
week later as peripatetic pachyderm Elephant on the Run occupied page
18 for the first of what would be a 3-issue sojourn, whereafter
Mustapha reclaimed the page for a single week before our grey skinned
pal moved back for 2 issues.
Not to be deterred, Mustapha regained
control of page 18 the following week, and remained there for a
further 4 editions, making way in the 31 March 1979 comic for
Cheeky's jersey knitting pattern. Plucky Mustapha elbowed his way back
onto page 18 in the following edition, only to be ousted by
Disaster Des, making his second and final calamity-filled trip to the
eighteenth page.
In an unexpected move, Why, Dad,Why? replaced Des in the next issue, the father and son team making
their only appearance in the location under review. In the 28 April
1979 comic page 18 hosted an announcement advising readers of the
commencement of a promotion in which a free sachet of milkshake mix
would be given away with a different IPC humour title over the next 5
weeks.
Our prosperous pal Mustapha returned in
the next issue, followed by Elephant who was still on the run the
week after that. An instalment of the cut-out-and-collect Cheeky
Spotter Book of Town and Around (in an attempt to retain the custom of milkshake
enthusiasts, each of the comics participating in the promotion
commenced a different 4-part Spotter Book in each title's
freebie-bearing issue) occupied page 18 for a single week, after
which page 18 hosted a Star Guest appearance by Whizzer and Chips'
Happy Families.
Mystery Boy's World War 2 adventure
then reappeared for a 2 week run until, in the 16 June 1979 Disco
Issue, page 18 hosted part of the instructional section describing
the new dance sensation, the Cheeky Hustle.
Mystery Boy then returned for 2 weeks,
bringing to an end his visits to page 18 (his story continued
elsewhere in the comic in subsequent weeks).
Cheeky Weekly's final revamp commenced
with the 'new look' issue dated 07 July 1979. This overhaul brought
to an end the Mystery Comic section in the centre of the comic,
although all the Mystery Comic strips continued to appear (just not
grouped in the middle of each issue as they had been for 37 weeks).
The rearrangement of the comic's contents led to a period of relative
stability on page 18, commencing an 11-week run of the Wednesday
element of Cheeky's Week, interrupted by one week of Mustapha in the
22 September 1979 comic, followed by a further, 5-issue, and final,
run of Wednesday. Cheeky's mid-week merriment was the second most
regular tenant of page 18, clocking up a coincidental 18 appearances
in that location.
Our affluent Arab chum made his final
foray on to page 18 in the 03 November 1979 issue (the only occasion
on which Mustapha was drawn by John Geering), then as the comic
entered its final weeks, the last ad in that location appeared a week
later – this time it was Weetabix who wanted to let Friends of
Cheeky know that packs of their somewhat staid breakfast biscuits had
been enlivened by inclusion of The Amazing World of Batman and Wonder Woman collectors cards.
For the following 6 issues The Gang
(retitled reprints of the Double Deckers strips from Whizzer and
Chips) occupied page 18, but in the comic dated 29 December 1979 that
site was reserved for a Christmas card to readers from Cheeky and
pals, drawn by Frank McDiarmid.
The Gang resumed occupancy for 3
weeks until in the penultimate 26 January 1980 edition, Mustapha made
his farewell page 18 appearance (although he did return elsewhere in
Cheeky Weekly's final issue), having been the most regular occupant in
that location, clocking up 20 visits (19 of which featured page 1 of his 2-page adventures, plus one single page story).
It fell to the revivified Double
Deckers/Gang to host page 18 in Cheeky Weekly's final issue dated 02
February 1980.
Count of Elements (or distinct combinations thereof) appearing on Page 18
| Elements | Total |
| Mustapha Million 1/2 | 19 |
| Wednesday | 18 |
| Joke-Box Jury | 14 |
| The Gang 1/2 | 10 |
| Elephant On The Run 1/2 | 6 |
| Mystery Boy | 5 |
| What's New, Kids | 5 |
| Advertisement: IPC\Advertisement: IPC | 4 |
| Advertisement: IPC | 3 |
| Thursday | 3 |
| Advertisement: Timex | 2 |
| Creepy Sleepy Tale 2/2\Wednesday (conclusion) | 2 |
| Disaster Des | 2 |
| Joke-Box Jury 1/2 | 2 |
| Joke-Box Jury\Advertisement: IPC | 2 |
| 500 T-Shirt Winners | 1 |
| Advertisement: KP | 1 |
| Advertisement: Rowntree Mackintosh | 1 |
| Advertisement: Sporting Aces | 1 |
| Advertisement: Trebor | 1 |
| Advertisement: Weetabix | 1 |
| Calculator Kid | 1 |
| Cheeky Hustle 2/2 | 1 |
| Cheeky's Jersey Pattern 2/2 | 1 |
| Christmas Card 2/2 | 1 |
| Creepy Sleepy Tale 1/2 | 1 |
| Mustapha Million | 1 |
| Name the Snail results | 1 |
| Silly Snaps 1/2 | 1 |
| Skateboard competition\Advertisement: Arena Swimwear | 1 |
| Star Guest | 1 |
| The Cheeky Spotter Book of Fun 2/2 | 1 |
| What's New, Kids\Advertisement: IPC | 1 |
| What's New, Kids\Advertisement: Twirly | 1 |
| Why, Dad, Why? | 1 |
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