In addition to carrying the weekly strips Calculator Kid (together with spin-off puzzle feature Calculator Corner) and Mustapha Million (plus of course Stage School which appeared only twice) in Whizzer and Chips' post-Whoopee-merge era (Whizzer and Chips dated 06 April 1985 until the 27 October 1990 final issue), a number of other Cheeky-related items not associated with any of the aforementioned features occasionally appeared in Whizzer and Chips across the period.
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| Whizzer and Chips 05 August 1989, strip originally published 25 August 1984 Art: Jim Watson |
Cheeky first joined the roster of Whizzer and Chips funny folk seven days after the terminal edition of Krazy landed on newsagents' counters in April 1978. However, it was only in his capacity as a member of the Krazy gang that he graced the pages of Chips, as he was still enjoying a solo career as the star of Cheeky Weekly at the time.
Among the things Whizzer and Chips (since its inception styling itself as '2 comics in one') is remembered for is its 'raids', which saw Whizz-kid characters making clandestine sorties into Chip-ite territory, and vice versa, with readers being encouraged by Sid and Shiner (respective leaders of the Whizz-kid and Chip-ite factions) to seek out the boundary-crossing interlopers. His role as an ensemble player didn't exempt Cheeky from the intrusive forays, and one such occasion was evident in Whizzer and Chips dated 25 August 1984, when our grinning pal was recruited to impinge upon that week's episode of Store Wars. Rather than appearing in one of the story panels as was the general custom, Cheeky chose to impose his tooth-packed fizzog on the strip's title panel, usurping the spot normally occupied by the bespectacled hero Bloggs' bowler-hatted retail nemesis, Mr Superstore.
The Krazy Gang's final episode appeared in Whizzer and Chips' 08 February 1986 edition. A moratorium on new raids was imposed at the end of July 1988 (I have previously documented the latter years of the raids), but this did not stop a number of strips that originally appeared prior to the temporary cessation of reciprocal raids and which included intruders from the opposite camp, being reprinted complete with original gatecrasher. Thus, when the Store Wars episode mentioned above from August 1984 was reprinted in Whizzer and Chips dated 05 August 1989, it was adorned with our gagster chum's ugly mug just as on its original outing. Quite what readers in 1989 made of this, since Cheeky had not appeared in the comic for over 3 years and probably a sizeable number of those poring over the edition concerned had only begun reading it after the Krazy Gang's demise, we can only guess.
Other posts in The Whizzer and Chips Years - Random Cheeky Remnants series;
- Part 1 - Farmer Jokes, Farm Fun and Wacky West
- Part 2 - Big Comic Fortnightly Ads
- Part 3 - Comic Turns
- Part 4 - Laugh in!
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