The Whizzer and Chips Years - Random Cheeky Remnants - Part 2 - Big Comic Fortnightly Ads

In addition to carrying the weekly strips Stage School, Calculator Kid (plus spin-off puzzle feature Calculator Corner) and Mustapha Million 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. 

Described in the publicity as being '52 Fun Pages Fat', Big Comic Fortnightly began appearing in newsagents in June 1988 (the first issue dated 11th to 24th of that month). A full page ad for the first issue appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 18 June 1988, although it neglected to make clear that the comic strip content of Big Comic Fortnightly consisted entirely of reprints (it was only in tiny print on page 51 of the first edition that the vintage nature of the material was revealed). According to the advertising copy, the previous (and presumably reprint-laden) Big Comic Books (published in 1986 and 1987) and Big Comic Holiday Special (1987) had been 'Big Hits', hence the launch of the bi-weekly version. However, Fleetway Publications clearly weren't confident enough to schedule it weekly, the management possibly feeling that forking out 35p every 7 days would tax the average pocket money allocation to an unsustainable degree. Alternatively, as BCF was taking its place on newsagents' counters alongside the company's established monthly reprint collections Best Of Whoopee, Best of Whizzer and Chips, and Best of Buster, and considering that reprints were also regularly employed to pad out Fleetway's annuals, specials and surviving weekly titles, there may have been concerns at the rate at which revivified material was being burned through, leading to reprints of reprints as was happening with Mustapha Million (see below) and no doubt other veteran strips.

 

Whizzer and Chips 18 June 1988

Among the resuscitated characters adorning the advert was Cheeky Weekly's elephantine fugitive Walter, hero of the inconclusive Elephant on the Run. The image of the bearded tusker (top right of the page) was lifted from the second Elephant on the Run episode, drawn by Robert Nixon, which had originally appeared in Cheeky Weekly dated 07 October 1978. The same advert was run in Whizzer and Chips dated 02 and 16 July 1988, but with the text 'On Sale Now' replacing the dates of the first issue as above.

Issue number one of BCF contained the first and second episodes of Elephant on the Run, as originally presented in the Mystery Comic sections of Cheeky Weekly issues dated 30 September and the aforementioned 07 October 1978. Did the person who decided this feature was suitable for reprinting realise that there was no conclusion to the story on its original run, and readers of the toothy funster's comic were left wondering why the grey-skinned hero was being pursued? I only have 3 issues of BCF, numbers 1, 66 and 102 and. although there is Cheeky-related material in all 3 issues, numbers 66 and 102 don't include any Elephant escapades. There were 63 episodes of Elephant on the Run on its first appearance in Cheeky Weekly, plus 1 episode in Cheeky Holiday Special 1980, and a final, 4 page Christmas-themed adventure in Cheeky Annual 1981 (neither of which shed any light on the enigma at the centre of the strip's premise).

Assuming BCF maintained a rate of 2 Elephant on the Run episodes per issue, the strip could have run until BCF issue number 32 if the reprints were restricted to those originally appearing in Cheeky Weekly, or issue 33 if the Special and Annual episodes were included. How did the series conclude in BCF? Was there an apology for the lack of a resolution, or was a special final episode produced to wrap up the story? Sadly, I don't know.

One might have reasonably assumed that the image displayed on the advert above was of the cover to the first issue, but that wasn't actually the case, and our peripatetic pachyderm pal didn't feature on the front page of the copies awaiting purchase across the nation, nor did Elephant's erstwhile Cheeky Weekly colleague Mustapha Million, who also appeared in 2 episodes in that first issue. However, in contrast to the amnesiac fugitive Walter, Mustapha's BCF adventures didn't commence with a reprint of his first appearances, instead launching this particular recycled run with tales from Cheeky Weekly dated 07 October and 23 September 1978 (reprinted in that order). These 2 episodes had previously been reprinted in Whoopee and Wow! issues dated 01 and 15 September 1984 respectively.

I always found committing to buying a fortnightly title somewhat fraught, as it was hard to keep track of the publication dates. I remember occasions when I was certain that I had bought a copy of a bi-weekly comic the previous week so didn't look for it in the newsagents, only to realise 7 days later that my erroneous recollection had resulted in me missing an issue. The next ad for Big Comic Fortnightly, in Whizzer and Chips dated 31 December 1988, addressed this concern, as it included a coupon allowing readers to ask their newsagent to reserve copies on publication. This would have solved my missed issue problem, but I was reluctant to 'place a regular order' due to the newsagent's insistence on writing the reservee's name and/or address on the cover, thus thwarting my objective of amassing a collection of comics in pristine condition. Unfortunately the newsagent coupon doesn't include an instruction PLEASE DON'T SCRAWL ALL OVER MY COMICS!, but it also doesn't feature the usual requirement for it to be countersigned by a parent or guardian. Although Cheeky [Weekly] is listed among the comics being plundered for content, none of the characters featured in the ad are Cheeky-related

Whizzer and Chips 31 December 1988

 

Whizzer and Chips carried one further ad for Big Comic Fortnightly, in the issue dated 17 March 1990. By that point BCF had reached its 47th issue, and although the advert implies that the publication is now known as Big Comic, the 17/30 March on sale dates would suggest that it was still on a bi-weekly schedule. There is no mention of any Cheeky-related content, and I can offer no insight as to the actual line-up for that issue, but I just wanted to note that the newsagent coupon has reverted to including the customary section for the adult countersignatory, possibly after complaints from paper shop proprietors who had suffered the ire of parents whose paper bills revealed they were funding Big Comic Fortnightly subscriptions which had been instituted without their knowledge.

Whizzer and Chips 17 March 1990

 

Other posts in The Whizzer and Chips Years - Random Cheeky Remnants series;

• Part 1 - Farmer Jokes, Farm Fun and Wacky West 

Put a sock in it

Bruce has posted a classic Elephant On The Run episode.

Cheeky Weekly Star Guests in Whoopee! (part 4)

Week 8 of IPC's 1979 Star Guest promotion saw Elephant on the Run chosen as Cheeky Weekly's ambassador to Whoopee! The strip certainly deserved a Star Guest appearance, as it was among Cheeky Weekly's stand-out features. However, this particular episode doesn't really do the feature justice, as there's little of the daft humour that was so evident in its run in the toothy funster's comic. This weakness probably results from the need to restrict the story to a single page. EOTR had benefited from 2-page escapades in Cheeky Weekly up to the date of this Star Guest, whereas Star Guests were, as far as I'm aware, always single pages.

Whoopee! 19 May 1979
Art: Regular EOTR artist Robert Nixon
Many thanks to Irmantas for this scan

Readers of the above strip who were hitherto unaware of  Elephant and his predicament may have felt the introductory caption was somewhat perfunctory, but regular followers of EOTR had little more insight into the reasons behind the pachyderm protagonist's plight.

This Star Guest was a new page and never appeared in Cheeky Weekly.

Whoopee! readers whose interest was piqued enough by this set to motivate them to spend 9p of their precious pocket money for the same week's issue of Cheeky Weekly would have been disappointed to find Elephant and The Man In The Plastic Mac were absent from the then-current edition of our grinning pal's title (not the first time this basic error occurred with the Cheeky Weekly Star Guests – see also the promotional outings of Disaster Des and Skateboard Squad). However, EOTR resumed in Cheeky Weekly dated 26 May 1979 and clocked up appearances in a further 34 issues before being pursued into the annals of comic history (except for appearances in the Cheeky Holiday Special 1980 and Cheeky Annual 1981) when the toothy funster's comic was wound up.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 5 - The Mystery Comic)

The features which comprised The Mystery Comic were grouped in Cheeky Weekly's centre pages from the 30 September 1978 issue to that dated 30 June 1979. Therefore, had the 30 December 1978 issue appeared as planned, it's a fair bet that the Mystery Comic features would have been located together in the middle of the comic.

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tub	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 120	Tub	The size of this strip clearly indicates it was intended to appear below the Mystery Comic title (during the Mystery Comic's run, Tub was usually featured on The Mystery Comic's cover), so was obviously prepared for publication in the weekly comic. In Cheeky Weekly, during our chubby chum's tenure on the Mystery Comic's cover, the 'Tub' title panel was located at the top of the first frame of the strip but, since for this annual appearance the 'Tub' title has been moved up to replace the Mystery Comic banner, the title at the top of the first frame has been excised. The subject matter suggests the strip was intended for the Christmas Cheeky Weekly. There were in fact 2 Tub stories in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (the other appearing on page 57 - see below), both of which appear to have been drawn for Cheeky Weekly, but this Christmas morning story is the obvious contender for inclusion in the 30 December 1978 lost Christmas issue. N.B. Although there was a Mystery Comic title above the Tub strip on page 57 of the 1980 Cheeky Annual, the Mystery Comic features were scattered through the annual; pages 6-8 (Mustapha Million), pages 18-19 (Why Dad Why), pages 57-59 (Tub followed by Why Dad Why), 92-93 (Disaster Des) 102-103, 115 (Why Dad Why) and 120 (Tub). This was because the Mystery Comic section of the weekly comic ceased at the end of June 1979, so there was no need for the annual to emulate those issues of Cheeky Weekly in which the Mystery Comic strips congregated on the centre pages. My thanks to the scanner of the annual pages below who has yet again saved me from having to cram my (if I say so myself) pristine Cheeky Annual into the scanner.

Art: Nigel Edwards

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Why, Dad, Why?	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 115	Why, Dad, Why?	Another page drawn for the weekly comic judging by the width/height ratio but, like Calculator Kid's strip a page earlier in the same annual, this artwork has thankfully remained unresized (is that a word?). Also like Calculator Kid, this Christmas page was curiously located in the November section of the annual.

Art: John K. Geering

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Disaster Des	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 116	Disaster Des	Unlike Calculator Kid and Why, Dad, Why, this page drawn for the weekly comic has been resized - the panels in the first three rows have been extended at the bottom. Des had commenced a world tour in Cheeky Weekly dated 09 December 1978 (actually he had embarked on the tour the previous week, but the ship ran aground) which accounts for him arriving at the Arctic in this story, and is evidence that this story was intended for the 1978 Christmas issue..

Art: Mike Lacey

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Elephant On The Run	Cheeky Weekly 17 February 1979	Elephant On The Run	I'd suggest this was one of four experiments in converting a Christmas tale into a non-festive-season story (the others being the Skateboard Squad story published in the same 17 February 1979 issue as the EOTR story below, and Calculator Kid and Disaster Des from the 20 January 1979 issue. This episode of EOTR was published in a mid-February 1979 issue of Cheeky Weekly. It's fairly obvious that references to Christmas have been removed, most noticeably in the odd wording of the caption in the first panel. The Man In The Plastic Mac's speech balloon in the same panel has probably been revised so that the word 'weekend' replaces 'Christmas'. It looks as though the aggrieved commuter in page 1, panel 7, is spouting a similarly altered balloon, as is Elephant in the following picture. The same adjustment is evident in respect of the benevolent gent in panel 7, page 2, and I would guess Elephant's final line in this strip was originally 'Merry Christmas, Pals!". I suspect that some traditional British comic Christmas visual cues (tree, presents, decorations) have been removed from the final panel. Maybe the editor felt that these converted non-Cheeky strips were less than satisfactory so decided to hold the remainder in abeyance until the 1980 annual. Since most kids' first sight of the annual would be on Christmas morning, stories of a festive nature wouldn't seem out of place.

Art: Robert Nixon

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Mystery Boy	Cheeky Weekly 20 January 1979	Mystery Boy	Mystery Boy (a reprint of the Who Is Sandy strip from Whizzer and Chips) was the only Mystery Comic strip to feature a continuing story (fellow amnesiac Elephant, from Elephant On The Run, remained a fugitive for the duration of his strip, but each episode was self-contained and no plot development occurred as the series progressed). It's therefore possible to deduce that, had there been no interruption to the publishing schedule and issues dated 16, 23 and 30 December 1978 had appeared as intended, the episode of Mystery Boy which would have appeared in the 30 December 1978 issue would have been that which was actually displaced to the third issue to appear following resumption of publication, i.e. Cheeky Weekly dated 20 January 1979. This is because the story resumed after the industrial dispute at the cliffhanger it reached in the final issue to be published before the hiatus. There was no Christmas-themed episode of Mystery Boy. Other than the substitution of the Mystery Boy title for its original name, which applied to all the strips during the series' Cheeky Weekly run, there appear to be no changes to the artwork.

Art: ?

This leaves one last character from the complement of Mystery Comic fun-pals unaccounted for - Mustapha Million. I am not aware of any converted Christmas tales featuring Mustapha in Cheeky Weekly's run. Mustapha's sole appearance in the Cheeky Annual 1980 is on pages 6, 7 and 8. This is not a Christmas-themed story and appears to have been drawn to fill an annual-size page. The Mustapha strips in Cheeky Weekly were never more than 2 pages. Probably the 1979 Christmas story was the one intended for the 1978 Christmas issue - there's no way of telling for sure.

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Mustapha Million	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Mustapha Million	No real evidence for this being a deferred Christmas 1978 strip, but the balance of probabilities is that it is.

Art: Joe McCaffrey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 6

Cheeky Weekly cover date 18 November 1978

Cheeky shares a gag with Charlie and Calculator on this week's front page, the second and final time our chums from the Calculator Kid strip will feature on the main cover pic - the first time was on the cover of the 05 August 1978 issue, a month after the strip started. We're familiar with this particular rendition of Charlie and his number-crunching mate, as it originally appeared in the first panel of their strip in the 30 September 1978 issue. We'll become even more familiar with it before the end of this issue, and the art will be used in the forthcoming 'place a regular order' ads. Manhole Man must be a bit cheesed off as his trademark 'what do you get if you cross..' joke has been appropriated by the toothy funster, and Calculator has stolen his exclamation, 'OI!'.

Many of the painful puns, geriatric jests and ghastly gags in the Cheeky's Week pages this issue have a musical theme.

There's some nice, action-packed work from Jimmy Hansen in this week's Skateboard Squad tale.

Fitting in with the musical theme, Cheeky enters the listening booth at the record shop, where he finds this week's Mystery Comic.

Rum goings-on are afoot on the streets of Chipping Codbury in the latest instalment of Elephant On The Run.

The contents of the final panel of the Thursday page are strangely familiar, yes it's Charlie and Calculator in a redrawn version of their 30 September 1978 appearance. To be fair, I suppose it's difficult to draw the pair in a recognisable yet significantly different walking pose.

This week's musical theme extends to the Calculator Kid strip, as the children's entertainer booked to appear at Charlie's party fails to turn up. Charlie's attempts to sing and play the guitar don't meet with the party guests' approval, but ever-reliable Calculator's plan secures the services of country and western singer Hank Lark, who is seen in the final panel singing Home On The Range to a seemingly rapt group of young guests at Charlie's party. Not exactly the soundtrack for a riotous rave-up.

On page 24, Cheeky asks readers to vote for their favourite celebrity - the most popular suggestions will feature on a poster in future issues.

The back-page Cheeky's Pal Puzzle rounds off the issue with a musical poser, as readers are challenged to guide Disco Kid to the disco via a route that will secure him 12 records.

Next week's 6 Million Dollar Gran and Disaster Des strips will both be musical instrument related so would have fit with this issue's musical theme.

All 10 elements comprising Cheeky's Week in this issue are by Frank McDiarmid pencils, so the policy of having all the Cheeky strips in each issue by one artist (or combination thereof as is the case this week), introduced in the 30 September 1978 revamp issue, still holds true.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 18-Nov-1978, Issue 57 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Calculator Kid' 2 of 2 \Cheeky's Week - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
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: John Menzies (first appearance)
7	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
8	Ad: Bassett's (final appearance)\Ad: IPC 'Mickey Mouse' 6 of 18
9	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
10	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
11	Ad: Shredded Wheat (final appearance)\Ad: IPC 'Whoopee' 5 of 9
12	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
13	Tub 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 34 - Art Nigel Edwards
14	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 34 - Art Reg Parlett
15	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 34 - Art Reg Parlett
16	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
17	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
18	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips 'Mystery Comic' 8 of 37 - Art John Richardson
19	Ad: Trebor 'Double Agents Super Spy Gun Promotion' 1 of 2
20	Why, Dad, Why? 'Mystery Comic' 7 of 28 - Art John K. Geering
21	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
22	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
23	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
24	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton\Who's your Super-Star? (single appearance)
25	Ad: Pirelli (final appearance) 'Hanna-Barbera slippers' 2 of 2
26	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
27	Tweety and Sylvester 'Treatment Traders'
28	Tweety and Sylvester 'Treatment Traders'
29	Interval - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
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 pencils\Cheeky's Pal Puzzle 'Disco Kid' - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 18-Nov-1978

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid pencils	10

Profile - Elephant and The Man In The Plastic Mac

Elephant and The Man In The Plastic Mac were among that elite band of characters who on occasion crossed over into Cheeky's Week, despite their usual adventures appearing outside of the Cheeky's Week framework. Calculator Kid and The Skateboard Squad, whose adventures took place in the toothy funster's universe but in their own strips, were regular guests in Cheeky's Week. However, some crossovers were harder to rationalise, such as Paddywack, who at first appeared to be a fictional character drawn by Doodle Doug, but then made a single appearance in Cheeky's universe, and 6 Million Dollar Gran who from Cheeky's viewpoint was a character in a TV programme, yet seemed to appear in Krazy Town on two occasions (more of which below).

Elephant and The Man In The Plastic Mac are the protagonist/antagonist from the Elephant On The Run strip, which initially appeared to be a work of fiction in Cheeky's Universe, since the framing device set it within the pages of The Mystery Comic.

This assumption was challenged in Cheeky Weekly dated 12 May 1979, when Elephant and his plastic-clad pursuer were fleetingly seen racing through the Wednesday page. Evidently, Cheeky's Dad had picked up a copy of The Mystery Comic which they had dropped, and the final panel of the Wednesday feature, featuring our toothy pal's parent holding a copy of the mysterious publication, introduced that week's issue of TMC, which commenced on the following page. The pair also made the transition into 6 Million Dollar Gran's universe when they were among the guests at Pete and Pauline Potts' party in the Gran strip in Cheeky Weekly dated 06 October 1979.

The features - Elephant On The Run

A traumatic circus accident plunges an innocent performer into an amnesiac nightmare, in which he is relentlessly pursued by a mysterious stranger without knowing the reason. Wasn't that the plot of a classic Hitchcock film? No, this was the delightfully daft feature Elephant On The Run, which ran for 63 episodes in Cheeky Weekly. As the strip's title intimates, the hero was of the jumbo variety, and we first met him in the revamp issue dated 30 September 1978...

Episode 2...

This second episode set the pattern for many of the subsequent instalments, in which our pachyderm pal donned a series of daft disguises or took on unlikely jobs which led him into various scrapes, with his persistent pursuer not far behind. Over the weeks, the jumbo fugitive appeared as a wrestler, beefeater at the Tower of London, footballer and astronaut, among other equally incongruous roles. The dogged chap in the waterproof windcheater would initially be fooled by Elephant's disguise, failing to recognise our trunk-bearing hero behind a seemingly feeble masquerade. Realisation of Elephant's true identity often dawned when the grey-skinned fugitive inadvertently revealed his trunk. The Man In The Plastic Mac (TMITPM) always suffered some (often painful) setback after apprehending the fleeing tusker, allowing our hero to escape, still puzzling over why he was being pursued. Elephant never asked any of the people he encountered, who were also fooled by his flimsy disguises and who must have been aware of what seemed to be a national press and poster campaign to detain him, why he was wanted.

Despite telling us in the first episode that cannot recall who he is, Elephant doesn't seem to notice that, according to a wanted poster in the comic dated 28 October 1978, his name is Walter. Adopting the guise of a portrait painter in his 05 May 1979 adventure, Elephant advertises his services as "Walter Van Tusk - Artist". In the issue dated 29 September 1979, the son of a vet for whom Elephant is working refers to our grey-skinned hero as Uncle Walt.

The story that appeared in the 04 November 1978 issue enlightens us further on Elephant's circus career. Scowlo the Clown, an erstwhile colleague of our amnesiac hero, tells TMITPM that whenever the fleeing jumbo hears the tune Elephant Capers played on the banjo, he is compelled to perform a tap dance. Hastily learning to play the melody, TMITPM travels the country plucking his banjo at random passers-by. Despite his frantic twangings eventually unmasking our jumbo chum, who is working as a bricklayer, Elephant of course escapes.

There are further circus scrapes in the 20 January 1979 issue, when Elephant gets a job as a knife-thrower. Naturally TMITPM is by chance in the front row of the big top audience but after a tussle on the high wire our jumbo pal flees to safety. Elephant meets an old showbiz pal, retired magician The Great Mysto, in the comic dated 10 November 1979, and gets a job in Barkums Circus during the 26 January 1980 story.

Elephant's flight from TMITPM takes him across the sea, as in the 27 January 1979 issue we find him masquerading as an italian barber in a skiing resort.

Good-hearted Elephant rescues TMITPM from a number of perilous situations, including digging him out of the snow after he is buried by an avalanche in the 27 January 1979 issue, and safely depositing him in a tree while parachuting to earth after a failed rocket launch in the comic dated 17 March 1979.

A Cheeky Weekly reader is featured in the 28 April 1979 story, and conceals Elephant from TMITPM, telling the peripatetic pachyderm "Well, if they caught you there wouldn't be a story next week, would there?" Two more readers of the toothy funster's comic attempt to misdirect TMITPM in the story dated 21 July 1979.

The 11 November 1978 episode ends with a caption reading 'Next Week - The Tyre Trap!' This was the only episode to feature a coming-next-week teaser. Most episodes ended with a caption saying 'And so the chase continues'.

The story printed in the comic dated 17 February 1979 seems to have been prepared for the Christmas 1978 issue, which failed to appear due to industrial action. It looks to me as though references to the weekend have been substituted where, presumably, Christmas was originally mentioned, and I'd guess that the standard British comic Christmas artefacts (tree, decorations, presents etc) have been removed from the final panel, and Elephant's 'Merry Christmas' has been changed.

For 'weekend' read 'Christmas'?
 I suspect Elephant's original final word balloon ended with a 'Happy Christmas'

In the 24 February 1979 story we meet TMITPM's son (who we first encountered in the 20 January 1979 issue) and wife, in a story that includes a guest appearance by boxer Henry 'Couper'. The plastic-coated pest's wife is also seen in the 09 June, 27 October and 29 December 1979 comics. TMITPM's son appeared again in the 08 December 1979 comic.

The 22 September 1979 story reveals that TMITPM's name is Herbert, when he's seen driving a car with a female passenger who doesn't appear to be his wife.

In the 13 October 1979 issue, Elephant suffers further memory loss when he's hit on the head by a horseshoe. A subsequent bonk on the noggin restores his memory to the state it was immediately before the horseshoe struck, i.e. he remembers he's the wanted elephant and that he's being chased by TMITPM, but it appears the reason he's wanted still eludes our tusker pal.

Elephant visits his rich cousin Sniffy during the 15 December 1979 adventure, so by this time the fugitive has presumably regained his memory of his identity, but he doesn't ask Sniffy why he is being pursued. In the 05 January 1980 story, TMITPM makes a new year resolution to stop chasing Elephant, who is seen resolving to hand himself in to his relentless pursuer. Of course, at the end of the episode, the two protagonists tear up their resolutions.

Elephant On The Run didn't survive the merge with Whoopee! when Cheeky Weekly was cancelled, probably because the strip had started to become rather tired towards the end of its (pardon the pun) run. The final instalment didn't explain the mystery surrounding TMITPM's pursuit of Elephant, it was just a standard episode with Elephant fleeing at the end as usual. A further and rather weak episode, set in a holiday camp, appeared in 1980's Cheeky Holiday Special, but again it was just a chase with no attempt at a resolution of the outstanding questions. The final appearance of the be-trunked fugitive occurred a few months later in the Cheeky Annual 1981, in which our grey-skinned chum was involved in a Christmas caper, but the mystery surrounding our hero's plight was again not addressed. Maybe the scriptwriter never actually had an answer, and that could be another reason why the feature was dropped when Cheeky Weekly ceased publication. I suspect any explanation would have proved a disappointment so it was probably wise to bring the strip to an end without any attempt to tidy up the unanswered issues, leaving us to speculate. One possibility is that Elephant was the heir to a fortune, but this seems unlikely given that TMITPM restrains our large-eared hero with handcuffs, leg-irons and ropes on a number of occasions, not the actions of someone bringing good news.

The daft premise and some clever scripts exhibiting a keen sense of the ridiculous elevate most Elephant On The Run episodes above the standard of the average comic strip, with many laughs along the way. The chase element imparted momentum to the stories, and Robert Nixon did some lovely, fun-filled art.

Elephant On The Run made its debut as one of the features in The Mystery Comic. The Mystery Comic concept came to an end in the 30 June 1979 issue, but Elephant On The Run continued until the final issue of Cheeky Weekly. 34 episodes of the feature appeared as part of The Mystery Comic, and of these, apart from the issues dated 16 and 30 June 1979 which were single pages, all were 2-page episodes. 23 episodes were in full colour, 3 had spot colour (black, white and red) and the 21 April 1979 instalment was in black and white except for the title which was printed in red.

29 Elephant On The Run episodes appeared after The Mystery Comic idea was dropped. The first 2 post-Mystery Comic episodes were 2-pagers, but subsequently the strip became a single page only (possibly a sign that the writer was running out of ideas), except for the 06 October 1979 and 12 January 1980 episodes, which were 2-page sets. 7 of the stories during this period were printed in colour, the remainder being in black and white.

The first 2 episodes were the only ones to carry the episode numbers under the title.

Robert Nixon was the original artist on the strip and drew all 34 episodes during the Mystery Comic run. Robert drew 24 of the post-Mystery Comic strips, with Vic Neill providing 4, and Barry Glennard 1, during the same period.

Elephant On The Run was the subject of the main cover illustration on Cheeky Weekly dated 14 October 1978. The picture was actually a blown-up panel from the EOTR strip which appeared the previous week.

In the first 7 episodes, Elephant had what appeared to be sawn-off tusks (or possibly teeth) visible in his lower jaw when his mouth was wide open, but these were not present in the later stories. He did sport false fangs in his upper jaw in the 02 June 1979 story when he convinced TMITPM that he was the vampire tusker, Dracuphant. In the comic dated 08 September 1979, our hero's disguise consisted of a set of false mastodon tusks. Tusks weren't in evidence when the grey-skinned fugitive was the subject of the Pin-Up Pal poster in the 06 January 1979 comic.

The chase crossed over from The Mystery Comic into Cheeky's universe when Elephant and TMITPM fleetingly appeared within the Cheeky Weekly section of the 12 May 1979 issue, dropping a copy of the mysterious publication as they went. Our elephant pal and his plastic-mac-wearing nemesis appeared to have entered into a temporary truce as they were among the guests at Pete and Pauline Potts' party in the 6 Million Dollar Gran strip in Cheeky Weekly dated 06 October 1979.

Elephant On The Run in the Cheeky Weekly Index

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Elephant On The Run	30-Sep-78	02-Feb-80	63	5	5,9,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,22,23,32

Issues Missed In Run

03-Feb-79

31-Mar-79

19-May-79

14-Jul-79

01-Sep-79

Location	Start	End
Mystery Comic	30-Sep-78	30-Jun-79
Cheeky Weekly	07-Jul-79	02-Feb-80

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Elephant On The Run Mystery Comic	Robert Nixon	34	30-Sep-1978	30-Jun-1979
Elephant On The Run	Robert Nixon	24	07-Jul-1979	02-Feb-1980
Elephant On The Run	Barry Glennard	1	11-Aug-1979	11-Aug-1979
Elephant On The Run	Vic Neill	4	06-Oct-1979	12-Jan-1980

Pages per Issue	Number of Issues
1	27
2	36