Cheeky Annual 1983

Bruce continues his sterling work documenting the Cheeky Annuals here.

Cheeky Weekly cover date 11 March 1978

Boom-Boom!  Furry funster meets toothy funster this week as Basil Brush dominates the cover in a rather poorly-reproduced black and white photo.  The printing process on IPC comics of the time was not good at handling photographs, so maybe a colour drawing of wily Basil would have been more effective.  However, as the funny fox at one time had his own strip in rival publisher Polystyle's TV Comic and was featured in a series of annuals in the late 70s, maybe there was a rights issue that meant only a photo could be used.  Or more likely a photo was cheaper.  Anyway, a competition to win copies of Basil's LP, Boom-Boom! It's Basil Brush, is announced.  The What A Cheek strip sees Cheeky indulging in classroom fun, and Teacher's hair has gone white with the strain of it all.  Snail is seen climbing the edge of a panel.

On the Sunday page, Jogging Jeremy tells Cheeky that he's going to set a record for the number of circuits of Krazy Town, and the toothy funster monitors the feeble fitness fanatic's progress throughout the following seven days.

Skateboard Squad are involved in a rather lacklustre tale of delivery problems, and the careless boarders run Cheeky over at the end of the story.


On Monday our grinning pal enters the newsagents and discovers a new James Bold novel (he'd read the final chapter of the previous Bold adventure last week).  The toothy funster's anticipated free read is foiled when he's discovered by the newsagent and ejected from the shop.  The absence of James Bold in this week's comic is due to the fact that a whole page is allocated to listing the 500 'Friend of Cheeky' T-shirt winners, from the competition in the 26 November 1977 issue, and the Basil Brush competition takes up half of page 11.

 In the final panel of the Tuesday page we learn that Cheeky and his dad are both readers of Whoopee!, before our dentally-challenged hero heads up to the attic to peruse a page from Swift, 1954.

There is no 'pure' Frank McDiarmid art in the Cheeky's Week features this issue, although Frank does the honours on the Pin-Up Pal poster.  Barrie Appleby makes his first contributions to Cheeky's Week, furnishing us with art on 6 elements, while Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 contributes his trademark bird and hot air balloon in another 6 elements, and Frank McDiarmid pencils contributes the conclusion to Wednesday.

Madcap medic Doctor Braincell makes his debut in this issue.  Daffy Duck flies off for good.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 11-Mar-1978, Issue 21 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Basil Brush competition'\What a Cheek - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 (final art on feature)
2	Sunday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
3	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
4	Sunday evening - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
7	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
8	Joke-Box Jury
9	Monday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
10	Suddenly - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
11	Basil Brush competition (single appearance)\Ad: IPC 'Look and Learn' 1 of 16
12	Tuesday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
13	Old Comic reprint from Swift 'Roddy the Road Scout' reprint from Swift 'The Topple Twins' reprint from Swift 'Daisy'
14	Ad: KP (first appearance) 'Outer Spacers Star Wars promotion' 1 of 2
15	Wednesday - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
16	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds
17	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds\Wednesday (conclusion) - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
18	500 T-Shirt Winners (single appearance)
19	Thursday - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
20	Home Movie 'The Mystery of Loch Ness' - Art Jack Clayton
21	Friday - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
22	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
23	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
24	Ad: IPC 'Buster' 4 of 5 Ad: 'Misty' 5 of 5
25	Saturday - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
26	Daffy Duck (final appearance) 'Snack Time'
27	Daffy Duck (final appearance) 'Snack Time'
28	Interval - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
29	Space Family Robinson 'Fright Flight' - Art John Richardson
30	Space Family Robinson 'Fright Flight' - Art John Richardson
31	What's New, Kids\Saturday - Art Barrie Appleby (first art on feature)
32	Pin-up pal 'The Vicar' - Art Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 11-Mar-1978

Artist	Elements
Barrie Appleby	6
Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	6
Frank McDiarmid pencils	1

Profile - Jogging Jeremy

Limping along in the wake of the late 70s fitness fad came Jogging Jeremy, exhausting himself in 111 issues of Cheeky Weekly, and often being overtaken by Snail.  Jeremy had not previously appeared in Krazy when he made his Cheeky Weekly debut in the 22 October 1977 issue, although he did subsequently appear twice in Cheeky's companion comic;  In Krazy dated 17 December 1977 he was the featured character in the Cheeky's Pal feature (which interestingly Burpo introduces as a Burpo Special, pre-dating that feature's appearance in Cheeky Weekly by a year), and the substandard sportsman appeared again in Krazy's final issue dated 15 April 1978.

First Cheeky Weekly appearance

'Cheeky's Pal' page from Krazy

Jeremy was seen straining himself to pass Snail on the Pin-Up Pal Poster in Cheeky Weekly dated 25 February 1978.  Two weeks later, the feeble fitness fanatic was featured throughout Cheeky's Week, when he set out to break the world record for circuits of Krazy Town in the 11 March 1978 issue.

Jeremy was the subject of The Burpo Special in Cheeky Weekly dated 28 April 1979.

On Saturday in the 20 October 1979 issue, Cheeky visited Jeremy's keep fit class which, given the feeble state of its owner's health, was surprisingly well-patronised by the toothy funster's pals.

The issue dated 05 January 1980 included Cheeky's Cut-Out Catalogue of Jogging Jeremy Jokes, and in the 19 January 1980 issue there was a half-page feature entitled Jogging Jeremy's 'Weak'ly Exercise Routine.  Jeremy appeared in the Skateboard Squad strip in the 24 June 1978 issue and guested in the same feature in the comic dated 07 October 1978.

Jeremy made it onto the cover of 7 issues, 5 times in a Cheeky's Week strip, once on 05 January 1980's Leap Year cover, and once as the object of Cheeky and Manhole Man's joke.

Character	Total Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Jogging Jeremy	111	22-Oct-1977	02-Feb-1980

Missing From Issues

28-Jan-1978

01-Apr-1978

29-Jul-1978

23-Jun-1979

21-Jul-1979

15-Sep-1979

Jogging Jeremy - Number of appearances by Element

Element

Number of Appearances

Saturday
25
Sunday
19
Monday
16
Thursday
16
Tuesday
14
Wednesday
14
Sunday evening
10
Friday
9
Cheeky's Week
5
Cover Feature
4
Christmas Morning
1
Suddenly
1
The Burpo Special
1
Wednesday (conclusion)
1

Jogging Jeremy - Number of appearances by Page

Page	Number of Appearances

2
18
31
11
1
9
4
9
12
9
30
8
15
7
6
6
19
6
21
6
8
5
9
5
25
5
22
4
5
3
7
3
10
3
11
3
20
3
23
3
3
2
26
2
13
1
17
1
18
1
24
1
27
1
32
1

Count of elements by artist

Character

Artist

Total Elements

Jogging Jeremy
Frank McDiarmid
63
Jogging Jeremy
Frank McDiarmid pencils
25
Jogging Jeremy
Mike Lacey
19
Jogging Jeremy
Barrie Appleby
13
Jogging Jeremy
Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
7
Jogging Jeremy
Dick Millington
5
Jogging Jeremy
Jim Watson
2
Jogging Jeremy
Bob Hill
1
Jogging Jeremy
Not known
1

A letter from Cheeky

Many thanks to blog reader The 5th Man, who has been in touch about a letter he received from the Cheeky Weekly office.

5th (as he's known to his friends) was evidently very successful at getting items published in the comics of yesteryear, having his cartoons printed in Jackpot and Whizzer and Chips.

Thus it was in late 1979, and with great excitement, 5th sent a joke off to Whoopee!, and even greater excitement ensued when the joke was printed in the 03 November 1979 issue of that comic

However, after several weeks the prize money hadn't arrived, so 5th wrote to the Whoopee! office, probably around the time that Cheeky Weekly merged into Whoopee! judging by the comments in their reply, which can be seen below.

 

The letter mentions the large amount of mail received since the merge with Cheeky Weekly.  No doubt they were swamped with letters from erstwhile Cheeky Weekly readers complaining about the loss of their comic, and from loyal Whoopee! fans saying 'What's all this Cheeky rubbish filling our comic now?'

Anyway, Whoopee! apologised and sent 5th a generous £2.00 plus Whoopee cushion.

Still smarting at the inefficiency of those fools at Whoopee! (they couldn't even spell 'reply' properly), 5th felt it necessary to take his complaint to the top person at IPC, so dashed off a letter to Cheeky, explaining what had happened, no doubt stressing that the deprivation of his Whoopee cushion had caused great anguish.  A sympathetic soul in the office grabbed some redundant Cheeky Weekly stationery and typed a conciliatory missive in the guise of the toothy funster himself.  Unfortunately, and not a little ironically, the composer of the letter got 5th's name wrong, calling him Kenneth not once but twice.

Despite being scarred by the whole experience, 5th is hoping to find a copy of Whoopee! dated 03 November 1979.  If anyone out there has a copy for sale, or can scan it, please get in touch with me at the email address at the top of the page.

The pages - page 5

As we know from previous 'pages' posts, the first 2 issues of Cheeky Weekly included an introduction from Cheeky on page 2, resulting in a slightly different distribution of features among the pages of those issues than was later to be the case.  This resulted in page 5 carrying the Sunday evening feature in issues 1 and 2, but as from issue 3, James Bold's continuing investigations into the spooky goings on at Grimstone Grange, in the tale known as Fangs of Fear, moved to page 5.  To be precise he conducted on page 5 as much of his investigation as he could achieve in the first half of his 2-page-per-week serial, up to and including episode 10 of this 11-part series in the comic dated 24 December 1977.  There was then a break in the usual page layout for the Christmas 1977 issue, when page 5 was occupied by the festive guzzlings of Cheeky's Christmas dinner, resulting in the final episode of Fangs of Fear appearing on pages 10 and 11.

One might have expected James Bold to return to pages 5 and 6 after the Christmas disruption, but with the new year came a slight reorganisation in the comic, and antediluvian android, 6 Million Dollar Gran, became firmly established as the resident of page 5.  However, there were a number of interruptions to Gran's tenure as custodian of this page, the first coming on 13 May 1978 when ads for IPC stablemates Tiger and Whizzer and Chips appeared in Gran's spot.  After this, Gran was back in control of page 5 until another 2 IPC publications, Whoopee! and Look and Learn, were plugged on 21 October 1978.

Gran regained her hold on page 5 again until the 02 December 1978 issue when the Monday feature deposed her, and again the following week when the advertising feature, What's New, Kids kept Gran from resuming her usual place.

The robotic pensioner was then back in charge of page 5 for 2 weeks, before being ousted again on 20 January 1979 by 2 IPC ads, this time for Tiger and Shoot respectively.  After another 4 weeks of Gran fun on page 5, 24 February 1979's issue saw the puzzle feature, Tease Break, take over from Gran, and the following week the 'funny photos' feature, Silly Snaps, kept Gran from the 5th page.

However, Gran's run on page 5 was not over, as she returned for the following 6 weeks until 21 April 1979 when a half-page Joke-Box Jury and ad for the Buster and Monster Fun Spring Special interrupted her in this location again.  The following week, another ad, this time for WH Smith, kept Gran from page 5, but she was back for another 2 weeks before Tease Break returned to page 5 on 19 May 1979.

Not to be deterred, Gran resumed her position on page 5 for a further 7 weeks, the interruption in 14 July 1979's issue coming in the form of What's New, Kids again.  Another 6 week run of robotic pensioner fun followed on page 5, until the comic dated 01 September 1979 when renamed reprint from Whizzer and Chips, The Gang, had the second page of their adventure in that location.

Gran was then back for a further 5 weeks until the second page of Stage School's strip made a bid for control of the 5th page.  However, the young thespian upstarts proved no match for feisty Gran who returned to page 5 for a further 4 weeks up to and including the 10 November 1979 comic.  This was the last time Gran was to occupy page 5, as she was subsequently relegated towards the rear of the comic, but the synthetic senior citizen had done her robotic stuff on page 5 in a creditable 80 issues, 31 of which hosted the third page of her story, 37 the first page and 12 the second page.

The Monday feature then moved into page 5 for 7 weeks, until the issue dated 05 January 1980, when Elephant on the Run moved in for one week only.  Monday was back on page 5 for 2 weeks until 26 January 1980, when two IPC ads took up page 5, one for Mickey Mouse comic, and the other for Shoot.  Monday returned to page 5 in the final issue of Cheeky Weekly, dated 02 February 1980.

Count of Elements (or distinct combinations thereof) appearing on Page 5

Elements	Total
6 Million Dollar Gran 3/3	31
6 Million Dollar Gran 1/3	30
6 Million Dollar Gran 2/3	11
Monday	11
James Bold 1/2	8
6 Million Dollar Gran 1/2	7
Advertisement: IPC\Advertisement: IPC	4
Sunday evening	3
Tease Break	2
What's New, Kids	2
6 Million Dollar Gran 2/2	1
Advertisement: IPC\Joke-Box Jury	1
Advertisement: WH Smith	1
Christmas Dinner	1
Elephant On The Run	1
Silly Snaps	1
Stage School 2/2	1
The Gang 2/2	1

Cheeky Weekly cover date 04 March 1978

Issue 20 of Cheeky Weekly features hulking cinema usherette Ursula on the front cover, apparently bent on revenge for Cheeky's merciless jibes about her appearance.  This artwork appears to have been specially produced for the cover, rather than taken from a panel within the comic as we have become used to.  The What A Cheek strip, running vertically down the page this week, features a fortune-teller-type joke.  Krazy Town's resident psychic, Crystal Belle, won't make her first appearance until July, so instead Cheeky's partner for this gag is one Madame Zaza.

On Sunday, Cheeky encounters toddler terror Baby Burpo who is worryingly polite.  What's going on?

Monday sees Cheeky sneak into the newsagents under the cover of Milkie, to read the thrilling final instalment of James Bold's current adventure, The Ghost Highwayman.

Burpo is again uncharacteristically helpful to Cheeky on Tuesday.  Now our toothy hero is REALLY getting worried.





Freaky, the alien member of Krazy comic's Krazy Gang (the gang of course numbers Cheeky among its human members), pops up on the What's New, Kids page to plug the current issue of Krazy, which is a space special.

On Wednesday, it becomes clear why Burpo has been well-behaved all week.

Burpo's pre-birthday truce comes to a violent end after this week's Creepy Sleepy Tale, as the terrible toddler uses his teddy bear to batter Cheeky about the head.

Devious, grudge-bearing Burpo takes his revenge during the rest of the week. He helps the Baker's Boy to win his bet with Cheeky on Thursday, and on Friday tells Nosy Nora where to find The Mystery Comic, so that the toothy funster has to wait until she's finished reading it.  The fiendish tot arranges for Cheeky to stand in for the commissionaire on Saturday, resulting in our grinning pal being trampled underfoot when the cinema doors are opened.

The belligerent babe is also the engineer of Cheeky's humiliation by Ursula, as heralded on this week's cover, during a rather shocking cinema interval.  Cheeky can dish it out, but can he take it?

 Cheeky finally capitulates and gives Burpo a belated gift in the final 3 panels of this week's issue.

There is no Pin-Up Pal poster this week, as the back cover carries an ad for Hovis bread, giving details of a promotion that invites consumers of said loaf to send in four wrappers and receive in return four free tickets to a Saturday morning cinema show at ABC cinemas.  Despite being on the back page, this ad is not in colour.

Reprint from Buster, Cocky Doodle cocks his final doodle this week.

Frank McDiarmid provides art on 8 Cheeky's Week elements this week, with Unknown Cheeky Artist 1  delivering the remaining 5.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 04-Mar-1978, Issue 20 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Ursula' - Art Frank McDiarmid\What a Cheek - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
4	Sunday evening - Art Frank McDiarmid
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
7	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
8	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
9	James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 9 of 9 - Art Mike White
10	James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 9 of 9 - Art Mike White
11	Suddenly - Art Frank McDiarmid
12	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Old Comic reprint from Knockout 'Our Ernie'
14	What's New, Kids
15	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
16	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds
17	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Keith Reynolds\Wednesday (conclusion) - Art Frank McDiarmid
18	Joke-Box Jury
19	Thursday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
20	Bam Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster\Cocky Doodle (final appearance) reprint from Buster
21	Friday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
22	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
23	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
24	Ad: IPC 'Buster' 3 of 5 Ad: 'Misty' 4 of 5
25	Saturday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
26	Tweety and Sylvester 'Too Many Grannies'
27	Tweety and Sylvester 'Too Many Grannies'
28	Interval - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 (final art on feature)
29	Space Family Robinson 'Stampede' - Art John Richardson
30	Space Family Robinson 'Stampede' - Art John Richardson
31	Saturday - Art Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
32	Ad: Hovis (single appearance)

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 04-Mar-1978

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid	8
Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	5

Profile - Don the Dustman

Don the Dustman made a single appearance in Cheeky Weekly's run.  On Christmas morning in the 31 December 1977 issue he gave Cheeky the feed line for a gag while helping himself to one of the toothy funster's chocs.  Possibly the script writer felt that already-established refuse disposal character Short-Sighted Dustman, who by this time had appeared in 3 issues, was not really appropriate for this joke since there was no nearsighted aspect to it.

Character	Total Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Don the Dustman	1	31-Dec-1977	31-Dec-1977

Count of elements by artist

Character	Artist	Total Elements
Don the Dustman	Frank McDiarmid	1