This time let’s retrace Sweeny’s path from SHIVER AND SHAKE to the new comic with the clumsy title of WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE.
WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE was 32 pages thick at the time. It seems like a lot of space to fill, but Whoopee! had a strong lineup of characters as it were, and it had to accommodate quite a few refugees from SHIVER AND SHAKE who were too popular to be discontinued with the demise of their home comic (Frankie Stein, Scream Inn and a few others), so re-arrangements were inevitable and competition was tough.
Sweeny Toddler didn’t make a straightforward leap to the new comic – it had to prove its strength by participating in a poll. The Editor selected 8 strips and invited readers to vote in a Pick-A-Strip competition. Most of the entrants were either WHOOPEE!’s own (presumably less successful) features – Pop Snorer, Little Miss Muffit, Snap Happy and The Upper Crusts and the Lazy Loafers, or those from SHIVER AND SHAKE - The Desert Fox, Grimly Feendish and Sweeny Toddler. This is what Sweeny’s entry looked like in WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE cover-dated 23rd November, 1974:
A very tiny percentage of readers ever respond to these type of polls, Irmy, so there's no guarantee that the results reflect the majority of readers' tastes. I'd imagine they got it right on this occasion 'though, because the strip was usually very funny.
ReplyDeleteTony's Toolbox nearly won! Would this character been a cover star!!!! ;)
ReplyDeleteI read 'Whoopee!' avidly from 1978 to 1981; Sweeny was always my absolute favourite. Such anarchy and absurdity, and action, too! I read and studied my comics quite carefully, and although there was much to make me smile, Sweeny Toddler was the only strip to make me LAUGH OUT LOUD regularly. Both Leo Baxendale and Tom Paterson did amazing work on this strip.
ReplyDelete