A LOOK AT COR! STRIPS: COR-MEDY CHOICE, FIRST SERIES

COR-Medy Choice feature was introduced in the issue dated 21st April, 1973 (No. 151) to give readers an opportunity of selecting a new fun-series from ten brand new comedy ideas presented over a period of ten weeks. Here is how the idea was packaged in the header and the footer of the weekly instalments:

Here are brief synopses and the opening panels of all ten entries:

The Fun-Time Machine, 2 pages, 21st April, 1973, issue No. 151: Boy and girl use a Fun-Time Machine invented by their Grandfather. They travel to Roman times and find themselves in the middle of a Roman arena facing a gladiator. They cause mayhem in the arena and return home safely. Illustrated by by Les Barton:

Scarey Crow, 2 pages, 28th April, 1973, issue No. 152: A crow is sick and tired of people trying to scare his kind with scarecrows, etc., so he decides to give humans a taste of their own medicine. His first attempt fails but he declares he is not done scaring humans yet... Illustrated by Terry Bave:

Seymore Son of Tarzan, 2 pages, 5th May, 1973, issue No. 153: Seymore who is a fat bald kid tries to build a new do-it-yourself tree house together with his assistants – a dumb-looking ape Cyril and an exotic animal that most probably is a wild boar; the effort involves a series of accidents and ends in destruction of the tree house and the tree. Illustrated by Stan McMurtry:

Val's Vanishing Cream, 2 pages, 12th May, 1973 , issue No. 154: Val finds a jar of vanishing cream in the bag of old cosmetics that her Mom asks her to pop in the bin. Val uses it well: she makes the teacher’s cane vanish and class is over without a single caning. Illustrated by Mike Lacey:

Snappy Sam and Flash Harry, 2 pages, 19th May, 1973, issue No. 155:  Snappy Sammy and Flash Harry are cameramen working for two competing papers – Morning Piffle and Daily Bilge. Sammy is a bespectacled kid and Harry is an evil grown-up who plays tricks on his rival and interferes with his job; in this episode they both have an assignment to take some pictures of a famous football player. Illustrated by Graham Allen:

Sheik Oleg, 2 pages, 26th May, 1973, issue No. 156: Sheik Oleg is a fat and short bloke who walks around with a pet – a strange rodent. He buys an old camel from Cyril Swindle (used camels salesman who looks a lot like Grimly Feendish) so that he can ride home in style; the camel immediately goes missing  and Sheik Oleg goes looking for it in a rubbish dump. He then takes the ponging camel to a camel wash but gets scrubbed himself instead. Illustrated by Stan McMurtry:

My Old Man's A Junkman, 2 pages, 2nd June, 1973, issue No. 157: Dusty Binn, Rag and Bone merchant, and his son Rusty live at the end of the posh Ritzy Avenue and run a scrap business to the great dissatisfaction of their wealthy neighbours. I don't know who the illustrator was. Any suggestions, please?

Professor Potty and Son, 2 pages, 9th June, 1973, issue No. 158: Professor Potty is a crazy scientist (who looks a lot like an older and bald version of Valiant’s Billy Bunter) tries to prove that well-accepted theories are wrong. In this episode he challenges two theories: the one that elephants don’t forget, and the one that sound vibrations can shatter things. Illustrated by Les Barton:

Doctor Quackpot, 1 page, 16th June, 1973, issue No. 159: A tale about a daft doctor who receives weird patients. In this episode the patient is a guy with a cowboy hat only he is not a cowboy. He uses the hat to cover his hair because he suffers from multiple dandruff. The whole room gets filled up with dandruff in a few moments and Dr. Quackpot calls his mate Vet for assistance. The Vet who appears to be just as daft brings penguins along so that they can enjoy themselves in the “snow”… Illustrated by Tony Goffe:

The Pipes of Stan, 1 page, 23rd June, 1973, issue No. 160: Stan has a pipe which turns people to stone while the second blow brings them back to their selves and so forth any number of times. This again looks like the work of Tony Goffe to me:

Voting coupon was included in COR!! issue dated 30th June, 1973 (No. 161), alongside with a recap of all 10 competition entries:

Results of the vote and the winner were announced in COR!! issue dated 18th August, 1973 (No. 168): 

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF?

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? was a violent strip in the vein of some of those old Looney Tunes animated cartoons. Big Bad Wolf forever tried to get Granny but she always beat him down in all kinds of violent ways. In the opening episode she unleashed a herd of bulls on the poor Wolf and they trampled him to pulp. Every week the hungry Wolf would drool over his fantasies of how he will feast on Granny. His two regular props included a copy of Granny Cook Book and a bag of disguises.  He used a different disguise every week in hope to delude the crafty Granny and persuade her to open the door of her cottage for him. The Wolf’s weekly disguises and excuses prompted to the old lady the ways of dealing with him, e.g. if he pretended to be a Council Rat Catcher, she politely declined his services by saying she’d already got a cat in the house and unleashed a lion who crushed the plotter. Or if he disguised himself as a plumber who wants to have a look in her tank, the Granny rolled out a tank that bashed the Wolf with its gun. The Wolf always looked very menacing and aggressive in the beginning of the episode but inevitably ended up in miserable condition. 

From COR!! issue dated 16th June, 1973 (No. 159)

Here is the list of the Wolf’s disguises and Granny’s violent responses over the weeks: door to door salesman – twister; TV rental man – Tube (underground train); interviewer from radio bore – huge rolling rock; the gasman – electrical discharge; fly spray salesman – giant spider; furniture salesman – Knights of the Round Table; salesman offering light romantic novels – heavy oversized books; greengrocer – a few cannon shells; ladies’ hairdresser – a swarm of bees;  keep fit instructor – a caravan of cartwheels; all-round sportsman who brings tickets to ten-pin bowling – draught; film director – stage coach; St. Louis Joe, the riverboat gambler – monster-size crocodile; ladies outfitter – kangaroo; Famous French chef – banging cannons; local MP – air balloon; Joke book salesman – a pack of howlers; Beevon with lots of lovely make-up for the mature lady – handgun with a lot of powder.

From COR!! issue dated 7th July, 1973 (No. 162)

The artist’s name is unknown to me. The strip ran for 24 weeks from 21st April, 1973 until 29th September, 1973 (Nos. 151 – 174) and made one front cover appearance in full colour in COR!! issue dated 12th May, 1973 (No. 154).

From COR!! issue dated 4th August, 1973 (No. 166)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: 5 MINUTE WANDA

5 Minute Wanda was a strip about a loopy lass who could do things for only 5 minutes because she got bored very quickly. It was illustrated by Graham Allen and had a very short run of just 15 weeks from 6th January, 1973 until 14th April, 1973 (Nos. 136 – 150).

First episode

From COR!! issue dated 24th February, 1973 (No. 143)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: THE GOODIES

The Goodies was a British television comedy series during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy. It was created and written by a trio of British comedians Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie; the three of them also starred in the TV series. Here are a couple of screenshots from the TV episode entitled Camelot, in which Bill Oddie is reading a copy of COR!! Thanks to Niblet for the images!

Here is a piece of information on the appearance of the Goodies in COR!! that I found on a fansite of the TV series: “licensed for just the one year, The Goodies were unique in the fact they were the only adapted characters featured with the comic's pages with copyright credit being given to Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden. According to Robert Ross' book "The Complete Goodies" the strips were all authorised and approved by The Goodies prior to publication and Tim still displays an original Cor!! strip in his study”.

I watched a couple of episodes of the TV series recently and frankly wasn’t impressed. I guess you had to live in the 7os Britain and be of a certain age to fully appreciate the humour. The comic version in COR!!, however, works really well for me – the stories are well-written and, most importantly, beautifully rendered by the always excellent Joe Colquhoun. In his interview for the Fantasy Express fanzine in the early 80s the artist said it would have been nice if he could find the opportunity to do more humour work, just to relieve the tension of drawing somber war comics.

The arrival of the Goodies was announced by the Editor in COR!! News Sheet in the issue dated 30th December, 1972 (issue No. 135): 

The strip occupied two pages for the whole of 1973 (issue dates 6th January, 1973 – 29th December, 1973 (Nos. 136 – 187)) which amounted to 52 episodes. There was also a 4-pager in the 1974 COR!! annual but nothing in the 1973 COR!! Holiday Special. The Goodies made four font page appearances in full colour in COR!! issues dated 6th January 1973, 28th April, 1973, 7th July, 1972 and 27th October, 1973 (Nos. 136, 152, 162 and 178):

Below is a reference list of the weekly episodes marked with COR!! issue numbers and dates.

1) In the opening episode in COR dated 6th January, 1973 (issue No. 136) Lord Lolly gives the Goodies a job – he tells them to go to Africa and bring him back a load of wild animals because his stately home is the only one in the district that doesn’t have a safari park. Instead of going to Africa the Goodies kidnap animals from the zoo but end up in a cage in Lord Lolly’s safari park.

2) The Goodies invent a thing which removes noise. 13th January, 1973 (issue No. 137)

3) The Goodies train for a boxing championship match. 20th January, 1973 (issue No. 138)

4) The Goodies start a Lost and Found office in their home. 27th January, 1993 (issue No. 139)

5) The Goodies wear kilts and take part in Highland Games. 3rd February, 1973 (issue No. 140)

6) The Goodies start a free winter sports centre (because many people can’t afford to go abroad for a skiing holiday) but fail spectacularly. 10th February, 1973 (issue No. 141)

7) The Goodies entertain the queues waiting to see the doctor. 17th February, 1973 (issue No. 142)

8) The Goodies are broke and ride into town to advertise. 24th February, 1973 (issue No. 143)

9) The Goodies sample Health Farm Holiday. 3rd March, 1973 (issue No. 144)

10) The Goodies clean up the town from litter. 10th March 10, 1973 (issue No. 145)

11) The Goodies save Britain from a power-mad scientist who has invented a shrinking ray and is holding the country to ransom. 17th March, 1973 (issue No. 146)

12) The Goodies play Three Musketeers in a new film production. 24th March, 1973 (issue No. 147)

13) The Goodies are assigned to deliver vital information to MI13 ½ secret headquarters. 31st March, 1973 (issue No. 148):

14) The Goodies try to bring back the sense of values in people but are fined for violating parking rules and then accidentally help the police to catch a notorious criminal. 7th April, 1973 (issue No. 149)

15) The Goodies invent a time machine and travel back in time; they even meet Jasper the Grasper and land up on the back of a dinosaur. 14th April, 1973 (issue No. 150)

16) The Goodies help in staging International Easter Sport. 21st April, 1973 (issue No. 151).

17) The Goodies travel to Sahara to look for Dr. Livingrock who disappeared 25 years ago. 28th April, 1973 (issue No. 152).

18) The Goodies fetch the engine so that the local train branch line can be opened. 5th May, 1973 (issue No. 153)

19) The Goodies travel to search for Aladdin and his magic lamp. 12th May, 173 (issue No. 154)

20) The Goodies go door-to-door selling brooms. 19th May, 1973 (issue No. 155)

21) The Goodies start a local newspaper The Goodies Gazette. 26th May, 1973 (issue No. 156)

22) An artist hires the Goodies to deliver his paintings to the gallery because a gang of rival artists are out to steal them so that they can have their work exhibited instead. 2nd June, 1973 (issue No. 157)

23) Farmer hires the Goodies as rainmakers. 9th June, 1973 (issue No. 158)

24) The Goodies go on holiday to the seaside and are hired to find the pier that’s disappeared. 16th June, 1973 (issue No. 159)

25) The Goodies are hired to get rid of a ghost that haunts a country house. 23rd June, 1973 (issue No. 160)

26) The Goodies set on a mission to revive traditional British summer holidays and get holiday makers to travel to the British seaside instead of going abroad. 30th June, 1973 (issue No. 161)

27) The Goodies are persuaded to be rodeo riders. 7th July, 1973 (issue No. 162)

28) The Goodies sell ironing boards for surfboards to British holiday makers on the coast of the English Channel. 14th July, 1973 (issue No. 163),

29) The Goodies try out their boring machine and meet a gang of crooks who call themselves Escapologists. 21st July, 1973 (issue No. 164)

30) The Goodies move an old equestrian statue to a new site. 28th July, 1973 (issue No. 165)

31) The Goodies track down an escaped abominable snowman. 4th August, 1973 (issue No. 166)

32) The Goodies set out on a mission to rescue Princess Nockness who is held captive in Sheikh Mustapha’s harem. 11th August, 1973 (issue No. 167)

33) The Goodies are on a mission to rescue a bloke marooned in the south seas. 18th August, 1973 (issue No. 168)

34) The Goodies dive looking for treasures. 25th August, 1973 (issue No. 169)

35) The Goodies assist Wuzzy Wiz the master magician in his magic act. 1st September, 1973 (issue No. 170)

36) Manager hires the Goodies to make Gentle George the wrestler angry enough to flatten his opponent in tonight’s match. 8th September, 1973 (issue No. 171)

37) The Goodies join the country’s first astronaut training programme. 15th September, 1973 (issue No. 172)

38) The Goodies help Colonel Swamplimper trace the source of the river Ooze. 22nd September, 1973 (issue No. 173)

39) The Goodies are commissioned to re-decorate a hut that the Army’s taken over. 29th September, 1973 (issue No. 174)

40) The Goodies set on a mission to trace down a phantom barber. 6th October, 1973 (issue No. 175)

41) The Goodies try to win a prize of 1,000 pounds for flying the Channel on a man-powered aeroplane. 13th October, 1973 (issue No. 176)

42) The Goodies take up the task of attracting more people to the town park by staging a show. 20th October, 173 (issue No. 177):

43) The Goodies test the time machine at the request of its inventor Prof. Crankhandle. 27th October, 1973 (issue No. 178)

44) A gangster uses his gun to persuade the Goodies to be Baddies and help him pull some jobs while his gang are in jail. 3rd November, 1973 (issue No. 179)

45) The Goodies take up the task of guarding a dog from a rival owner who is trying to stop him winning the big prize at the dog show. 10th November, 1973 (issue No. 180)

46) The Goodies examine some young trees that don’t look very well. 17th November, 1973 (issue No. 181)

47) The Goodies fulfill their duty to provide means to a company of hungry soldiers arriving back from manoeuvres. 24th November, 1973 (issue No. 182)

48) The Goodies fell under the spell of a vicious hypnotist Dr. Hypno who turns them into Baddies and tells them to cause havoc in Cortown, rob a jeweler and bring the loot back to him. 1st December, 1973 (issue No. 183)

49) The police ask the Goodies to capture the Baddies from the previous week’s episode. 8th December, 1973 (issue No. 184)

50) The Goodies go to the woods to deal with a loose dragoon. 15th December, 1973 (issue No. 185)

51) The Goodies help Cinderella get to the ball. 22nd December, 1973 (issue No. 186)

52) Santa’s reindeer have escaped so the Goodies deliver Christmas presents for him and are declared national heroes. Last episode in the issue dated 29th December, 1973 (issue No. 187).

In the 4-page episode in COR!! 1974 annual the Goodies save an airshow by providing their new wizard-fuel Goody Goo and earn themselves a reputation of good flying stunt men in the process.

Grom COR!! issue dated 3rd November, 1973 (No. 179)

 

If you like the Goodies, you might very well enjoy visiting the excellent Official Goodies Rule-OK! Fan Club Website. It has loads of information about the TV series and related stuff but this link takes you straight to the page where you will find scans of each weekly episode of the strip in COR!!, complete with detailed summaries, interesting notations, tidbits and things to look for in the various issues.

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: WONDER WORM

Wonder Worm was the last of reprints in COR!! The original series appeared in BUSTER in 1966-1968 where it lasted 129 weeks. Wonder Worm was a strong little fella who could “wiggle his way out of anything”. At one point he took a “Through-the-World” holiday when every week he burrowed underground and made random surfacings without knowing where he will pop up – Wild West, Mexico (where he performed in a bull-ring), Tibet (where he defeated the abominable snowman), southern USA, Venice Italy, China, Arabian desert, Swiss Alps, a beach in the West Indies, a football pitch, etc.

Here is the first episode from COR!! issue dated 18th November, 1972 (No. 129) in which Wonder Worm discovers his strength. This was also the first episode of the original series in BUSTER dated 12th February 1966:

The feature was illustrated by no less than two different artists, the name of the main one is unknown to me, while later in the run illustrator’s duties were given to the prolific Reg Parlett. Both the original BUSTER series and the COR!! reprints were in black and white but in COR!! a number of the episodes towards the end of the run were in full colour, including the three-part serial by Reg Parlett shown below in which Wonder Worm searches for the missing ravens from the Tower of London.

Wonder Worm reprints in COR!! began on 18th November, 1972 (issue No. 129) and appeared weekly (with a few exceptions) until the very last issue with the cover date of 15th June, 1974 (No. 211). All episodes were one-pagers except the one on 10th March, 1973 (No. 145) where the strip was given two pages. Wonder Worm made three front cover appearances in the issues dated 9th June 1973, 15th September 1973 and 16th February 1974 (Nos. 158, 172 and 194). 

A little serial in COR!! issues dated 18th May 1974, 25th May 1974
and 15th June 1974 (Nos. 207, 208 and 211)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: WELL, WHAT DO YOU KNOW???

Well, What do you Know??? Every installment of the funny facts feature consisted of a number of panels, each made up of two parts – there was a serious fact on the left hand side and its humorous interpretation on the right. It started in COR!! with the cover date of 5th August, 1972 (No. 114) and appeared irregularly until 15th September, 1973 (No. 172). 

From COR!! issue dated 12th August, 1972 (No. 115)

From COR!! issue dated 28th October, 1972 (No. 126)

I may be wrong but irregular appearances, varying size (sometimes a half-pager and sometimes a full one-pager) as well as something about the general “feel” suggests it may have been a reprint from an older comic. As for the artist, I am tempted to say it was Reg Parlett but after the confusion with the authorship of the Shiver and Shake strip covered in my previous post I am not so sure :) Besides, the name of the feature is not mentioned in the account of Reg Parlett’s work in the Winter 1979 issue of the Golden Fun fanzine – another argument in favour that it was by a different artist, unless the feature had originally appeared under a different name. 

I've seen reprints of the feature in a KRAZY annual. 

From COR!! issue dated 30th December, 1972 (No. 135)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: SHIVER AND SHAKE

The name of the next strip - Shiver and Shake - will probably sound familiar to many fans because later it was lent to a new IPC children’s humour comic. In COR!! Shiver was a spectre cavalier with a detachable head, a ball and chain on his leg and a sword driven right through his chest who got his pleasure from scaring mortals. His companion Shake was a spook whose main obsession was food. The two inhabited an empty house and were desperate for people to move in. Both had their own reasons: Shiver was anxious to have someone to scare, while Shake saw tenants as providers of grub. This represented a conflict of interests of sorts and Shake usually tried to stop Shiver from scaring the tenants off. Their combined and often clashing efforts inevitably drove everybody out and the two had to wait a whole week for someone new to show up. 

From COR!! issue dated 2nd September, 1972  (No. 118)

The story was given a proper ending in the last installment when the old house was demolished. Shiver moved to a ghost train set-up where he could scare people all day long, not just once a week; Shake landed in a kitchen of a posh restaurant to stay as the resident ghost. 

IMHO the strip had strong potential and the main reason why it was discontinued was probably because the title as well as the characters were earmarked for the new comic launched merely one month after the last installment in COR!! 

From COR!! issue dated 30th December, 1972 (No. 135)

A strange thing happened to Shake the COR!! spook when Shiver and Shake comic was launched in 1973: his spooky self was renamed Shiver and became the cover star as well as the main character in a new strip called The Duke's Spook. In the SHIVER AND SHAKE comic (but not in the Duke’s Spook strip) he acquired a new companion in the shape of an elephant carrying the spook’s old name – Shake…

Shiver the COR!! spectre cavalier was also revived in the SHIVER AND SHAKE comic under the name of Suffering Sam in the long running IPC feature Scream Inn. His other two (nameless) incarnations in the SHIVER AND SHAKE comic were in the strip called Adrian’s Wall where he appeared in the role of a cavalier bricked-up inside a wall, and later in The Ghost's Revenge where he starred as a proper spectre. Quite confusing, isn’t it?..

The COR!! Shiver and Shake was illustrated by Arthur Martin. It started on 29th July, 1972 (No. 113) and continued for merely half a year until 3rd February, 1973 (No. 140), having missed just one week (it did not appear in the issue dated 20th January, 1973 (No. 138)).

Two sample covers of the new comic SHIVER AND SHAKE