A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: TOUGH NUTT AND SOFTY CENTRE

Tough Nutt was a tough kid who liked fried tree roots and nail sauce for breakfast; he was so tough he flew his kite on barbed wire and used a boat mast for a fishing rod. Softy Centre was a cissy who could throw a fit in front of his parents if his milk was half-a-degree too warm; he was so weak that his weight registered as 'nothing' on the scales and he preferred using a ping-pong ball when playing golf because he didn't have the strength to hit his golf ball off the tee.

Neither were appealing characters at first: Tough Nutt was a nasty bully and Softy Centre a weakling and a spoilt brat. Very soon, however, the disagreeable side of Softy’s character vanished and was replaced with some positive traits, including even the nerve to stand up against Tough Nutt. The showing-off ruffian that he was, Tough Nutt always tried to tease and push Softy Centre around in order to have some fun at his expense but Softy had more brains and was luckier than the bully so he usually came out on top and Tough Nutt always ended up as a looser. 

Illustrated by Norman Mansbridge, Tough Nutt and Softy Centre must have been popular with the readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE. This is confirmed by the fact that the feature didn’t miss a single week and continued as a two-pager after the pagecount reduction of 1974 and during the weeks when extra pages were allocated to Frankie Stein pull-out booklet and Whoopee! ads. Was it because readers liked to see a frail kid outsmarting a bully or standing up to him every week? Probably so.

Tough Nutt and Softy Centre was not considered good enough to make it to the combined WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER AND SHAKE. The pair met for the last time in the final issue of SHIVER AND SHAKE in which Tough Nutt suffered a concussion and lost his memory. Softy was quick to take advantage of the situation: