WHOOPEE! PULL-OUTS AND GIFTS in 1976

In 1976 WHOOPEE! celebrated the New Year with a two-part Creepy Calendar in the vein of the comic’s World-Wide Weirdies pin-up series, printed in the first two issues of the year:

World-Wide Weirdies were normally drawn by Ken Reid, but worries over his divorce proceedings made Ken unable to work at the time, so the job was given to Robert Nixon:

Instructions to the readers were provided on the Letters page:

WHOOPEE! issue of 6th March, 1976 celebrated the 2nd birthday of the paper (it was issue No. 102). The occasion was marked with the introduction of a new logo, three new strips (Smiler, Gook the T.V. Spook and Werefilf) and – what’s relevant for this series – a sequence of nine special issues of the comic.

First came TV Quiz pull-out booklet. It started in the first new-logo issue and was published over four weeks:

The title of the pull-out was self-explanatory – it featured questions about popular TV personalities and shows. Below is a selection of pages to give you an idea what the booklet was like:

The issue of 27th March, 1976 (the one with the last part of the TV Quiz booklet and its assembly instructions) announced the free gift that was to come with the next edition:

Horror Gripper was a piece of green plastic imitating a monstrous claw, and was part of Smiths Foods ‘Horror Bags’ snacks promotion:

Below is the cover of the free-gift issue, followed by the image of the gift and Smiths Foods advert included in the comic:

That same issue announced the forthcoming Pop Super Poster:

The giant 4-part poster was printed on the centre pages of the four issues of 10th April – 1st May, 1976:

Assembly instructions were provided in the issue of 1st May, 1976:

When assembled, the ‘super pop wall-frieze’, drawn and signed by Alf Saporito, looked like this:

I believe Part 1 of the poster (the one on the left) showed Bay City Rollers; I am not sure who the other pop bands were…

The next WHOOPEE! pull-out treat came nearly two months later. Here is how it was advertised in the issue of 12th June, 1976:

The poster, drawn beautifully by Sid Burgon, was duly included in the next week’s issue (9th June, 1976), and was the only poster featuring WHOOPEE! characters in 1976:

Finally, the four issues of 14th August – 4th September, 1976 had the Pull-Out Playtime Book:

As usual, the booklet was advertised a week before, but this time it was a full-page announcement: 

As can be seen from the advert above, the issue containing Part 1 of the booklet came with a free gift. It was Free Scarey Sticker – another ‘Horror Bags’ freebie offered by Smiths Foods:

The booklet featured a lot of WHOOPEE! stars, and appears to have been drawn almost single-handedly by Cliff Brown (with a little help from Jim Crocker). It’s nice to see Cliff Brown draw the Innkeeper from Scream Inn which he was a regular scriptwriter of. Here’s a selection of pages and assembly instructions:

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd 

And while you’re here, I would like to remind you that my promotion for the POWER PACK OF KEN REID is still on. Get your copies of the books and BONUS FREE PRINTS on eBay or from my online shop HERE!