WHOOPEE! PULL-OUTS IN 1979 – PART ONE

The score of the 26 ‘special’ issues of WHOOPEE! during 1978 (covered in my previous post) was dwarfed by the number of those offered in 1979 when the comic really went to town: as many as 35 issues came with a booklet, a poster or some other fun pull-out! I won’t attempt to cover them all in one post and will only look at the first 7 months of 1979, leaving the rest for Part Two.

The first issue of the year (6th January) had The Curious Case of the One-Eyed Gnome - an 8-page pull-out minibook starring Sheerluck and Son, drawn by Trevor Metcalfe:

The issue of 6th January, 1979 also ran this advert informing the readers about more exciting things to look forward to next week - and not just in WHOOPEE! comic:

The 1979 WHOOPEE! pull-out calendar was a 4-part piece, featuring the big stars of the paper, drawn by Sid Burgon. One would have thought it appropriate for the calendar to start in the first issue of the year, but the editor had other plans and chose to run it for the 4 consecutive weeks of 13th January – 3rd February:

The next issue after the one with part 4 of the calendar came with Supermum pull-out booklet, drawn by Dicky Howett. On a personal note I can add that this issue, cover dated 10th February, 1979, proved to be particularly evasive in my quest to collect a full set of WHOOPEE!, and it took me quite a while to get hold of a copy with the booklet intact!

The next week’s issue (17th February, 1979) had another pull-out minibook - A Touch of Evil, drawn by Brian Walker. Although his Spooktacular 7 strip featuring the Scream Inn gang had ended in July 1978, the mischievous faces peeking around the corner on the front cover of the booklet look a lot like the Innkeeper, Boneypart and Dennis the Devil, don’t you think? The booklet being referred to as ‘SPOOKTACULAR’ on the front cover of the comic was another nod to the discontinued strip. 

In fact, it featured the Ghostly-Go-Round squad. WHOOPEE! fans will know that the squad consisted of Evil Eye, Creepy Car, 'Orrible Hole and Fun Fear. The four strips used to appear on a weekly basis since the early days of the paper, but with young readers gradually losing interest in the once-popular horror comedy genre, the Editor needed to clear space for new material. The solution was to rotate the strips, so each was only printed once every four weeks. The practice started back in 1978, but from the first issue of 1979 the strips were brought under one umbrella of the Ghostly-Go-Round.

The four issues of April (7th, 14th, 21st and 28th) had a pop-quiz poster featuring John Travolta.

As usual, the poster was advertised a week in advance, and the advert tells us that WHOOPEE! wasn’t the only IPC comic with lots of pull-outs in 1979:

The first three parts of the poster had quiz questions in red squares, with answers provided in the last part. Here’s how the four parts of the poster looked on the centrespreads: 

Besides part 4 of the pop quiz poster and the instructions how to assemble it, the issue cover-dated 28th April, 1979 had a run-down of the Top Ten of the paper’s most popular strips as selected by readers:

The issue cover-dated 28th April, 1979 also advertised another 4-part minibook in the pipeline, and announced that next week was WHOOPEE!’s turn for the free gift of Kellogg’s Two Shakes raspberry flavour milk shake mix – also offered on different weeks at around the same time with Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Cheeky and Mickey Mouse comics:

As promised, the four WHOOPEE! issues of May (5th, 12th, 19th and 26th) came with four parts of the Spotter Book of Sports and Games, which featured various sports, etc., and was quite bland in terms of artwork:

WHOOPEE! took a break with its pull-outs in June before going on a poster spree starting from the issue of 21st July, 1979:

This was followed by Supermum poster a week later in the issue of 29th July, 1979:

The rest of the 1979 WHOOPEE! pull-out goodness will be covered in Part Two soon.

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!

WHOOPEE! PULL-OUTS IN 1978

In my opinion, in 1978 WHOOPEE! was beginning to loose some of its appeal. Scream Inn had ended last year in the issue dated 1st October, 1977, replaced for the time being by Spooktacular 7 – still drawn by the excellent Brian Walker and featuring the same old happy gang of spooks – but readers’ story ideas were no longer used. As 1978 rolled on, Spooktacular 7 was put to rest after the issue dated 22nd July, 1978, as was Ken Reid’s World-Wide Weirdies after the issue of 21st October, 1978. Fans of ‘Orrible Hole, Creepy Car, Fun Fear and Evil Eye saw less of their favourite strips because the Editor began rotating them, and each was printed only once every four weeks. That said, it was still a good comic, with the well-established strips such as Sweeny, Frankie Stein, Scared-Stiff Sam, Bumpkin Billionaires, Toy Boy, etc. still going strong.

Let us not forget that the topic of this series is WHOOPEE! pull-outs, and 1978 was a very good year in that regard – as many as 26 issues came with something extra!

The first four issues of the year had the Whoopee Spotter Book of TV. 

This time the cut-outs weren’t on the centrespread – they were printed on two inside pages of each issue, containing four pages of the booklet. Once collected together, the booklet was 16 pages thick:

Readers’ response to the WHOOPEE! cut-out masks offered towards the end of 1977 must have been good because the Editor decided to do more of those and included one of Sweeny in the issue of 18th February, 1978: 

… followed later in the year by one of Smiler in WHOOPEE! issue of 6th May, 1978:

The four issues of 1st – 22nd July, 1978 had four mini comic samplers promoting companion comics. 

Mickey Mouse Mini Sampler was first in line, and featured Mickey, Goofy and Donald:

It was followed by Cheeky Weekly Mini Sampler, featuring What a Cheek, 6 Million Dollar Gran, The Skateboard Squad, Mustapha Million and of course the toothy funster himself:

Next came the mini sampler of Whizzer and Chips with Krazy Comic, featuring Shiner, Sid’s Snake, Sweet Tooth, Paws, Fuss Pot, Horace and Doris and Buytonic Boy:

The last one was Buster and Monster Fun Mini Sampler, featuring Buster’s Diary, Stan Still’s Stopwatch, Kid Kong, X-Ray Specs, Kid Gloves, Tin Teacher and Clever Dick:

Once cut out and folded, each sampler booklet was 8 pages thick, with front and back covers printed in full colour. Rather than appearing on the centerspread, all the booklets were printed on four pages at the back of the paper.

The next issue dated 29th July, 1978 had this mysterious advert:

The answer came in the next four issues (5th – 26th August, 1978) in the form of Whoopee Pocket Puzzler pull-out booklet: 

The b/w booklet, drawn by Cliff Brown, was given two pages in each of the four issues (i.e. four pages of the mini-book per issue). Once collected together, it was 16 pages thick.

The issue with the last part of the Pocket Puzzler also had this advert trumpeting the arrival of different colour cut-out games in four of IPC’s weekly comics, starting from next week:

In the case of WHOPPEE!, it was Lolly Pop Money Game, presented in the four issues dated 2nd – 23rd September, 1978:

Each of the first three issues had one part of the board, plus one page of game cards:

... while the fourth contained the last batch of the cards, along with assembly instructions and the rules how to play the game:

This was followed by an 8-page black and white Whoopee Pull-Out Minibook –Time Travellers, featuring The Bumpkin Billionaires, printed on the centre pages of WHOOPEE! dated 7th October, 1978:

… and another one – Look Out London, featuring Sweeny – in WHOOPEE! dated 14th October, 1978, illustrated and signed by Paul Aley:

… and then yet another one – Frankie Stein in Transylvania – in WHOOPEE! dated 21st October, 1978. Drawn by Robert Nixon, it was a doctored version of the original booklet printed in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 56 back in 1974 as part 4 of Frankie Stein’s Mini Monster Comic Book:

The next issue (28th October, 1978) came with a double treat: Brian Walker’s Guy Fawkes’ mask printed on the centerspread:

… and Three’s A Crowd Whoopee Cut-out Minibook featuring Lolly Pop (an 8-page b/w booklet illustrated by Sid Burgon):

But that was not all because after a week’s break, the issue of 11th November 1978 included yet another 8 page b/w pull-out booklet – Secret Agent 009, featuring Scared-Stiff Sam:

The next issue (18th November, 1978) saw the change of the logo and came with a free gift of Top Pop Hummer which I don’t have. Besides, the issue had four beautiful cut-out colour X-mas cards featuring WHOOPEE! stars:

The next two issues had more of the colour Xmas cards: there were four in the issue of 25th November, 1978:

… with a further two in the next issue (2nd December, 1978), which was also the last one with a pull-out in 1978:

More pull-outs may have been planned for the rest of December, but WHOOPEE! once again fell victim to industrial action and missed the next three weeks. Luckily, things came back on track just in time for the release of that year’s Xmas issue. 

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!