WHOOPEE! POSTERS AND PULL-OUTS IN 1981

In 1981, the New Year issue of WHOOPEE! (3rd January) came with this busy colour pull-out calendar contributed by Robert Nixon:

The next pull-out came after a month’s break in the issue cover-dated 14th February, 1981. It was the first time that WHOOPEE! offered a set of Valentine Cards to its readers:

WHOOPEE! issue of 28th February, 1981 came with a free gift – a pack of Hubba Bubba Soft Bubble Gum. Moreover, the free gift issue was the first in the sequence of four with Whoopee! "Doubles" pull-out card game. 

The two issues of 28th February and 7th March had two pages of the cut-out cards, while the next two (14th and 21st March) each had one page of those; the rules of the game came with the last part:

The issue of 20th June, 1981 had this page with the list of WHOOPEE!’s top ten strips (results of a popularity poll), and on that occasion the Editor decided to include colour posters of the top three. The one for the comic’s No. 3 star was advertised to appear next week, but the Editor added some suspense by withholding the names of the runner-up and the top character for now:

Toy Boy poster by Terry Bave was duly included in the issue of 27th June, 1981:

… along with this advert for the poster of the runners-up to look forward to next week: 

The Bumpkin Billionaires’ poster came with the issue of 4th July, 1981:

… which also revealed who the top character was:  

It appears that the influx of new stars from CHEEKY WEEKLY (Mustapha Million was one of the ‘immigrants’) undermined the popularity of some of WHOOPEE!’s old-timers, as demonstrated by the fact that Sweeny Toddler dropped to the fourth place in the chart. 

The achievement of Mustapha Million was celebrated with a poster in the issue of 11th July, 1981:

WHOOPEE! issues cover-dated 4th July and 11th July, 1981 (those with the Bumpkin Billionaires and Mustapha Million posters) and the issue of 18th July, 1981 came with The Young Road Traveller's Handbook. The front cover of the issue with Part 1 of the pull-out suggested that the booklet was in full colour, although actually it was all printed in black-and-white. Here is a selection of pages:

The next pull-out arrived a fortnight later. WHOOPEE! celebrated the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana by including the Royal Wedding Game on the centerspread in the issue of 1st August, 1981:

The next exciting pull-out – How to Draw Comic Strips by Terry Bave, Book Two – took exactly two months to appear. The first part of the 16-page mini-book was included with the second free gift issue of the year that had a pack of ANGLO Bubbly bubble gum sellotaped to the front cover (missing from my copy shown in the picture below). Terry Bave’s second ‘tutorial’ (the first one was included a year ago in 1980) was printed in WHOOPEE! issues of 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th October, 1981:

Here it is in full for those of you who would like another set of handy tips from the Master:

A week later WHOOPEE! readers received yet another Guy Fawkes’ facemask in the issue of 31st October, 1981. Drawn - as usual - by Brian Walker, it was the last pull-out offered to the readers of the paper in 1981. 

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