Wikipedia
tells us that Charlie Williams was a mixed-race English professional footballer
who later became Britain's first well-known black stand-up comedian. He became
famous from his appearances on Granada Television's The Comedians and ATV's The
Golden Shot, delivering his catchphrase, "me old flower" in
his broad Yorkshire accent. Here is what I found of him on YouTube:
I have to
admit that the Yorkshire accent is a bit tricky for me and I can’t understand
every word the man says; also, his wild burst of laughter signalling the end of
a joke is a bit overenthusiastic, but otherwise I find him quite fun to watch. Why
they decided to turn him into a character of a children’s comic is a bit of a
mystery to me and I am not too surprised it only managed such a short run…
Charlie Williams ran
without a break in SHIVER AND SHAKE issues 22 - 47 (from August 4th, 1973 until
January 26th, 1974) when the prototype of its main character was at the pinnacle of his comedy
career. In the strip Charlie was a regular customer of the employment agency who
took a new odd job every week. He tried everything from being a zoo animal
keeper to room decorator, from Santa Claus to human cannon ball in a circus act.
By the
early 70s racial stereotyping had disappeared from British children’s comics
but since Williams'
comedy is said to have often been at his own expense, and particularly his
colour, three or four of the episodes in SHIVER AND SHAKE were given that
long-forgotten mildly racial twist:
As can be
seen from the two examples above, Charlie Williams was illustrated by two
different artists. Of the 26 episodes in SHIVER AND SHAKE weeklies, 16 were by Alf Saporito and the rest
(mostly towards the end of the run) by Sid Burgon. Throughout its short run the
strip was a one-pager but the last instalment in issue 47 was two pages long.
In fact it consisted of two separate episodes and Williams’ adventures were
given a proper ending in the second one when he was finally invited to join the
local theatre as a stand-up comedian:
