Welcome to the Cheeky Weekly blog!


Welcome to the Cheeky Weekly blog!
Cheeky Weekly ™ REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, COPYRIGHT ©  REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED was a British children's comic with cover dates spanning 22 October 1977 to 02 February 1980.

Quick links...
Basic Stats
Cheeky Weekly Index - Cheeky Annuals and Specials Index
Cheeky Weekly Artist Index
Features by Number of Appearances
Cheeky Weekly Timeline
Major Characters from the Cheeky pages
Features Ordered by Date of Commencement

*** ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT ©  REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Used with permission. ***
*** CHEEKY WEEKLY, KRAZY, WHOOPEE!, WHOOPEE, WOW!, WHIZZER AND CHIPS and BUSTER ARE ™ REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, COPYRIGHT ©  REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ***
Thanks for reading the blog.

Thursday 21 April 2016

The Ads - Sweets (part 1)

In the same way that comic readers of the 1970s were familiar with the big names in comic publishing (IPC, DC Thomson, Marvel, DC), so were the consumers of sweets (very often overlapping in the Venn diagram of newsagent patrons) aware of the manufacturers of their favourite treats. Rowntrees, Trebor, Mackintosh, Cadbury, Mars – mention of these names would bring on a craving for something sweet and either chewy, crunchy, chocolatey, minty or else fruity and boiled (or possibly, in the case of those with generous pocket-money allowances, a combination of all the above).


There was yet another titan of the enamel-eroders; Bassett's. Bassett's were probably most associated with their iconic Jelly Babies and Liquorice Allsorts, but the company's ads in Cheeky Weekly focused on a range of pre-packaged confectionery clearly aimed at the younger end of the sweet-buying market. Running during the latter half of 1978 for a total of 5 times, the adverts (all identical) alerted readers to a promotion whereby 12 empty bags from the range could be exchanged for a book featuring Paddington Bear. The marmalade-loving ursine immigrant had been appearing in children's books since 1958, but in 1975 he made the leap to the small screen in a high-profile animated series, and Bassett's no doubt hoped to capitalise on the resurgent interest in the character. It seems those who survived the sugary onslaught necessary to accumulate the requisite 12 depleted packs were able to specify which Paddington book they required from a selection of 8. 11 tomes relating the misadventures of the furry, hat-sporting Peruvian had been published by this time, but maybe the books on offer were specially produced for the purposes of the promotion – despite an exhaustive search of the internet (lasting almost 3 minutes) I've been unable to source any further information regarding this ad campaign, so we'll probably never know.

Advertiser Bassett's
Issue Date Page Page Type Advertiser Subject
22-Jul-197822NormalBassett's
05-Aug-19789NormalBassett's
09-Sep-197813NormalBassett's
14-Oct-197811NormalBassett's
18-Nov-19788NormalBassett's


Similarly-named sweet manufacturer Barratt ran a short promotion in September 1979 relating to their Oran-gee-tang nougat bar. Were you one of those kids who pronounced it 'nugget', or did you use the posher-sounding 'noogah'. I must confess I fell into the latter category. Like Basset's, Barratt chose to anthropomorphise their campaign, but in this case it was an unknown primate of their own devising, looking more like a gorilla than the orangutan it was presumably supposed to resemble, who was chosen to head up the promotion. Unlike Bassett's, Barratt chose to place full-page, colour ads, although the Barratt campaign was much shorter.

Barratt required of their respondents less exposure to tooth-rotting materials than their rival, as just two wrappers from the rainforest-inhabitant-referencing, filling-loosening comestible would facilitate entry into a competition to win a 'customised' bike. Again the ad is somewhat lacking in detail, giving no indication as to the nature of said customisations. Possibly a giant, flashing fibreglass Oran-gee-tang bar attached to the handlebars – once more the internet fails to furnish enlightenment.

Advertiser Barratt
Issue Date Page Page Type Advertiser Subject
15-Sep-197925NormalBarrattOran-gee-tang
22-Sep-197925NormalBarrattOran-gee-tang

No comments:

Post a Comment