Cheeky's Snail

[Sidnny]

Did you get the 'Snail of the Century' pun, by the way - from 70s Nicholas Parsons-hosted quiz show Sale of the Century.

Nope.

[Raven]

Did you get the 'Snail of the Century' pun, by the way - from 70s Nicholas Parsons-hosted quiz show Sale of the Century.

Nope.

Yes, I do realise that it's perfectly obvious to those of us who were there at the time, but I don't think Digi (who I asked) was around when it was on. So I was just pondering that it may have sounded a weird thing to name a page.

Having said that, the show's been revived a few times (albeit without the crucial revolving silver knight of the Anglia opening ident), including an Ant and Dec one-off about four years ago.

[Digifiend]

That last one was part of Gameshow Marathon - and did include the Anglia knight ident. I've heard of Sale of the Century, but only seen the GM one and the remake Challenge TV did about 10 years ago. Yes, I got the pun - but that wouldn't also stop it being the character's name. Tim Traveller is a pun on Time Traveller after all.

As for being around, you're right Raven, I was born in 1984 and SOTC is a 70s show.

[Jonny Whizz]

Fair point about Tim Traveller, but I think that most people will have got it, as his name is the same as Time Traveller with the 'e' knocked off, whereas if you don't know about the programme 'Sale of the Century', then you probably won't get the pun for Snail of the Century. However, I think that most readers would have got the pun at the time.

[Niblet]

'Snail of the Century' was the name of Cheeky's Snail's all-colour back page. He met his friends in the garden: Mole; Rabbit; his snail nephew and many others - to share jokes and rhymes with them (even if in real life they would have eaten him!). I don't think the snail ever had a name, and usually by the last panel of the strip he had returned to Cheeky's side indoors.

I think he may have been IPC's only hermaphrodite main character, unusual in children's comics!!

'Wonder Worm' in Buster predated him by a few years!

[Niblet]

Another mollusc sidekick was of course the snail who made disparaging comments about Paws. For some reason, the snail always appeared upside-down underneath the final panel of each story, next to the pawprint, but here's a rare occasion when he also appeared within the story itself.