Comics UK

I don't mean strips that are directly based on TV shows, like Doctor Who or Grange Hill. I mean the stories which are either blatant spoofs of, or use as their inspiration, TV shows.

I'll start with a spoof; Crowjak was a humorous take on the lolly-addicted TV detective Kojak. The strip included an additional TV spoof - the McClot character who was based on the eponymous hero of the series 'McCloud', starring Dennis Weaver. This strip is from Buster 19th June '76, and features McClot's debut appearance.

Sheerluck and Son from Whoopee! were based on the Piggy Malone and Charley Farley characters from The Two Ronnies.



Don't know the original date for this story, it's from a Best of Whoopee!

Del Boyd from The Topper, anyone?

Jackpot comic had quite a few..

The Teeney Sweeny
Its a nice life (The Good Life)
The Incredible Sulk
Jake Seven..(Blake Seven)

Rent 'a' Ghost in Buster is the other way round..the tv series came later!

Blunderbirds in Eagle of course. However, I don't think we can count Lion's CHESTER THE CHAMPION CHUMP as based on Charlie Drake's TV show though, becasue wasn't it simply a reprint of Buster's Charlie Drake, with his hair inked to black and the "arlie" lettering in speech balloons replaced with "ester"

Power fan wrote:Blunderbirds in Eagle of course. However, I don't think we can count Lion's CHESTER THE CHAMPION CHUMP as based on Charlie Drake's TV show though, becasue wasn't it simply a reprint of Buster's Charlie Drake, with his hair inked to black and the "arlie" lettering in speech balloons replaced with "ester"

...I've never seen Chester, but the principle behind it sounds similar to Cheeky Weekly's 'The Gang', which was a reprint of a strip based on TV's 'Here Come the Double Deckers'. I've never seen the original strips (I think it was in Whizzer and Chips) but I presume the reprints just had the title panel changed. In the TV series, the kids used a Routemaster bus as their gang hut (hence their gang name), but in the reprints of the strip, I don't think the bus ever featured. I've always wondered if any stories featuring the bus were not reprinted to avoid copyright infringement.

The Junior Rotter strip from Whizzer and Chips is an example of a scenario 'inspired' by a TV show, rather than an outright spoof. In this case, the main character is based on scheming businessman JR Ewing from the Dallas series. Junior Rotter's sister is named Sue-Helen, in a nod to TV's JR's wife, Sue Ellen.

This story from W&C 3rd December '83

Arguably, the World Wide School strip owes a debt to TV's MInd Your Language.

This page from the same issue of W&C as JR

Yet again from the same issue of W&C (I guess the 80s were the peak of comics piggy-backing on popular TV), we have Store Wars. Shop-owner Mr Bloggs and his assistant (who I think was named Ted) in their corner shop bore more than a passing resemblance to Arkwright and Granville from TV's Open All Hours.

I think most of these parody ideas were instigated by IPC humour group editor Bob Paynter. Bob was always keen to latch onto any new fad with his own spin on it. Sometimes it worked but other times the links were very contrived and groan-inducing. Personally I preferred original ideas rather than creating a character just to suit a twist on a name.

Then again, Tom Thug was inspired by the name Tom Thumb, so I'll get me coat.

Of course Terror TV in Monster Fun, then Buster and Monster Fun, had a different TV show parody each week. Sportsfright with Harry Carpenterror and so on.

Raven wrote:Of course Terror TV in Monster Fun, then Buster and Monster Fun, had a different TV show parody each week. Sportsfright with Harry Carpenterror and so on.

Indeed, this from Buster and Monster Fun 11 December '76

Sigh - I loved Terror TV.

Another inspired one was Tomorrow's Weird with Raymond Backscare, William Ghoulard and Judith Harm*. (6/2/77)




*Based on Raymond Baxter, William Woollard and Judith Hann.

Here's a couple of contenders from DCT.

The title of this strip was a spoof on the Davy Crockett TV series, and the banner at the top of the page even spoofed the first verse of the TV show's title song.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kweL_RUXXU4

L-Cars, Z-Cars, geddit?