Numbers Game

The Crown of Kings is the fourth and final book of Steve Jackson's Sorcery!, Jackson's four-volume epic, arguably the pinnacle of the solo gamebook format, and Jackson really goes to town on making it as difficult as possible. One of the author's favourite tricks for cheat-proofing his books is reference modifiers -- at certain sections, there will be a nonstandard action you can take if you have a certain item or piece of knowledge by modifying the number of the section you are on to discover a secret, otherwise unknowable section. Players not in possession of this will not have a clue the option is even there.

Jackson had been developing this idea across his Fighting Fantasy books House of Hell and Appointment with F.E.A.R., as well as the second and third Sorcery! books, but The Crown of Kings is where he really perfects the idea, and the book is stuffed with them. But there are three I want to highlight in particular.

There is a special bonus if you killed all of the titular tuataras in the preceding book, The Seven Serpents. As the Serpents were bringing the Archmage of Mampang a message warning him about you, laying waste to all of them means no word of your mission has reached the Fortress and you have the element of surprise on your side.

This is deployed with the following mechanic: if you ever reach a reference where a character refers to you as 'the Analander', you should deduct 40 from the number of that section and turn to the new number for an alternate version of the encounter where you are not recognised. This is largely very cleverly realised; I particularly enjoy one scenario where you accidentally give the game away by telling someone where you come from and have to stop using the modifier. (This is even more devious than it first appears: there is a secret order of rogue elements elsewhere in the Fortress whom it is a good idea to tell you are from Analand.) Several encounters in the book can be simplified or bypassed entirely in this way, although there is one rather curious part where crucial information you need to win the game can only be found in a way that makes logical sense if you have the not-recognised bonus.

After you have gone so far in the adventure, you meet a character that calls you 'the Analander', and duly subtract 40 from the current section's number...

Every Dog...

In the issue of the Beano dated 13th March 1999, a new story debuted, Dog's Breakfast TV. Chronicling the goings-on at a breakfast TV show staffed by anthropomorphic dogs, it would prove to be one of the shortest-serving strips in the comic's history; just eleven editions appeared in total, over three months (there were three issues near the end of the run where it didn't appear).

I'm not sure why this strip stuck in my mind as strongly as it has. Maybe it sparked my interest in the nuts and bolts of television production. Maybe it's because it looked like nothing else in the comic -- it was the one and only D. C. Thomson commission for artist Stephen Baskerville. Maybe it's the sense that someone came up with the name first and worked backwards from there. Maybe it's because someone had the foresight to realise the joke wasn't going to last much longer and retired it so promptly. Maybe I just find anthropomorphic dogs really funny.

Whatever the reason, it's a strip I fondly remember despite its brief tenure (and, as we'll see, a couple of other reasons), and its short run means I can scan in and post every single edition of DBTV there ever was. For the most part, enjoy.

Sweet Potato

I've been looking for this for a while. The fabled repeat of The Simpsons episode "Two Cars in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish" from 25 June 1992, which switched out the usual blackboard gag in the opening sequence for "'Potato' not 'potatoe'", in reference to Vice President Dan Quayle.

And, thanks to commentor Bax for hooking me up with a copy of that repeat -- for which I am immensely grateful -- we can enjoy a joke unseen for over 33 years.

What in the Very World?

According to BBC Genome, on 13 August 1998 at 11pm, the very first of what would be many, many pun-heavy Radio 4 series starring Milton Jones began airing, with the opening episode of The Very World of Milton Jones.

13 August 1998, 23:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Very World of Milton Jones

A four-part comedy series starring Britain's funniest Milton.
Written by and starring Milton Jones
With Alexander Armstrong and Melanie Hudson. Producer David Tyler

And the listings for the remaining three episodes are as follows:

20 August 1998, 23:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Very World of Milton Jones

Second dollop of the four-part comedy series starring Britain's funniest Milton. Written by and starring Milton Jones. With Dave Lamb and Melanie Hudson. Producer David Tyler

27 August 1998, 23:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Very World of Milton Jones

Part three of the four-part comedy series starring Britain's funniest Milton. Written by and starring Milton Jones
With Joanna Scanlan and Alexander Armstrong

Producer David Tyler

3 September 1998, 23:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Very World of Milton Jones

Last of the comedy series written by and starring Britain's funniest Milton. With Joanna Scanlan and Dave Lamb

Hang on, what's this?

6 September 1998, 12:30 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Very World of Milton Jones

Second in the new comedy series written by and starring Milton Jones. Repeated from Monday

Okay, let's try and work this out. 06/09/98 was a Sunday, and this repeat goes out in the lunchtime slot reserved for the repeat of Monday's 18:30 comedy which is strongly associated with Just a Minute, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and The Unbelievable Truth. So if we believe the later Radio Times listing as being more up-to-date, the second episode of The Very World did not debut on 20/08/98 at 11pm, but on 31/08/98 at 6.30pm. What does the Radio Times claim was broadcast on that date?

Shock Horror

Back in September, I wrote a brief history of Number 13 -- the comic strip that was in many ways a British take on The Munsters and The Addams Family which appeared in the Beano, drawn by John Geering, between 1987 and 2002.

There was one little mystery I couldn't clear up at the time: according to The Official History of the Beano, the story only appeared three times after 1997 (and, from my own research, had only been appearing sporadically since around 1995). The Official History only gives a date for the very last strip -- the issue dated 14th December 2002. Which was kind of noteworthy as it was almost three and a half years after John Geering died. Having a specific date meant it was easier for me to track down that final edition:

But I didn't know when the other two post-1997 strips ran at that point. A month and a half later, though, I tracked one of them down to the 19th June 1999 issue:

And, as you might have already guessed, my time searching through boxes of comics in charity shops has not been in vain: I have the final post-1997 Number 13, and am prepared to make a guess about what happened.

Count the Ways

In 1982, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone wrote the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. To cheat-proof the book, Jackson devised a puzzle based around the various keys you need to find in order to unlock the Warlock's chest and steal all his stuff: Scattered throughout the mountain are six keys, each of which has a number engraved on it. You need to choose three of the keys, add their numbers together, and turn to that number section. Only by finding the correct combination of keys can you win the book.

This sets the template for other authors seeking to ensure their book can only be completed by those playing fairly, but over time their methods get more and more meta. The numbers associated with the items become more subtle than just having them written on for no readily apparent in-universe reason. Or the player can spell out a secret message telling them when to take a nonstandard option, with the number being found via a brainteaser. Jackson himself pioneered reference modifiers, where at certain sections you must add or subtract a given number from that of the section you are currently on in order to take an action not offered by the text; if you don't have the item or knowledge that permits you to use the modifier, you won't even have a clue the option is there!

But there's one other tactic, which basically eliminated the need for items to have numbers associated with them at all.

Nine Lives

On 9 July 1977, the 652nd and final issue of Sparky was published. The comic in question was the home of many memorable strips such as Spoofer McGraw, We Are the Sparky People, L-Cars, Thingummyblob, Superwitch and Ali's Baba, but arguably its most famous story -- and quite possibly my favourite comic strip of all time -- was Puss 'n' Boots, the adventures of an eternally warring cat and dog.

Puss 'n' Boots survived the comic's merger with the Topper, where they appeared for a good two-and-a-bit years until late 1979. John Geering's madcap scripts and action-packed visuals meant the story would continue to recur in various incarnations over the next thirty years, with the twosome long outlasting their creator. However, after they vacated the pages of the Topper, they would not get another run in a weekly comic until they arrived in the Dandy in 1987 under the name Mutt and Moggy, a significantly different take on the concept sometimes described as the Muppet Babies version of the strip. Mutt and Moggy later evolved into something a bit closer to the original version, and they returned to their original names, and designs, for another run in 1993. You can find a fuller history of the strip, written by some idiot, here.

However, despite not having a home in a weekly comic, they made several appearances in the Dandy Comic Libraries from around 1984. One issue in particular is of interest: number #176, Puss 'n' Boots in 'Tee' for Two! A quick estimation puts this issue's release date in early 1990, but the Comic Libraries tended to be done quite a way in advance and it's possible it had been on the shelf for a year or two, if not longer (a Comic Library released in 1989 starring a solo Cuddles, before his strip was merged with Dimples, must have been done at least three years earlier).