Songs in the Key of Doom

This is the first of the four maps you use to navigate the Ghastly Kingdom of the Dead in the third GrailQuest gamebook, Gateway of Doom. You start in room 65, the one with the four secret doors, and will eventually want to make your way over to 80, where you will find a map showing the remainder of Level I.

As you may have noticed, you can't get to 80 without passing through 100 no matter what route you take, and in 100 there's an unavoidable fight with a monster who is guarding a chest containing the key to the Gateway into the Ghastly Kingdom, which you need in order to close and lock it at the conclusion of the book, so stopping the spread of monsters and plagues and whatnot passing through the Gateway into Avalon.

Buzz Words

In January 1973, D. C. Thomson launched a new weekly humour comic for children into a market that already looked pretty crowded; they were already producing the Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Topper and Sparky at the time, and to introduce a sixth comic into this mix seems ambitious. Like its stablemates the Beezer and Topper, Buzz was published in A3 size, making it twice the size of many other comics of the time, but this didn't mean it would be a big hit: just two years and 103 issues later, Buzz would become the publisher's first mayfly when it closed.

A mayfly which I am now about to pin and mount to the wall. (I don't think that's what you do with mayflies, but just go with it.) The issue I have scanned in is from just over halfway through its life, number #59.

Coach and Horses

The second Lone Wolf gamebook, Fire on the Water, is quite heavy on setting up the series' lore, and features an expansive plot where Lone Wolf must travel halfway across the Lastlands to retrieve the fabled Sommerswerd. Perhaps because of this, there are a few moments where it seems to struggle to fit everything into 350 sections.

During one sequence, you travel by coach to Port Bax, with five other passengers -- Ganon and Dorier, two brothers who are knights in the Order of the White Mountain; Halvorc, a merchant; Parsion, a priest; and Viveka, a young adventuress for hire. The journey is interrupted by your discovery that one of the five is an assassin in the pay of the Darklords; after you survive an attempt to serve you a tray of poisoned food during a stopover at a tavern, you storm into the bar where they are all waiting, are asked which one you think is your would-be killer, and do battle with them. (Take a look at the illustration that accompanies this section, and you should be able to spot the vital clue as to who the Darklord agent is even without the context of the rest of the book. Even the picture above might be enough.)

Hot to Go!

Snip and Snap, D. C. Thomson's original duo of postman-pillorying dogs, enjoyed a stint in the Sparky for just shy of two years, from October 1972 to August 1974.

As you may have immediately guessed from other posts I've done on this subject recently, for a brief spell beginning in the summer of 1999, the twosome were dusted off, colourised and reprinted in the Dandy as the Red Hot Chilli Dogs:

Knock on Wood

This is the very first edition of The Haunted Wood, a strip which appeared in Fleetway's Knockout across its two-year run from June 1971 to June 1973. Like some other Fleetway strips of the time, it does not appear to have had a terribly consistent artist; some sources say this first strip was the work of Reg Parlett, other strips were apparently by Sid Burgon, and other editions have artists who cannot be identified. (Another Knockout strip, Beat Your Neighbour, is notorious for being so inconsistent it can be difficult to find two editions which were definitely drawn by the same person, but that's another story.)

To cut to the chase: The Haunted Wood is not renowned for experimentation or breaking its format. Every subsequent edition follows a very familiar set-up: someone takes wood from the Haunted Wood, doesn't listen to the unnamed boy's warnings that this will lead to disaster, and the haunted wood, no matter what form it has been sawed, nailed or whittled into, comes to life and wreaks havoc until it returns to its home.

Red Lines

This is a very early example of Ali's Baba, a strip which appeared in D. C. Thomson's Sparky from January 1970 up until the comic's end in July 1977; it was drawn by Malcolm "Mal" Judge, better known for D. C. stablemates such as The Numskulls and Billy Whizz. This particular strip is taken from the Sparky Book 1971; the Christmas books were usually finished at least a year before publication, and Baba and his guardian angel must have just sneaked in before the deadline to debut in the weekly comic and the accompanying annual in the same year.

In this particular strip, Ali's invisibility to the other characters is represented by making him transparent. Which seems fair enough. However, it appears very unlikely this method was used in any other strip.

For the vast majority of editions (this example is from the 1973 book),¹ they did something more interesting -- having the outline of Ali and his speech balloons appear in colour:

Fight! Fight! Fight!

In March 1983, the very third Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Forest of Doom, was published in the UK.

I'm aware it's a story I've told several times now, but the range's co-creators, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, had jointly written the first book in the series, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which was an instant bestseller. To produce two new books in the same time it had taken to write Warlock, they divided their efforts, and Livingstone's first solo gamebook, Forest, was published the exact same day as Jackson's offering, The Citadel of Chaos. Four more books would be written in this way before Puffin Books realised that if they were going to keep up with public demand, and the copycat series by other publishers that were beginning to crop up, they were going to have to open things up to outside writers.

As you might expect, Livingstone doesn't have everything down pat at this point, and Forest is a bit different to his later books. It's generally a bit easier, especially when it comes to combats. The basic plot is still on the simple side, and an excuse for a classic dungeon crawler (albeit one that takes place outdoors). One of the most notable curiosities is that if you reach the end of the book having failed to find both parts of the fabled Dwarven warhammer you're trying to retrieve from Darkwood Forest, you can loop straight back round to section 1 and continue playing (provided you can pass a Test Your Luck roll to escape some Wild Hill Men); presumably Livingstone took it as read that the player would follow paths not taken on the second time round, but there's still going to be some overlap with areas where the forest apparently magically resets itself between visits.

The Many Faces of Rubidium von Screwtop

One of the newest strips in the weekly Beano, Rubi's Screwtop Science, started life in CBBC's 2016 series Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed; Rubidium "Rubi" von Screwtop (daughter of Professor von Screwtop, a re-imagining of a mad scientist who originated in Lord Snooty and His Pals all the way back in 1939) was one of several new friends for Dennis created for the TV series who was subsequently transplanted into the weekly comic. She started out as a supporting character in Dennis' own strip, but also made some appearances alongside Dennis' other two best friends from the series, Jemima "JJ" Jones and Pie-Face (a new take on Dennis' friend from the nineties and noughties) in a strip known simply as Rubi, JJ and Pie-Face, then in 2017 she got a strip of her own.

JJ and Pie-Face also had their own stories for a while, but Rubi's has proved by far the most popular, and the other two only seem to appear as supporting characters these days. (Pie-Face's pet potato Paul also briefly had a strip of his own, which is the only strip ever to be headlined by an inanimate object; certainly in D. C. Thomson's history, and quite possibly in any comic, anywhere, ever.) Rubi's Screwtop Science began as a half-page Funsize Funny in early 2017, and was notable as the first strip in the comic's history headlined by a disabled character.

"Happy to Sign This!"

The author was delighted not only to see a copy of this edition again, but also to learn that the entire series is now on YouTube.

Which may be the closest this saga ever gets to a nice, neat ending.

By Gordon's Beard

Recently, I have written a few things about editing on the BBC's 2006-09 version of Robin Hood. These posts feel a bit like they've come from a fansite in a parallel universe where the show survived the departure of nearly all of its original leads, ran for a few more series and left a bigger cultural footprint than it actually did, so I've been quite pleased with the audience they've found.

One of the most famous stories about the series, though, concerns the August 2006 theft of some master tapes. Although the majority of the material was apparently recovered later on, there is some reshot material in the broadcast episodes. But nowhere tells us exactly what.

Here is Little John, as played by Gordon Kennedy, when he makes his first appearance in the final moments of the first episode, "Will You Tolerate This?" (original TX 07/10/06):

Here he is in his first scene of the second episode, "Sheriff Got Your Tongue?" (TX 14/10/06), sporting a beard which looks much the same for most of the episode:

(Episodes 1 & 2 were filmed in the same block, and on the DVD commentary for episode 2 showrunner Dominic Minghella identifies the scene where Marian tries to rescue Robin from the dungeons, half an hour into episode 2, as the very first to be filmed.)

But when we get to the castle scenes later on, Kennedy is visibly close to clean-shaven in the scene where the other outlaws arrive to help Much with his rescue attempt (apart from this shot, he's only seen in wide shots for the rest of this scene, and the lighting also suddenly changes at the point the others arrive, as if it's been put together from two different takes):

Toddler of Terror: The Director's Cut

A few months ago, I published a history of Ivy the Terrible which went down spectacularly well. (Thanks again if you reposted it or said something nice about it.) This is a deleted scene which I realised very quickly should probably be spun out into its own piece.

This is, once again, the first ever Ivy strip, as published in the edition of the Beano dated 04/05/85:

In (approximately) May 1988, Ivy made her debut in the Beano Comic Library range, with an issue rather unusually titled simply Ivy the Terrible:

The reason for this name is because this issue is essentially a revised and heavily expanded version of that very first strip... and, since I've separated it out into its own post, I may as well give you the entire issue.

33 on E4

As one door closes, another must open. In the great shake-up of late 2024, E4 became the only place to see new-to-linear-TV Simpsons in the UK, following their releases on Disney+ a few months beforehand. Season 36 became the first season to premiere on the channel in this way at the start of this year, but E4 are still playing catch-up with Seasons 33 through 35, which were first seen over here on Sky shortly after their US broadcasts.

One week after their debut of S36 concluded, the first of these seasons entered the fray. Season 33 aired on FOX in the US from 26 September 2021 to 22 May 2022; was first seen in the UK on Sky with "A Made Maggie" as a Christmas special on 24 December 2021, then weekly from 21 January to 5 June 2022; and now it has completed its cycle with its first run on free-to-air TV, which occurred in double-bills from 1 March to 3 May of this year (with one or two little wrinkles we'll come to soon). After E4's premieres of Seasons 32 and 36 were largely untampered with, how did Season 33 match up?

Only YOU Can Save Cliff Hanger!

Last year, I published one of my favourite things I've ever written -- a history of Cliff Hanger, the part-gamebook part-comic strip that ran in Fleetway Publications' Buster from 1983-87, and was then reprinted from 1992 until near the comic's end in 1999. Here's a thing that's been bothering me about the strip for a while. Or possibly two things, one of which isn't bothering me any more.

One of the many interesting quirks of Cliff is that almost every single strip is numbered in a unique way: which number strip it is appears on Cliff's jacket. (Or occasionally somewhere else if artist J. Edward Oliver can't put it there for some reason.)

The number in the final regular strip in 1987 was 197. (Thanks to Great News for All Readers for the scan of the original strip, rather than the colourised reprint.)

The rules surrounding this numbering system seem pretty clear: Only the 'regular' strips in the weekly comic count. Cliff's jacket appears unnumbered in Christmas annuals or Summer Specials, or other nonstandard strips such as the Cliff Hanger Adventure Book, a cut-out-and-keep Choose Your Own Adventure story which appeared over five issues of Buster.

That Cannonball Kid Sure Scores a Mean Owen Goal

This is an example of Cannonball Kid (drawn by Rob Lee), a story which appeared in D. C. Thomson's Nutty from around the midpoint of its 1980-85 run to its end. If you remember my earlier look at Nutty, you may notice this is the exact same strip I used as an example of the Kid there... but there's a reason for this. (Apart from the fact it's the only Cannonball Kid strip I have.)

In April 1998, the Cannonball Kid was dusted down, colourised and renamed for use in the Dandy, and as it happens, this strip became the very first edition of Owen Goal:

Shot for Shot

On 29 December 2007, the second series of the BBC's latest adaptation of Robin Hood came to an end with a highly contentious finale where Guy of Gisborne stabbed Marian to death in a jealous rage.

It's perhaps not the most interesting thing about these episodes, but although produced as two 45-minute episodes, titled A Good Day to Die and We Are Robin Hood, they ended up originally airing as one single 90-minute compilation, on account of the BBC deciding to strip their Oliver Twist adaptation across five nights from Tuesday to Saturday, meaning no episode of Hood aired on the 22nd December.

All subsequent repeats, home media releases and streaming versions presented the story as the original separate episodes, so the compilation version -- only seen on the first UK broadcast, literally in the same week BBC iPlayer was launched and off-air copies of things started becoming a bit harder to come by -- became rather obscure.¹ However, I've been furnished with a copy of that original airing by Jim Lynn of VHiStory, and I am tremendously grateful to him for making this post possible. Because it isn't quite the case that they just stuck the two episodes together.

Armstrong and Miller Time

When looking in charity shops I am principally hoping to find another batch of old comics, or maybe some Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I buy other stuff as well. Such as this:

Children's Hour was the second Radio 4 series from Armstrong and Miller, in which they starred as newspaper critics Craig Children and Martin Bain-Jones (characters the duo later reprised for their Channel 4 sketch show), and as the little episode guide on the booklet tells us, it was broadcast in December 1998 (in the 11pm slot, which will become quite important later on).

Hmm. There's got to be a story there.

Life and Limb

Shadow on the Sand is the fifth Lone Wolf gamebook, and also the conclusion to the Kai sub-series (also known at that point in publication as the 'basic rules' series, as it marks the point where Lone Wolf goes from initiate to Kai Master, and so unlocks a whole new set of Kai Disciplines to choose from). It is structured uniquely: instead of a single 350-section adventure, the game is split into two parts, running to 200 sections each, with section 200 of Part One directing you to turn to the start of Part Two and 201.

To cut a long (well, four-gamebook) story short, at the beginning of the book, Lone Wolf has travelled to the desert empire of Vassagonia to sign a peace treaty with the ruler, Zakhan Moudalla, but upon arrival your entourage discovers that the Zakhan has died, and his successor Kimah is in cahoots with the Darklords, plotting to kill you and destroy the legendary Book of the Magnakai.

In the very first section of SotS, you are accosted by the new Zakhan's elite bodyguards from the moment your ship docks in the harbour at Barrakeesh, and the choices you are given effectively boil down to: surrender and be taken prisoner, or run.

In the Hood

In October 2007, the BBC's Robin Hood TV series returned for its second series. Amongst a number of changes, the entire title sequence was completely overhauled, with a lot more colour, variety, shots of forest scenery interspersed with clips from episodes and whatnot. A visual summary of all the different credit screens would look more or less exactly like this:

Episodes 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11 have an extra screen between the director and series producer credit for Jane Hudson, with the other production credits shortened slightly to fit it in:

This same title sequence was the basis for the one used in the third and final series. However, whilst Series 2 kept the same cast throughout, the regulars were constantly changing throughout for S3, and the opening was updated to account for this -- in fact, with two exceptions, the sequence was never the same two weeks running.

The Strangest Yeti

In the issue of the Beano dated 2nd January 1993, a terrible monster made its debut. No, it wasn't Hot Foot, it was the first edition of a story that was, for its first week only, called The Yeti, drawn by stalwart artist Robert Nixon:

This was the only edition to run to two pages (at least in the weekly comic), and with the status quo set up, future editions carried the full title of The Yeti with Betty:

Ice Jam

In the third Lone Wolf gamebook, The Caverns of Kalte, Lone Wolf is sent to the frozen wastes of Kalte to apprehend Vonotar the Traitor, the renegade wizard who has fled there and now rules over the Ice Barbarians.

At a certain point in the ice fortress, you will come across a stone door which, upon examination, will turn out to be a prison cell for Loi-Kymar, an elder of the Magicians' Guild. If you walk past this door without checking it, you will find yourself at section 276... from which point on the game is unwinnable.

Unplugged

No, it wasn't some weird dream you had, D. C. Thomson really did produce an entire comic based around the ultra-homely Bash Street Kid. Plug ran for just 75 issues between September 1977 and February 1979, after which it merged into the Beezer; its demise is often blamed on its considerable production values such as use of gravure painting, higher-quality paper, and more pages in technicolour than other D. C. titles, which made it almost twice as expensive as other comics of the time. (The paper used did seem to make this an easier scanning job, at least.)

Plug has been considered an attempt by D. C. to ape the style of the wackier comics published by rivals Fleetway (something they would later manage more successfully with Nutty), which probably accounts for the use of an existing D. C. character; many Fleetway titles had a character serve as the comic's 'host' (the most salient comparison being the eponymous Buster). I suppose the exact sequence of events that led Plug to be the lead is lost to time, but it's easy to imagine D. C. wanted the role to go to a pre-existing character, it made sense to promote a member of an ensemble, and Plug was the most distinctive character in that window.

The issue of Plug I have scanned in today to add to my growing collection of mayflies is one of the final ones -- the Christmas 1978 issue, number #67. So let's go!

Break Up, Break Free, Break Through, Break Down

‘Let the trial commence!’ commands a mighty voice, filling the hall with clamouring echoes. As one, the robed spectators rise from their seats as a shaft of light pours down upon the pinnacle, illuminating the outline of a man, white-haired and gaunt, seated on a massive throne of solid, gleaming gold. Suspended in the air above his head are two crystals: one as clear as a polished diamond; the other as black as the grave. A crackling arc of energy travels between the two and its flickering blue light sheds a ghostly shadow on the face of the seated lord.

‘Intruder,’ he says, his voice soft yet chilling, ‘you have come to Kazan-Oud with murder in your heart. Have not the cowards of Elzian promised to reward you for my destruction?’

A drone of dissent surges from the crowded tiers, drowning any answer that you offer in your defence. The lord rises slowly from the throne and turns to his baying minions, his hands outstretched as if to receive the adulation. As their ghastly drone grows louder, your eye is drawn to the clear crystal that hovers above the throne. A golden light now glows at its core. In a flash of understanding you recognize the object of your quest: here is the Lorestone of Herdos.

‘Your verdict, my children?’ cries the wild-eyed man, his voice now harsh and angry.

‘Guilty, Lord Zahda,’ the crowd howls in reply.

‘The sentence?’ retorts their master.

‘The maze!’ they scream. ‘The maze!’

So it comes to be in the seventh Lone Wolf book, Castle Death, that Lone Wolf is thrown into the Maze of Zahda. The maze cannot be escaped by playing it 'fairly', and attempting to do so will only result in Lone Wolf's death... something the player should probably guess from the kangaroo court that gets them thrown in there in the first place.

A Re-Run of the Comedy Series Set in Space

On the 7th January 1994, the very first episode of Red Dwarf, "The End", was repeated on BBC Two -- the first time it had been broadcast since its premiere on the 15th February 1988, something that has been attributed to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's embarrassment over the quality of that series compared to what was to follow.

This run would not only continue past the first series, it would comprise 35 of the then 36 episodes, "Psirens" being skipped on account of Craig Charles' legal situation at the time; barring a couple of breaks for sports coverage, the show was transmitted weekly until the 28th October 1994 and the repeat of "Out of Time". So epic in scope was this all-encompassing repeat season that it was nicknamed "From Here to Entirety", although the name does not appear to ever have been used in listings magazines or onscreen.

Oh, you want to be more specific than 'a couple of breaks'? There was a break on 25/02 between "Kryten" and "Better than Life" for Winter Olympics coverage; a two-week break between the broadcast of "Marooned" on 15/04 and "Polymorph" on 06/05 for snooker; the jumbled repeat order of Series IV was interrupted on 17/06 and 24/06 for World Cup fixtures, including the opening match of the whole tournament, and again on 15/07 for the first night of the BBC Proms; and the similarly-scrambled run of Series V also took a break on 19/08 for Proms coverage, and on 09/09 for athletics coverage.

Papers, Please

After the defeat of Vashna, the Sommerswerd had been bestowed upon the allies of Durenor as a mark of trust and allegiance that exists between the two kingdoms. In return, King Alin of Durenor gave Sommerlund a magnificent golden ring bearing the royal arms of Durenor. This ring is known as the Seal of Hammerdal. At that time, King Alin vowed that if ever the shadow of the west should rise again to threaten Sommerlund, Durenor would come to the aid of her ally.

The King has given you the Seal of Hammerdal. Your quest is to travel to Durenor to fetch the Sommerswerd back. But meanwhile the enemy have broken through the outer defences to the capital and are preparing to besiege the city wall. As Captain D’Val of the King’s Guard leads you to the Royal Armoury to equip you for your mission, the King’s words keep coming back to you:

‘Forty days, Lone Wolf. We have strength to stand against them for only forty days.’

So goes the introduction to the second Lone Wolf gamebook, Fire on the Water. If you lose the Seal of Hammerdal on your journey to Durenor -- which can be accomplished either by having it stolen from you and subsequently failing to recover it, or selling it to a pawnbroker -- then the entire book becomes unwinnable. But perhaps not in the way you might expect.

Oh Calamity

In 1986, the editor of the Beano, Euan Kerr, had an idea for a new story for his comic. It was going to star a character who was, quite simply, the unluckiest boy in the world. This character was dubbed Calamity James, an artist was assigned to him, and a test page was produced. That page was reproduced in the 2008 book The Official History of the Beano:

Which may not have been what you were expecting.

Originally assigned artist Henry Davies' take on the character had a serious problem: its tone was felt to be depressing, rather than darkly funny. Several other artists in the D. C. Thomson office had a go after it was decided Davies' work would not be used,¹ but they were also unable to thread the needle, and the character was on the verge of being scrapped when someone decided to let Tom Paterson have a go.

Paterson was a very new hire to D. C. who had only started that year -- in fact James would be his first strip for one of their titles -- but he had been drawing comics for rival publisher Fleetway since 1973, aged just nineteen (perhaps most famously drawing the ultimate enfant terrible Sweeny Toddler for most of his tenure); he was one of several Fleetway artists to start working for D. C. in the late eighties as Fleetway's comics empire started to dissipate. Paterson managed to find the tone they had been going for, and James duly debuted in the 01/11/86 edition of the Beano:

Nip and Tuck

At the end of January 1987, Fleetway Publications launched what would be their last new humour anthology comic for children. Apart from being published on a fortnightly schedule, Nipper had a gimmick of being printed in A5 size, compared to the A4 used by every other comic at that point (allowing it to claim it contained 48 pages), and it continued this theme by having most of its strips feature protagonists younger than those of other titles.

Just six issues in, the 'pint-sized' ploy was dropped, and henceforth the comic would be printed in A4 size. Another ten editions on, and it would all be over -- the sixteenth and final issue was on newsstands before August was out, after which it met the fate of so many of its stablemates when it merged into Buster. Although it managed to squeeze in a Summer Special and even a Christmas annual, Nipper is the ultimate mayfly of its genre's short-lived titles. This is perhaps best summed up by the fact that there were nineteen issues of Buster branded as Buster and Nipper -- three more than Nipper itself.

Beyond being stuck with the dubious honours of being the final and shortest-lived Fleetway title of its kind, did Nipper retain any kind of legacy? It's time to scan in an entire issue and find out.

36 on E4

06/03/26 update: If you viewed this post before that date, please check the end of the cuts section for a fairly important addendum!

Cast your mind back, if you will, to December 2024. In one fateful press release, Channel 4 destroyed all we had known about British broadcasts of The Simpsons for the last few decades. Sky would no longer be the home for new episodes of Our Favourite Family, for Season 36 would be the first season to debut exclusively on Disney+; henceforth, Sky would only carry repeats. Channel 4 would move their broadcasts of the show to E4 in January, becoming the only place to see new episodes on linear television.

And so it came to be that on 28 December 2025, Season 36 became the first season to make its linear debut in the UK on E4, a little over nine months after it started being added to Disney+ on a weekly basis (and almost exactly fifteen months since the season started on FOX). Obviously a longer delay between the episodes' premieres in the US and Sky than we were accustomed to, but -- disregarding BBC Two's special dispensation to air "The Trouble With Trillions" on Cuba Night back in 1999 -- a record for an episode making its debut on free-to-air television in the UK.

As with their premiere of Season 32 at the start of last year, E4 ran the episodes in double-bills on Sunday nights at 8pm. In week 4, "Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes" and "Convenience Airways" were pushed to 5:30pm by live sports coverage.

As we might have expected, this run did not include the four Disney+-exclusive episodes (the double-length "O C'mon All Ye Faithful", "The Past and the Furious" and "Yellow Planet") -- it seems pretty certain that these, and future Mouse-trapped instalments, will indeed remain exclusive to the platform. With S36 running to just 18 episodes that premiered 'normally', this meant the entire run was over and done with in just nine weeks.

But enough of all this. What about the cuts?