As was just "discussed", the last ever Dandy took the form of a countdown of the 75 greatest characters to ever grace its pages, and naturally they couldn't include everyone's favourites. In the Dandy's penultimate panel, Nigel Parkinson stuck in a few characters that were missing from the main list:
Whilst I'm not usually "into" Nigel Parkinson's stuff (the drawings are fine, it's the colours I disagree with - something just seems off about them), I do really, really like this picture. Even though it's sodding Hey Jude AGAIN.
This is that list, with occasional "thoughts" in brackets:
75-Meddlesome Matty
74-Plum MacDuff
73-Tom Tum
72-Auntie Clockwise (hated this back in the day, but the version here's amusing)
71-Mitch and his Mummy
70-The Burrd
69-Sir Coward de Custard
68-Jolly Roger
67-Hamish the Haggis Basher
66-Kid Cops
65-Monkey Bizness!
64-Marvo the Wonder Chicken
63-Bamboo Town (should've been a LOT higher on the list, I love these!)
62-Bing-Bang Benny (ditto)
61-The Tricks of Screwy Driver
60-Old Ma Murphy
59-Izzy Skint
58-Tin Lizzie
57-Bertie Buncle and his Chemical Uncle
56-Freddy the Fearless Fly
55-Joe White and the Seven Dwarves
54-Owen Goal
53-Wacko!
52-Pre-Skool Prime Minister (the one Jamie Smart comic I enjoy)
51-Claude Hopper
50-Jak and Todd (?!?!??!?!?!? - No no no NO)
49-Peter Piper
48-Hungry Horace
47-Simples! 101 Ways to Use a Meercat (Yes, the final years of the Dandy had a strip based on an insurance comparison website)
46-Bad Grandad (absolutely horrible, the worst thing to ever appear in the Dandy - and not just because the title character's design is a straight copy of Carl Fredrickson from Up)
45-Peter's Pocket Grandpa
44-Strange Hill
43-Old King Cole
42-The Umbrella Men
41-Pepperoni Pig
40-Julius Sneezer
39-Pinky's Crackpot Circus
38-The Bogies (no, no, no)
37-Agent Dog 2 Zero (another triple NO)
36-Robin Hood's Schooldays
35-Ollie Fliptrick
34-Big Head and Thick Head
33-Dinah Mo (a nice surprise - thought she'd've been LONG forgotten about)
32-Jibber and Steve
31-Harry and his Hippo
30-Our Teacher's a Walrus
29-The Talking Ball
28-My Dad's a Doofus! (a quadruple NO)
27-Ali Ha-Ha and the 40 Thieves
26-Dirty Dick
25-Nuke Noodle (seriously?)
24-Postman Prat
23-Greedy Pigg
22-My Freaky Family
21-Hyde and Shriek
20-Desperate Dawg
19-Jack Silver
18-Blinky (a Beezer refugee who found his home in the Dandy for many hilarious years)
17-Keyhole Kate
16-Black Bob
15-Mr. Meecher, the Uncool Teacher (I like this, but the 15th best ever?)
14-My Own Genie (Oh, don't be silly)
13-The Arena of Awesome (?!?£"$?"?!?£*$&")
12-Harry Hill's Real-Life Adventures in TV Land
11-Cuddles & Dimples
10-Bully Beef & Chips
09-Smasher
08-Beryl the Peril (a Topper character who didn't join the Dandy until the 1990s, but alright then)
07-Bananaman (similarly, he was born in Nutty but will always belong to the Dandy)
06-The Jocks and the Geordies
05-Korky the Cat
04-Brassneck
03-Winker Watson
02-Corporal Clott
01-Desperate Dan (of course)
So, who do I believe deserved a place on this list? Find out in the next post...
Am I to gather from this list that you didn't like the post-2010 version of the Dandy very much? Nearly all of the strips you have melodramatically denounced as the worst thing EVAR!!!11! are native to this era. For the most part, I think you're utterly wrong, particularly about Nuke Noodle and the Bogies - two of its most consistently funny strips, and by that I mean funny strips, not the anaemic samey "funny" material like Mitch and his Mummy which the Dandy spent most of its life peddling, where you knew they were supposed to be funny in theory but you just couldn't see how.
ReplyDeleteI tried to like it, I really did - bought it for three months every week and then on and off until the end, but eventually it just became painful, like a bad Cartoon Network pilot.
DeleteOf the 2010-era strips, I enjoyed Pre-Skool Prime Minister, Mr Meecher, My Freaky Family, Pepperoni Pig, Kid Cops, Postman Prat, the occasional Desperate Dan, and that weird thing with Noel Edmonds. And that astronaut-themed one, can't remember the name but it didn't make the list somehow.
Look, if the post-2010 version of the Dandy had been any good, it wouldn't have shed half its readers and been hastened to an early death. I've no doubt the remaining readers thought it was great, and that's fine, but far greater numbers of people thought it was dreadful, hence it stinking DC Thomson's offices out in terms of sales.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take much effort to spot the logic flaw in your argument here - you're assuming that producing a quality product will necessarily lead to commercial success, and conversely that inferior products will fail to sell.
ReplyDeleteI can refute that without even mentioning the Dandy once.
Actually, it doesn't take much to spot the complete lack of logic in your argument. We all know that quality products don't always sell, and that sh*t products sometimes do. However, in The Dandy's case, (which is unique) a comic that lasted 75 years suddenly lost half of its already dwindling readership within a few months of its 2010 relaunch. That proves that these readers didn't like it. The fact that the comic was also actually sh*t provides a good indication as to WHY they didn't like it, despite all the gymnastic contortions of 'logic' that anyone can apply.
DeleteTHB, if 'The Arena of Awesome was that dreadful mess where the two editors fight it out, then I understand your reaction. It's the finest example of everything that was wrong about The Dandy that it's possible to offer. It was utter sh*te. Case proved.
ReplyDeleteYep, that's the one. I can handle messy comics as long as the chuckles are there, but not from something that relies on over-used American "memes" such as throwing ninjas, robots, pirates and monkeys all over the place.
DeleteYou'd have thought master Smart would have grown out of this juvenile fixation with ninjas, robots, pirates and monkeys by now. Still, I guess his tenure at DC Thomson proves it pays to pander.
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