A Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it!

The below images are of Beano and Dandy Easter packaging that appeared in British shops and supermarkets in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Above: Bassett's Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Easter Egg packaging from 1988. The box contained a foil-wrapped milk chocolate egg with fruit gums in the shape of Beano characters inside.

The art features Dennis the Menace, Gnasher and Walter the Softy, who is depicted on one side of the box taking a house brick to the back of the head!

Above: The Beano and The Dandy Booty Bus, produced by Barratt in 1991.  Driven by Desperate Dan, the bus passengers are Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger and Fatty, Plug, Toots and Wilfred from The Bash Street Kids.  Erbert from The Bash Street Kids is seen running alongside the bus, being chased by Gnasher.

Instead of a chocolate egg, the Booty Bus contained an assortment of sugar confectionery consisting of two boxes of candy sticks, two Lick 'n' Dip bags, and 95g of fruit gums in the shape of Beano and Dandy characters and a booty bag containing a 120g mix of Trebor Frosties, Trebor Refreshers, Black Jacks and Fruit Salad sweets.

Seeing as it's April Fool's Day, I've decided to take a brief break from blogging about Bananaman.  Instead, I'm going back to the 1st April 1972 to look at issue 1550 of The Beano.

As you can see, Biffo the Bear is star of the front cover.  Dennis the Menace and Gnasher wouldn't have this honour until issue 1678, dated 14 September 1974.  For the time being, readers would find them on the back cover.

Biffo the Bear's story is a nice, short Easter tale featuring The Bash Street Kids. Biffo and Professor Screwtop (known to current day readers of the Beano as Rubidium "Rubi" von Screwtop's father) decide to surprise Class 2B by gifting them some chocolate Easter eggs, dropping them into the playground from a Biffo-themed flying egg invention.  Even teacher is seen enjoying one!

It's a different story on the centre pages though...

Issue 1550 is notable for the first appearance of Cuthbert Cringeworthy, who from the very beginning establishes himself as a teacher's pet and openly informs Teacher of his classmates wrongdoings, much to their despise.

Interestingly, Teacher turns a deaf ear to Cuthbert openly being rude and disparaging towards his classmates.  Meeting them for the first time, he says "Greetings, ugly pupils!".  Then, Cuthbert refers to Frederick "Fatty" Brown (who is these days nicknamed Freddy) as "that fat boy" and Plug as a "far-from-lovely youth".

Thanks to Cuthbert's eagerness to squeal, Plug and Smiffy end up receiving corporal punishment, with Teacher giving each of them "six of the best" with his cane!

The story concludes with Cuthbert leaving alongside Teacher at the end of the school day in order to avoid being set upon by Class 2B.  The final panel shows Cuthbert turning to give his classmate a smug, taunting look as he walks out of the school gates. They vow to get him, setting the precedent for many years to come.

Like Biffo the Bear, Dennis the Menace's story on the back cover is also Easter-themed, with Gnasher dressing up as a pterodactyl to scare Walter and The Softies into abandoning their Easter Egg Roll.

I love Gnasher's costume and the lively sequential art which shows him springing out of a giant Easter egg to scare Dennis's rivals before walking back on his hind legs and relaxing in a very human-like way.  That said, I'm not so keen on seeing Gnasher eating chocolate, which is toxic to dogs!  An oversight by the writer, no doubt! Tut-Tut!

None of the characters within the comic have Easter-themed stories, these being The Three Bears, Grandpa, Minnie the Minx, Lord Snooty, Billy the Cat and Katie, Pup Parade, Roger the DodgerThe Belles of St. Lemons, The McTickles, The Nibblers and Little Plum.  Still, it's a bargain read for the cover price of 2p!

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I consider Bananaman in Eurovillain Contest to be the first Bananaman graphic novel.

Printed and published in 1990 by DC Thomson as the second issue of the A Dandy Special series, it's a complete story which parodies the Eurovision Song Contest.

Wishing he had satellite TV, Bananaman's secret schoolboy alter-ego Eric Wimp decides to make his own satellite dish from various household items.  Surprisingly, his handiwork pays off and he settles down to watch the Eurovillain Contest, introduced by a presenter who is clearly based on the late Sir Terry Wogan, former presenter of Eurovision for UK audiences.

Regular Bananaman villain King Zorg stars as chief judge, with his Nerk minions making up the rest of the judging panel who are tasked with scoring supervillains from all over Europe on their attempts to best Bananaman.  At this point Eric realises he's not going to be able to relax in front of the telly after all...

Hilarity ensues with good-humoured writing and visual jokes aplenty poking fun at cultural stereotypes.

These stereotypes extend beyond the general public to the supervillains themselves.  From left to right in the image below is Doctor Gloom, King Zorg, Ivan the Terrible representing Russia, Garlicman from France, Greece's Abzorba the Greek, Weatherman, a Nerk, Switzerland's Goudaman and The Norseman (aka Ragnar the Hairy) representing Norway.

Their superpowers are inventive and bonkers in equal measure.  Goudaman gets around in a giant wheel of swiss cheese, the holes in which allow him to pop out to surprise Bananaman with a blast from his alphorn.  Eating a sackful of garlic cloves turns Garlicman's breath into a powerful blowtorch capable of burning through brick walls!  Abzorba the Greek is able to transform his body into the same material as anything he touches.

My favourite supervillain to feature in the story is Spaghettiman, from Italy.  A spoof of Marvel's Spider-Man, he shoots spaghetti ropes from his wrists and uses this pasta producing ability to perform other spider-like tasks too.

​Interestingly, despite being prominent on the comic's front cover, General Blight makes only a minor appearance on page one.  Supposedly partially based on Adolf Hitler, I imagine it was deemed too insensitive to have him feature in the story for obvious reasons​.

West Germany isn't represented in the story at all, and before German reunification on 3rd October 1990, The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.

At one point in the story, Bananaman borrows Smiffy from The Bash Street Kids to deter Weatherman from expanding his focus on the whole of Europe.  A fun cameo from The Beano dunce.

Plenty more plot twists and silly surprises feature throughout the comic's 36 pages but I'll leave these for anyone thinking of finding a copy of the comic to enjoy.  Bananaman fans will certainly find it worth a read!

Next time, readers, I'll be taking a flick through Bananaman's second outing in the A Dandy Special series.  The Secret of Willie Boggins coming soon!