The Weetabix Gang: "If You Know What's Good For You!"
They look like proper little skinheads, don't they? An incredibly quirky marketing idea.
No breakfasts fit for sparrows here. "You make it neat wheat, mate!" "If you know what's good for you, you do!" Dunk, Crunch, Brains, Brian and Bixie, AKA the Weetabix bovver boys and girl, were determined to stamp out "titchy breakfasts". The brainchild of one Trevor Beattie, they starred in a long series of TV ads from March 1982 until November 1989.
The Weetabix had a couple of catchphrases which were pretty popular: Brian's was "OK!", spoken in a parrot-like voice. Dunk contributed "If you know what's good for you!" This sounded menacing, but actually referred to the health-giving properties of the product. Crunch is featured testing his strength at the fairground on this 1983 "Weeta-Card"..
Seaside fun - "OK"?!
Crazy golf frolics...
Part of a set of free-inside Neet Weet Beet band stickers...
A set of sew-on patches featuring some of our cereal characters. Weetabix Crew merchandise is becoming increasingly collectable.
Did YOU join the Weetabix Club? The Club was established in 1983, but disbanded before the end of the decade. The daughter of a friend of mine wrote requesting to join the Club in late 1988, but was told it was no more. The news was sweetened by the assurance that she could still see the characters on Weetabix boxes, on TV, and in advertisements in comics, etc.
Even Weetabix were breakdancing in 1984.
Here's parrot-voiced hero Brian, starring on his own badge. "Boxer Weetabix"? Nice one!
Free Top Trax cassettes and pop postcards featuring the likes of Tears for Tears and Bananarama in 1985.
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The Weetabix Pop Quiz - 1987 - "JUST DO IT!" Other Weeta merchandise included cuddly toys and a computer game, which featured the crew taking on the "Titchies".
Collect the cut-outs and make your own Crew. Note the sell-by date - August '87 and the Sainsbury's price ticket - 56p!
Here's the whole gang...
Print this out, then cut out and assemble for rare Weetabix nostalgia straight from 1987!
The very first TV ad featuring the Weetabix characters. Created in 1982, they appeared on-screen until 1989.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I have the weetabix computer (Commodore 64) game!! Its a Space Invader variation, the Invaders being the Titchies. Amit
The '80s Actual blog is designed to be an antidote to all those television shows and on-line articles of recent years which examine pop culture - and frequently get it hopelessly wrong!
If you sat watching the BBC's "I Love The 1970s" and exclaimed over items being shown "I could swear that was 1968!" or "Wasn't that 1981?" chances are you were right.
If you look at certain '70s fan sites and think a lot of the material written about is actually from the '80s, you are almost certainly correct.
If on-line encyclopedia articles which state that pop culture of 1983 is really 1977, or similar, have you wishing for reality, then '80s Actual is for you.
There is a huge drive in the media and on-line to negate the 1980s, to attribute that decade's innovations and fond memories to other decades, and basically to present it as a completely vapid ten years, not worthy of examination.
I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just comforting to have a decade people can scapegoat and declare "HORRIBLE"?
This blog is based on actual memories, media footage (thank you, YouTube!) and snippets of newspaper and magazine articles from the 1980s. If you read it here, I think you can rest assured it's accurate, though I can take no responsibility for the newspaper reports from the decade!
The '80s Actual blog examines the decade's news stories - from the emergence of Lady Diana Spencer into the public eye in 1980, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Was it simply "The Greed Decade" as many like to claim? I think not - the '80s saw the emergence of yuppies, but also Red Wedge, the Greenham Common Peace Women, and increasing concern for the environment. It may be convenient to scapegoat the '80s as the cause of all known ills, but the reality of the decade was far different - absolute bedlam, as Right fought Left, idealism fought corporate ambition. The election ofRonald Reagan as American President in 1980, and his second victory in 1984, had a far more decisive effect on the international political landscape than the three successive general election victories of UK Prime MinisterMargaretThatcher in 1979, 1983 and 1987.
Musically, the 1980s saw the beginnings of House Music, the exciting and still evolving world of synths taking centre stage, the evolvement of Rap music into the fully-fledged Hip Hop scene, Band Aid and Live Aid, great Indie, startling Acid House, and Raves...
And there was so much more! The decade truly had something for everyone - and provided a welcome escape for a while from the long-running and boring saga of flared trousers as fashion, begun back in the 1960s!
It was a brilliant decade for telly - bringing us such wonders as A Very Peculiar Practice, Inspector Morse, Spitting Image, Hot Metal, The BeiderbeckeTrilogy and Edge of Darkness.
The 1980s also saw the creation ofThe Simpsons, Twin Peaks, and other wonderful (often groundbreaking) American TV showslike Kate & Allie, Cheers, The Golden Girls, Married... With Children, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and Hill Street Blues.
The '80s gave us some wonderful UK TV ads. Remember Ted Moult advertising double glazing at the Tan Hall Inn with "Fit The Best - Everest"? Remember the Weetabix gang? Remember theScotch video tape skeleton ("Re-record, not fade away"?). Remember the romantic yuppie couple in the coffee ads? And what about "Lotta Bottle"?
In fact, the '80s totally transformed our telly viewing, bringing us Channel 4 and Sky TV.
There are also also '80s Actual sister blogs taking us back to the '70s and '60s - The Real 1970s and Spacehopper.
The view of the 1980s presented here is from an English perspective - much of the original '80s material used is from England, but I hope this blog will prove useful and enjoyable to people in the other nations of the UK and much further afield.
4 comments:
I have the weetabix computer (Commodore 64) game!! Its a Space Invader variation, the Invaders being the Titchies.
Amit
Love these with hot milk and sugar - always wolf 'em down so fast I get chronic indigestion. Scrumptious!
Graham 2012
oh, how i still love to eat these guys...Mmmmm
I still have one of the buttons (Brains!) I got in IIRC a Judge Dread comic paper.
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