I began this series two years ago, believe it or not. It doesn’t feel like it, yet it’s almost to the day, on 23rd February 2024 I posted the movie advertisements from throughout OiNK’s run and I’ve really enjoyed writing each entry since (for food and drink, toys and games, comics and books, and 80s electronics). I’m always surprised how much the adverts in all the comics covered on this blog take me right back, sometimes more so than the comics themselves.

But now it’s time to wrap it all up and we’ll do so with a little random selection of the miscellaneous adverts that didn’t fit into the previous five categories. There are some here everyone who ever picked up any IPC or Fleetway comic in the 80s will instantly recognise, especially these first two mini adverts. These seemed to be squeezed into every letters pages or any tight space that needed filled up.

The practical jokes one even popped up in the Classifieds ads that Marvel UK ran for a while. They were so ubiquitous in the pages of our comics that I quickly began to ignore them, thinking “oh, those things again” and not paying them any heed. Did anyone actually send off for a catalogue of practical jokes? Personally, any gag gifts from joke shops were always a huge letdown and never worked properly. But they must’ve sold enough because they were always there on the high streets and in our comics!

In #9 of OiNK we received a little folded leaflet that tried its very best to hype up stamp collecting. For any younger readers of the blog this was a hobby that even I was confused with as a child. I was watching new and exciting types of high-tech TV shows like Knight Rider and Airwolf, home computing and computer games were exploding in popularity, and I was also reading a truly anarchic comic. Stamp collecting felt like something from the past even then.

That little girl is really trying to sell it though, I’ll give her that! I had one or two friends who shared a stamp collecting hobby with their dads and none of them had half the excitement for it as this girl has clearly been told to have. I did reply to an advert on the back of one of my mum’s magazines that offered a giant starter kit with a load of stamps and things to do, much like the one in this next advert from #50.

I can remember when it arrived my dad and I sat down to see if it was something we’d like to do together. I think it took us less than half an hour to lose interest. Instead, I went back to collecting Panini stickers for my Real Ghostbusters album. Another advertising leaflet came just three issues after the stamps one, in #12, although it’s an even worse fit for the piggy pink publication.

Don’t get me wrong, the Humpty Dumpty Club was well regarded at the time and a quick read of this leaflet shows why. It looks like it would’ve been great for the pre-schoolers it was aimed at, although that’s why it’s a strange fit. It’s not like pre-schoolers were reading OiNK. Of course, there’s every chance it was found inside all of IPC Magazine’s comics and the readers could easily have had younger brothers or sisters. I have to say though, some of those kids in the photos are definitely not pre-schoolers!

Betting isn’t something you’d expect to see advertised in a children’s comic and it’d certainly be outlawed today, and rightly so. Same with those competition telephone lines in the pages of Jurassic Park that could easily have led to extortionate phone bills. It’s unbelievable such things were ever allowed in comics, but back in the 80s both of OiNK’s first two Holiday Specials had tiny little adverts like this below, right next to those practical jokes and stamps.

If memory serves me right my dad would play the football pools every week and I think I used to play the spot-the-ball competition on the piece of paper he filled out. He’d fill out the form and take it down to the local sweet shop where he could place his bets. It really was a different time, wasn’t it? These adverts were easily ignored by us kids of course but it’s still insane to think they were included in the first place.

Do you remember joining a bank when you were young? Where I lived we had one bank in the town, and mum and dad thought it was important that I had an account early in life. Not that I ever used it, I spent my pocket money far too easily and that attitude carried over into my teens and any money earned from part-time jobs, unfortunately. I did get a large blue plastic elephant however, to keep all of my parents’ 1p and 2p coins in. (When using their coins I seemed to be able to save up, no bother. Funny that.)

This Supersavers Club advert from #13 may sound familiar if you’ve seen any ad breaks on TV the past few years, but this particular club was formed long before money saving websites existed and you wouldn’t have been getting a visit from Dame Judi Dench. This was a basic incentive the likes of which many banks used in order to get kids through the doors. Although, living in Northern Ireland I doubt the in-person activities would’ve included us. Back then we were used to being reduced to small print at the bottom of adverts as an exception to any special offers.

Well, that’s yer lot, pig pals. I’ve really enjoyed putting together this series. It’s been an unexpected window back to the 80s and the world in which some of us lived throughout our formative years. For some of us it’s been a trip down memory lane and for others I’m sure it’s been a look into a strange past. It’s really hit home to me just how much the world has changed and just how long ago OiNK actually was!

So yes, it’s been fun but now I have to go and lie down.

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