The above swap card, a giveaway with the Quax "chewie choc" manufactured by the British firm A. J. Caley Ltd of Norwich, was recently sold at ebay for the winning bid of 14.5 pounds. This card in particular is of special interest as it features Donna Duck, the earlier incarnation of Donald's girlfriend Daisy. The below card from the same series had earlier been sold for the winning bid 19 pounds:
In my collection, I have the below card with Elmer the Elephant (one of my favorite Disney characters) which I had bought several years ago:
The Dirty Bill referred to in the dialogue of this card is the villain of the Disney cartoon short Robber Kitten (1935) who was featured in person in card no. 3:
Below are four other cards from the same series, including no. 1 (above left):
Online sellers offering these cards have variously dated them as supposedly being from 1932 (!) to 1937 or 1938. The earlier claim is especially preposterious as many of the characters featured in the cards had not been created by then! The truth is that these cards were issued in July 1939. The merchandise which they would be given away with were first alluded to in the editorial page of no. 180 (dated July 15th, 1939) of Mickey Mouse Weekly:
More info was given in the 'Wise Quacks' page of the next issue:
Note that the "free gift" referred here is not the cards, but the chocolate bar itself which would be given to any reader of MMW when they present the below coupon provided in the same page:
The cards were first mentioned -and highlighted- in no. 182:
From then onwards, similar promotions of Quax highlighting the enclosed swap cards were published in several subsequent issues of MMW. The illustrations in the above and below (from no. 183) promos are by the British staff of MMW:
On the other hand, the illustration on the below promo from the next issue is modeled from an illustration from the publicity materials of the Disney cartoon short Donald's Cousin Gus (1939), with the sandwiches in the original material redrawn as Quax bars:
The Donald and Donna illustation in the below promo from no. 185 is again by British artists:
The below promo from the next issue features a clever re-contextualization by juxtapositioning of illustrations derived once again from cartoon publicity materials:
On the other hand, the illustration of the promo from no. 187 appears to me to be of British origin even though the art is more slick than those in earlier ones:
The Donald Duck figure on the left in the below promo from the next issue is very familiar, but I can not immediately recall its original source (if anyone can, please let us know):
Similarly, I am not sure about the illustration from no. 189, but it is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from the Disney cartoon short Modern Inventions (1937):
The last illustrated promo for Quax in MMW appeared in no. 190:
The next issue had a promo highlighting the album to be given to those who collect all the 48 cards in the set:
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3 comments:
Wow, fantastic stuff! And how cool to see merchandise featuring Donna Duck. I must say I have a particular fondness for Mickey Mouse Weekly, stay tuned to my blog this summer for a lengthy series!
Hi Matt,
Apart from Kaya, there are not that many people writing (blogging) about Mickey Mouse Weekly. So I'm curious to see where your 'lengthy series' will take us.
Which blog of yours must we follow? And when will you start?
Kind regards from The Netherlands,
John Wigmans
I'm so pleased by your Mickey Mouse Weekly posts, Matt.
Many years ago, working for Gemstone, I had access to a relatively complete collection of Mickey Mouse Weekly.
I managed to reprint a few items from them in the old Good Housekeeping book, but I never had a chance to index or copy everything from the issues (...nor could I have; the facilities didn't always allow it, and my scanner was too slow).
I'm SO glad you've got a lot of them. The material is so funny and fascinating.
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