Free In The Beano!

Over the past few years The Beano has given away quite a large number of free gifts. Here's a few of them; they're not necessarily all my favourites but some are just memorable toys. As always, click on the images and then again to view in full size.

First up is the first free gift given away since I started reading - the foam flyer. I'm fairly certain it came with the issue pictured next to it (above) but if not it is an early gift for me and one that, as you may be able to tell from its faded colour, has been well-used. Basically, you soak the end in water and throw it at your victim, who will end up soaking wet! Great fun!

Next up is the water jet doorbell. Simply fill it with water and attach to your front door, and any visitors who are foolish enough to press the button will be greeted with a cold jet of water. I did attach this one to my front door, but I don't know how many people I caught (probably none).

The same gift was given away at a later date, only without 'Aquasplash' written on it. As I already had one I had no need to open the second one, and it sadly remains in its packet to this day.

Next up is a gift I used quite a lot, but sadly the stand was lost when I moved to New Zealand. It is the Dennis and Gnasher punch-bag, which I used to have sitting next to the side of my bed back when the stand was still with it, and enjoyed flicking it (it was too small to punch). On one side it featured Dennis and on the other Gnasher.

Next up is a toy I didn't like that came with an issue I liked even less. The Beano revamped in 2008 into the glossy format we know today and all my friends who read the Beano hated this move, one of them even phoned them up asking why they did it. The worst part of the revamp was that the price was lifted from 99p to £1.25! Wowee! This dreadful revamp issue also came with a free gift, a sparkly cloud blaster. I always thought the fact it was sparkly made it look girly which explains why I didn't keep it, but here's the picture of the issue and the cover picture of the gift.

Moving onto a better gift and here is the classic prank of a cockroach in stick of gum, which has been given away a number of times in The Beano. I remember that this came out with the National Menace Day issue, in which you were encouraged to go round pranking people to raise money for charity. My friend and I both took part, and this was one of the pranks we used (others included Whoopee cushions, fake snot and water bombs). A very fun day indeed.

And finally here's another of my all time favourites - the CATapult, a gun that fired small plastic cats across the room. This is actually my second CATapult because I lost all the cats from my first one and enjoyed the toy so much I just had to get a replacement (and if memory serves correctly, on the same evening)! I thought that this toy came with a target of Fatty, but there wasn't one in the issue so I must be mistaken (it must have been a burger gun or something).

And that's all for this post. There's plenty more gifts in the big box but I have to wrap up the post at some point - maybe I can show them again in a later post.