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An e-mail from Rhys:
I was born in 1980, but I remember when I was little having a Weetabix cereal bowl. Would you have any details of this? I'd love to see it again. It featured the 1980's Weetabix character Brian, who always said "OK!". It was around for years, but I searched my mother's kitchen cupboards recently and it's not there. Mum doesn't remember throwing it out, but thinks she must have done so accidentally at some point over the years.
Hello, Rhys! Thanks for getting in touch. I have an '80s Weetabix breakfast set, with cereal bowl, toast plate and mug, featuring the Neet Weet gang, who appeared in Weetabix ads from March 1982 until November 1989. I think it dates from 1984/1985. I've taken some pics. I hope the cereal bowl is like the one you had, and the photograph of it brings back some memories for you!
Click on the Weetabix label at the bottom of this post for our features on Bixie, Dunk, Brains and Brian - OK!
Time warpin' back to 1982... Remember Dunk, Crunch, Bixie, Brian and Brains?
"OK?!" squawks Brian, whilst Dunk glowers...
Brains and Bixie are horrified by a "titchy" breakfast...
One of the fondest remembered TV ad campaigns of the 1980s has to be the Weetabix bovver... er... bix, railing against "tichy" breakfasts and telling us in no uncertain terms that you make it "neet wheat, mate!" Well, if you know what's good for you, you do...
These memorable characters, created by Trevor Beattie (now also known for fcuck, amongst other things), stomped into our lives via the "goggle box" (telly!) in March 1982, and the ads then swept through the rest of the 1980s, finally ceasing in November 1989.
I became aware of them when my little sister became a fan. When she was ill in 1984, I wrote to the "Weetabix gang" at Weetabix HQ for her, and the company sent her a huge package of Weetabix gang posters, felt tips, pictures to colour and other goodies - all free, gratis and for nothing.
It was a much appreciated act of kindness on the part of the company - my sister was quite seriously unwell at the time, and anything that brought a smile to her face was very welcome indeed.
And soon little sis was happily enrolled in the Weetabix Club!
"Computers are OK once you show them who's BOSS!" I never thought that computers would be a part of my life back in the 1980s - although the home computer era was beginning, I preferred Stella Artois and plenty of Nite Spots.
The ad on the right reflects the roller disco fad of the 1980s...
Crocodile Dunkdee... love it! And Choose Your Own Adventure books - popular with many 1980s children. Notice the kids fleeing from the dragon in the illustration are riding BMX bikes!
A word about the WeetOlympix stickers on the right... these have a copyright year of 1984, but this does not refer to the actual year of the stickers themselves - or perhaps they were issued twice! I have reason to remember that they were issued in the run-up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics simply because me and a group of friends, sharing a flat from 1987-1988, collected the stickers and stuck them to the inside of the food cupboard door. We had terrible trouble completing the collection - Bixie was simply not to be found for ages!
Two of the WeetOlympix stickers - Brains Throwing A Mile and Dunk Clearing The Stadium Wall.
More fun and games...
"Are you Robin Hood?" "No, I'm Robbin' your Breakfast!" Brilliant! And energy for BMX riding comes from a WBX start!
Many thanks to Peter Gray's Cartoons And Comics blog for providing the comic ads!
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2010. UPDATED MARCH 2013.
Lovely 1980s Cadbury's Wispa chocolate bar (read our article on Wispa here), with bar code and sticky price label. 18p! And they were even cheaper if you bought them from a supermarket. I haven't seen any sticky little price labels on anything for ages. The bar code, making a determined onslaught in the 1980s, began turning those friendly (sometimes!) folks with the pricing guns, trotting around the supermarket aisles, into an endangered species.
The 1980s saw huge technological changes erupting into our lives - the arrivals of various early and hugely influential computers, the first commercial computer mouse and mobile phones, satellite TV, Microsoft Windows, the compact disc, the C5 car (OK, not a great hit), the UK's first debit card - which sent plastic money into the ascendancy... plus, VCRs (you could always rent if you couldn't buy) and microwave ovens were also hitting the mainstream... yep, the decade positively crackled with electrically charged change.
And this was reflected in the shops, too. Slowly at first, the bar code began to make its presence felt. Sainsbury's, for instance, installed its first bar code scanning tills in 1982, and gradually these were rolled out throughout its stores. A great friend of mine who worked at a large Sainsbury's store out in the sticks in the mid-1980s, told me the story of the scanner tills arrival at her store:
"The beeping noise drove us all bats at first - and you could hear it in your head when you got home at night. I think it was louder with the early tills. Of course, now we take it as a part of everyday life, but I got married in 1986, shortly after the new tills arrived at the store I worked at, and I remember, on my honeymoon, thinking I heard a beep in the hotel bedroom at a very, well... to avoid being crude I'll call it a very 'romantic' moment. I think I was a bit befuddled with wine, because I interrupted proceedings to ask my new hubby: 'Was that a beep?' Good job he worked at Sainsbury's too, because he understood perfectly!"
Johnny Ball's Think Box, 1982. Look - no bar code!
Incidentally, I was a great bookworm, and found the arrival of bar codes on book covers in the early 1980s positively hideous. I loved (and still do love) books, and bar codes printed on the back of each new purchase looked ugly and alien to me. And, at that time, I couldn't understand just what purpose they could have! Of course, the bar codes needed to be in place on merchandise before shops could invest in the equipment to use them.
Weetabix box from 1987, featuring one of the Weetabix skinheads in trendy hip hop garb doing a spot of breaking. The cereal was fifty-six pence way back then (sell-by date Aug '87) and the box has both price label and bar code (the bar code was on the other end). Until supermarkets were equipped with scanner tills, the pricing gun continued to be an essential tool. This particular purchase was made at a small Sainsbury's store and, whilst the supermarket chain installed its first bar code scanners in 1982, it would seem that by 1987 this particular store was still without them.
Returning to the theme of living life in the style of The Glorious 1980s, how about buying some lovely knitwear or sweatshirts from the decade? I mean, just look at the two examples above. What more encouragement do you need?
Perhaps a look at this might just tip you over the edge? Mmmm, lovely, is it not?
And I bet these 1980s beauties leave you speechless.
To help create your ... er... beautiful '80s ambiance, scatter some genuine "of-the-decade" magazines about. Here, Nik Kershaw and Paul Young serve as an authentic reminder of how wonderful hairstyles were in the mid-1980s. All together now: "Near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground..."
Lovely Pye "Red Box" TV here - dating from 1984. It won't do HD, but you can hook it up to your DVD player and watch '80s classic telly anyway.
"You make it Neet Weet, mate!" The Weetabix skinheads debuted in March 1982 and were created by Trevor Beattie, now of fcuck fame. They were called Bixie, Brains, Crunch, Dunk and Brian (he who said "OK!") and trundled on through the rest of the 1980s, last appearing in November 1989. During that time they dropped the skinhead chic (shame!) and went for more of a hip hop look, amongst other things.
Anyway, here's a lovely Weetabix kiddies' lunchbox from the mid-1980s. Great for carrying your '80s-style lunch to work in. What will it be? Packet of hobnobs? Makings of an exotic baked potato to pop in the works microwave? Spot of nouvelle cuisine? Pot Noodle? A Birds Eye Menu Master (Birds Eye's the bird of freedom, spread your wings and fly away...").
If you must have crisps, don't go for "common as muck" cheese and onion or smoky bacon. Make sure they're sour cream and chive or ham and mustard or something. Fancy crisps are a crucial style detail if you really want to create the mid-to-late 1980s time warp effect.
Something for the wall here - download a copy of Tim Berners-Lee's original diagram of the World Wide Web from 1989, its invention year, frame it, and display it prominently. Then, when some snobby, 80s-demeaning "friend" pops in and says: "Really! I don't understand your fixation with the 1980s! Nothing at all happened!" you can gesticulate grandly at your picture and reply: "Pah! I beg to differ, mateyboots!"
And then waggle your Gordon The Gopher puppet at said "friend" until they go home. By bringing Gordon into play, you'll have convinced your "friend" that you're a very sad case indeed, and they probably won't bother you again.
Gilbert the snotty alien was an absolute wow in 1987 on kids' TV show Get Fresh, and graduated to his own series, Gilbert's Fridge, in 1988. This pic would look splendid over the fireplace in your '80s homage home, don't you think?
This is mine - a very '80s representation of a penny farthing bicycle which I bought from quite a posh gift shop when, in August 1986, I moved from a grotty bedsit into a house which I was allowed to rent at a knock-down price. It looked great on the black ash shelving unit. Happy days! Until April 1987 when my absentee landlord decided to sell his house and I moved into another grotty bedsit.
We're not finished living life '80s style... we'll return very soon with lorry loads of pendant lights, buckets of black ash, urban hordes of up-lighters, billions of red beds, dozens of director's chairs, mountains of Miami Vice chic and a monsoon of hair gel and mousse...
Remember that, when it comes to the 1980s, more is more...
'80s Actual reader Billy has been in touch to appeal for a 1980s Weetabix badge like the one pictured above - Bixie - Aerobix. He will be happy to pay for one, so, if you can help, please send your e-mail address to actual80s@btinternet.com and I'll pass it on to Billy.
Read all our Weetabix stuff here - OK?!
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.
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