Animals of Farthing Wood comics, 1992

 

Edd the Duck being a cool dood

 

What a cool guy! 

From Edd the Duck special 1990 

Farthing Wood Friends 1993

                                                             

If you were a kid in 1993 there was a strong chance you were watching the CBBC cartoon The Animals of Farthing Wood. Every Wednesday I would rush home to make sure I was ready to watch the latest episode and the next day at school everyone wanted to discuss it. It ran until 1995 and many 90s kids still haven't recovered from the events that unfolded in that cartoon!

As with all things in the 90s there were many spin off products, one being the Farthing Wood Friends magazine. Amazingly there were 130 issues of this altogether so any kid who got every issue needed a big bookshelf. Each issue contained stories, colouring pages, puzzles, how to draw guides and educational content about animals and nature. The first issue tempted many kids with the free folder that held the mag and contained a woodland scene that you could use the free stickers with. What made these stickers extra cool was that they were plastic and removeable so you could create different scenes and stories with them. I remember getting it at the time and loved it! I still have a copy so will get round to scanning it sometime :)

Girl Talk issue 1, Feb 1995

 

Issue 1 of Girl Talk! I remember my Mum getting me this to cheer me up when I had chicken pox. I became a regular reader. Every issue of Girl Talk came with at least one cute animal poster (often with some puntastic text- the poster of a foal in this issue has the words "just foaling around!", a photo comic called Sweet Valley Kids that featured twins named after the Sweet Valley High characters, stories, crafts, quizzes and problems pages.

I will need to get some more scans of this issue as there are some great gems. Who wouldn't want to learn how to play Saturday Night by Whigfield on the recorder? There's also an essential how to from Blue Peter presenter Diane-Louise Jordan where she shows you how to make a photo frame (a bit of cardboard covered entirely in tin foil), and a handy quiz to see if you are a good best friend.

Published by BBC magazines there was a lot of CBBC content including the above where a kid got to go behind the scenes of CBBC and meet Otis the Aardvark.