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TV Week’s other animated covers….

Updated: Bart Simpson, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck & The Flintstones have also graced magazine's cover.

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After TV Week’s fab cover for Bluey, there have been some questions about whether it is indeed their first animated cover or not.

Reader Andrew (who runs the excellent TelevisionAU history blog), noted that TV Week has featured other animated characters prior to Bluey.

In November 1995 Bart Simpson was featured in a Top Ten “Shows You Love to Watch” alongside Seinfeld and Home & Away.

But there are also much earlier covers.

In 1959 Mickey Mouse was side by side with Annette Funicello from the famed Mickey Mouse Club.

..and in TV Week’s own 40th anniversary edition, they refer to a 1958 edition with Donald Duck as the “first overseas cover star.”

There was also a Flintstones cover in 1961 (thanks to reader Stevie G for pic).

Whilst not cartoon, other puppet animations on the cover include Gerry Gee, Alf, Miss Piggy and ET.

But Bluey is still much welcomed and deserved..

Updated.

16 Responses

  1. Good to see Bluey given the attention it deserves. 25 years since the last time an animated series (Bart Simpson) was on the cover. A long time in tthe waiting. With a handful of cartoons prior to that, by the looks of it.

  2. Huh? Bart is the main cover with Seinfeld, Angel and Shane just as much as Bluey is there above Jackson, Jasmine and Scott Cam. Bluey is not the first animated cover.

  4. I thought it wasn’t the first animated character as I so recall there was a Bart Simpson cover in the mid 90’s too…

    When it was mentioned as “first animated cover”, I thought it was going to be the actual physical front cover with some special edition hologram with Bluey on it. That *would* be a first.

  5. I suppose in some ways they can call Bluey their first animated cover. The Donald cover was issued when TV Week was only a Victorian publication. The Mickey cover may qualify as a animated cover, but Bart is only a partial and is sharing.
    I think the 1963 TV Times Flintstones is a fully animated cover like Bluey.
    ebay.com.au/itm/Flintstones-on-cover-1963-Australian-TV-Times/174498789082?hash=item28a0f036da:g:mrcAAOSw9Z1aeAB4&frcectupt=true

  7. Thanks for this. I read that yesterday and thought “I can’t believe they never did a Simpsons cover.” I guess the Trump era has shown everyone, even well-meaning magazine editors, that you can just make stuff up and nobody cares. But good on Bluey!

    1. Not sure why Trump, let alone politics needs to be brought into this 😛 but this was addressed in a reply tweet already twitter.com/amber_giles/status/1323132842314903554

      It was probably just an oversight at the end of the day anyway.

  8. I’m surprised anyone still buys it. With the way TV channels are these days half of the listings will be wrong and it is so expensive. When I still watched TV a couple of years ago I just checked the EPG or an online guide daily to see what was on that night.

  10. Yes, that was te Simpsons cover I remembered. I’ve also definitely seen the Flintstones one, with them coloured in odd colours because the only info. we had on them was black and white.

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