Paul Magrs Remembers the Excitement of the original weetabix game

In 1975 I had ghostly memories of spiders and potato-heads and a Doctor with white hair bouffanted up just like my Big Nanna’s. But Tom was my Doctor and he always would be. In 1975 there was a craze that put his Doctor and all his most amazing enemies actually into your hands.

I’ve never actually liked Weetabix, and neither did anyone in our family in 1975 when the craze hit Aycliffe. I felt a bit left out when the other kids in Woodham Infants started showing off their brightly-coloured cardboard figures.

They had them in thick wads, with elastic bands round. I cracked in the end and traded issues of my treasured American comics (Charlton and Gold Key! Remember them?) just in order to get my hands on the stand-up figures with the fold-out tabs. I never got the most popular ones.

Not the silvery Cybermen in flares or the resplendent Daleks, or even Sarah Jane in her fetching bandana. I was getting the more obscure things I didn’t know about: Sea Devils and Draconians and White Robots. With them I had to use my imagination.

There were only a few bits of Doctor Who in those days that you could keep. TV Comic strips, jigsaws, the strangely-illustrated annuals... When I came to revisit the Fourth Doctor and invent my own stories for him, all of these supposedly ephemeral things were germane.

The Doctor of the Nest Cottage adventures belongs as much to comics and annuals, LP albums and Weetabix packets as he does to the television. When you had the stand-up figures and the play-sets at your fingertips, you were free to make up your own stories, so that’s what I did, and still do to this day...

Watch the Weetabix Doctor Who Game TV Commerical

Download Vworpabix for free

In the download (a zip file) you will find full instructions on to play the game, the game boards, cut-out character cards, The Time Lords' secret message decoder and counter spinner are all available for you to print for FREE.

The Vworpabix cards have crop marks (small lines) that indicate where to cut for each stand-up card.

You will need a unzip programme to open them. Microsoft windows has a built in reader or you could download the 7-zip reader for free here http://www.7-zip.org/

If you have a problem with reading the zip file on your Microsoft Windows computer try reading this page http://www.solveyourtech.com/windows-7-default-zip-program/ or for a MAC http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to

The Original Weetabix Promotion

The VWORPABIX game is cheekily based on the Weetabix game available between March and May 1977.

There were four full-sized boards to collect from the backs of large and familysized packs of this delicious wholegrain breakfast treat, as well as cut-down versions of Race Through Space and Travel Through Time from standard-sized packs.

Each pack also contained one of six sets of stand-up game cards, consisting of three character cards and one coded Secret Message of the Time Lords, beautifully painted by Gordon Archer.

Our Vworpabix game is an affectionate tribute to these games. We recommend Weetabix (and, indeed, the equally scrummy Weetabix Minis and Oatibix) simply served with a dash of milk. Maybe a spot of jam. It’s really jolly tasty. Please don’t sue us, Weetabix.