Cuddles and Dimples

Cuddles and Dimples are fictional characters in the UK comic The Dandy. The stories are based around two toddler brothers who like to cause double the trouble whether they go, much to the dismay of their parents, who in the earlier strips, were referred to as Daddums and Mumsie. Throughout it was mainly drawn by Barrie Appleby until the relaunch of the comic in 2004, the artist since then being Nigel Parkinson.

Cuddles and Dimples actually started out as two separate strips. While Dimples started out in The Dandy on October 27, 1984, Cuddles had already been in Nutty since March 1981. When Nutty combined with The Dandy in 1985, Cuddles did not follow, instead becoming the cover character of Hoot. Hoot combined with The Dandy the following year, and the first Cuddles and Dimples story showed Cuddles' family moving to Dandytown, where he met Dimples. This took place in issue 2345, dated 1 November 1986. By late 1987, without explanation, one set of parents disappeared (Cuddles'), and the toddlers were said to be twins.

For many years, the characters appeared in the centre pages (with full colour) of the Dandy. When they first appeared, they appeared in pages 16 and 17 on the then 20 page comic with red and black as the only colours.

The characters took over the front page of The Dandy from issue 3008 (from July 1999) until October 2000 when they got 'thrown out' for misbehaving too much (in reality, readers wanted by popular demand Desperate Dan back on the cover). It was both preceded and succeeded on the cover by Desperate Dan.

By the time of the revamp in October 2004, Cuddles and Dimples were assigned to Nigel Parkinson to freshen up their look (prior to the new look, the strip had been reprinted since early 2004). Dimples was made the older brother and now has a patch of Brown Hair. He also became vaguely intelligent. Cuddles look was toned down from the grotesque little monster he was before, and was made the younger, more naive and disgusting brother. Mum and dad were also revamped, dad being a pot-bellied balding idiot and mum an up-to-date babe or a yummy mummy When the Dandy Xtreme was launched, the storylines and the characters' personalities were toned down to an extent, with the strip being a bit more like how it originally was.

When The Dandy Xtreme reverted back to just The Dandy as of issue 3508 in October 2010, Cuddles and Dimples was dropped.