Minnie’s Christmas Misschief
We recently unveiled our 2023 Christmas Display ‘’Minnie’s Christmas Misschief’’.
This year, we teamed up with Dundee’s renowned comic book, the Beano, to bring our annual display to life!
First appearing in the Beano comic on December 19th 1953, Minnie the Minx quickly became a beloved and iconic character known for her spirit, anarchic adventures, and trademark red-and-black striped jumper. 2023 marks the 85th year of the Beano and the 70th anniversary of the beloved character which made it the perfect theme for a Christmas collaboration.
Unwrapping the concept
Beano annuals between the 1960s and 1990s featured a front cover set up of mischief, revealed when the book was flipped to see the visual punchline.
The Beano came up with the idea to incorporate this concept by utilising the Gillies showroom turn-table, treating viewers to a ‘before and after’ scene, featuring the same character group in some cause-and-effect storytelling.
On one side, Calamity James holds a little girl up on his shoulders as she pops the hat on their ‘snow-min’, the elves mischievously tickle Calamity James with their feathers and Dennis the menace laughs as the polar bear cocks his leg to create some ‘yellow snow’.
As the turntable makes it way round, the other side of the display reveals Minnie the Minx playing her usual pranks as she emerges from inside the snow-min, only to knock everyone over, causing chaos within the scene.
In addition to the Beano characters, we incorporated our traditional animatronics into the display including the polar bears, the penguin band, sleeping Santa and our singing reindeer which are all animated to a festive theme tune.
A jolly day of filming
Alongside the display, our marketing team worked together to capture the Beano magic from creation to installation here at our Broughty Ferry store. Santa, aka ‘Alex Kane’, kindly offered to become our Santa for the day. Alex worked with us for a full day of filming around Dundee and Broughty Ferry and put smiles on a lot of children’s faces in the process. Alex was great fun and embraced the role of Santa, injecting his fun personality into the filming.
We began filming at the DC Thomson headquarters in Dundee city centre where we met with the team in the Beano studios. There, we spoke with the team where we had a behind the scenes look at how the Beano operates which was fascinating.
We headed back to the store in Broughty Ferry and filmed Santa along the way, stopping at the Minne the Minx statue in the city square and the amazing mural at the Kingsway press. When back at the Broughty Ferry store, Santa spread his Beano magic, transforming our staff uniforms into Minnie’s red and black striped jumpers.
We had a fantastic day of filming filled with laughs and heart-warming interactions with the public who were excited to see Santa around the city.
You can watch the video on our YouTube channel by clicking here.
A festive thank you
A lot of preparation and planning went into the making of the display and many people were involved in the creation of the characters, the display set up, filming and post production. We would like to thank everyone who helped us make this the great success that it has been.
We would also like to thank everyone who came to the display opening and to all those who kindly donated to The Archie Foundation. The annual Christmas display is not only a yearly tradition but also a way for us as a company to help give back to society and to help those in need.