On Boxing Day in 1980, an anti-smoking advertisement paid for by the Health Education Council (HEC) and designed by the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi, aired on British televisions for the first time. ![]() The battle between Superman and Nick O’Teen was thus not just about smoking, but about particular ways of seeing and interacting with healthy (and unhealthy) publics. This campaign also took place as ideas about health education, its place within public health policy and practice, and its relationship with the public, were in flux. This ambivalent conceptualisation of the child as a potential victim of malign influences, or potential rational agent and force for good, is typical of the 1980s, a time when the meanings of the child as consumer, agent, and citizen were undergoing increased ideological debate. ![]() But on the other, children were also recognised as agents who might convince adults, as well as their peers not to smoke. On the one hand, they were thought to be vulnerable and easily led towards unhealthy lifestyle choices. Children constituted a particularly problematic public. Nick O’Teen campaign in order to probe the multi-faceted nature of the making of healthy publics in 1980s Britain. ![]() This article examines the design, production, delivery and reception of the Superman vs. Children were also encouraged to join Superman in his fight by signing a pledge not to smoke, in return for which they received a poster and badges featuring the superhero. Advertisements on TV and in comics and magazines featured a battle between Superman and the evil Nick O’Teen as he attempted to recruit children to his army of smokers. In December 1980, the Health Education Council launched a campaign designed to discourage children from taking up smoking.
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