Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Dennis The Menace Television Special by Hank Ketcham The Tragic True Story Of Dennis The Menace. Dennis the Menace has been terrorizing his neighborhood for decades. The character's creator, Hank Ketcham, wanted to make his readers feel better about their kids' behavior. His own child, the titular Dennis, was apparently a very rowdy boy. But as much as the cartoon Dennis endured and flourished, including a series of popular movies and TV shows, the real Dennis didn't have as much luck. Ketcham got the idea in 1951 after his wife Alice told him that their son, Dennis, then four years old, had destroyed his room by throwing around fecal matter from his pants. Alice was so mad she called her son a menace, wrote Mental Floss. Ketcham found the thought of his son as being harmful good material, and within five months, the strip was being published by 16 newspapers. Like other popular comic strips at the time, Dennis the Menace would go on to be translated into several languages. Ketcham's comic character really was a menace. In the early strips, Dennis would incite fights, tie swan heads together, and laugh at others' misfortunes. Ketcham toned down this trait in later comics, but the idea that Dennis was a bit of a brat stuck around. In an interesting twist of fate, another Dennis the Menace comic strip came out around the same time as Ketcham's, said the BBC, featuring a child who was just a little older and less of a troublemaker. The British comic was later retitled Dennis the Menace and Gnasher to differentiate it. A less than ideal childhood. Despite the growing fame and success, Hank Ketcham and Dennis weren't exactly joyous. Ketcham's wife, Alice, died in 1959 when Dennis was 12 years old, reported The New York Times . Ketcham moved Dennis and his second wife to Geneva, Switzerland. Dennis had difficulty adjusting to his Swiss school, so Ketcham decided to send his son back to the United States to go to boarding school in Connecticut. Ketcham himself stayed in Geneva for 20 more years before moving to California in 1977. It wasn't the first boarding school Dennis attended. Before his mother died from an overdose, he was attending one in California. According to People Magazine , Dennis felt lonely and wanted his father to spend more time with him than the fictional Dennis. Dennis (the son) had a learning disability, but his father didn't quite understand it. When Alice died, Ketcham couldn't bring himself to tell his son until she was buried. Dennis claimed he would've dealt with her death better had he attended her funeral. After Ketcham and his second wife divorced, Ketcham met the woman who would become his third wife. Dennis attended their wedding, but he wouldn't play a big role in their lives. Dennis told People that he never met his two half-siblings. Ketcham, on the other hand, only knew Dennis been living somewhere on the East Coast. Fathers and sons. Instead, Dennis fought in Vietnam, joining the Marines. During his year-long tour, he said his only letters came from his grandmother and aunt; none from his father. (Hank disputed that.) Dennis was discharged in 1970 and spent three months being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. He then drifted in and out of different jobs. His first marriage ended in a bitter divorce, culminating in him being barred from seeing his daughter. In 1991, he married his second wife, Janet, and lived in Ohio. He barely spoke to his father except when, according to Ketcham, he needed money. Ketcham maintained he never used actual incidents from his family's life in his comic strips. For Dennis, it didn't matter. He never wanted to lend his name to his father's unruly, bratty character. He even said he wishes his father used something else as an inspiration for his work, other than his childhood. It didn't mean, however, that Dennis hated the character or his father. When Ketcham published his memoirs, he sent a copy to Dennis, inscribed "To the REAL Dennis with love. Dad." Dennis displayed the book in his house. Hank Ketcham died in 2001 at 81. He and Dennis had not been close at the time. Dennis the Menace may have made a lot of people laugh with his antics. It may have helped parents cope with their misbehaving children. But, as is often the case with fictional versions of real children, the reality is never as happy. When ‘Dennis the Menace’ Created a Racial Controversy. The portrayal of a black character in a 'Dennis the Menace' cartoon prompted outbursts of violence and apologies from newspapers that published it. David Mikkelson Published 31 March 2015. Claim. Rating. Origin. comic book (the unfortunately short-lived Western series Lobo). Another area of social change in the entertainment arena was newspaper cartoons and comic strips, a field that included a number of long-running entries set in seemingly all-white suburbias. Charles Schulz’s Peanuts , which debuted in 1950, had by the 1960s become by far the most popular and influential comic strip of its day, and it was in 1968 that Schulz added a black character named Franklin to the ranks of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and the rest of the Peanuts gang. Franklin was a little-used, undistinguished character, though, prompting Chris Rock to joke (incorrectly) in 1992 that Franklin hadn’t spoken a single line in 25 years. Nonetheless, Schulz later discussed in an interview the resistance he’d encountered in using the Franklin character even in a limited role: Later on, when Franklin was introduced into the strip, the little black kid — I could have put him in long before that, but for other reasons, I didn’t. I didn’t want to intrude upon the work of others, so I held off on that. But I finally put Franklin in, and there was one strip where Charlie Brown and Franklin had been playing on the beach, and Franklin said, “Well, it’s been nice being with you, come on over to my house some time.” Again, they didn’t like that. Another editor protested once when Franklin was sitting in the same row of school desks with Peppermint Patty, and said, “We have enough trouble here in the South without you showing the kids together in school.” But I never paid any attention to those things, and I remember telling Larry [Rutman, president of the United Features syndicate] at the time about Franklin — he wanted me to change it, and we talked about it for a long while on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, “Well, Larry, let’s put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?” So that’s the way that ended. But I’ve never done much with Franklin, because I don’t do race things. I’m not an expert on race, I don’t know what it’s like to grow up as a little black boy, and I don’t think you should draw things unless you really understand them, unless you’re just out to stir things up or to try to teach people different things. I’m not in this business to instruct; I’m just in it to be funny. Now and then I may instruct a few things, but I’m not out to grind a lot of axes. Let somebody else do it who’s an expert on that, not me. It was in this climate that Hank Ketcham, the cartoonist whose Dennis the Menace feature had debuted in newspapers in 1951 (and proved popular enough to spawn a live-action television series in 1959), decided to introduce a black character of his own in 1970, the fleetingly seen Jackson: Unlike Franklin, whose race was largely irrelevant to the way Schulz used him in the Peanuts strip, Jackson debuted in a panel that Ketcham specifically intended as a commentary on racial attitudes. Ketcham often employed the technique of spoofing the foibles of adults by having Dennis embarrassingly repeat things he’d heard his parents say but hadn’t understood (such as referring to his mother’s friend, whom she’d said had a dye job, as “the lady with dead hair”), and in other circumstances one might find Ketcham put that technique to endearingly good use here to illustrate the concept that prejudice is something that is learned rather than innate: Dennis is innocently color blind and fails to recognize why he’s supposed to have “race trouble” with Jackson, because he knows the word “race” only as something that denotes a speed contest and doesn’t understand its use as an anthropological term. Hence his perception of “race trouble” is nothing more than being perturbed that Jackson runs faster than he does. Unfortunately, Ketcham completely undercut his message by visually portraying Jackson as if the character had just stepped out of a 19th century minstrel show or the pages of Little Black Sambo . As Ketcham wrote in his autobiography The Merchant of Dennis , the panel (predictably to everyone but the cartoonist, it seemed) offended many readers and prompted outbursts of violence in several American cities: A harmless little play on words and, I felt, a soft, amusing beginning. Not so. The rumble started in Detroit, then moved south to St. Louis where rocks and bottles were thrown through the windows of the Post-Dispatch . Newspaper boys were being chased and hassled in Little Rock, and in Miami some Herald editors were being threatened. The cancer quickly spread to other large cities. I first heard the news in a midnight transatlantic telephone call to my Geneva apartment from the syndicate in New York. I was shocked, then frustrated, then mad as hell, and, at the request of my beleaguered colleagues fielding complaints from all over the country, dictated a statement to the client newspapers involved. Some newspapers, such as the Cleveland Press , ran editorial apologies to their subscribers in place of the Dennis the Menace cartoon the following day: Ketcham tried one more time with Jackson, in a setting that again touched on the theme of Dennis’ untainted innocence blinding him to what he’s supposed to see as obviously “different” about his new friend. Sadly, Ketcham depicted the Jackson character in a manner many readers found scarcely less offensive than his previous effort: Lamentably, Ketcham never seemed to quite grasp what all the fuss was about, remaining unaware even in his final days why a “miniature Stepin Fetchit” character had been so poorly received in the racially conscious early 1970s: I made a point not to apologize but to express my utter dismay at the absurd reaction to my innocent cartoon and my amazement at the number of “art directors” out there. Any regular Dennis-watcher would surely know that I am never vindictive or show any intent to malign or denigrate. But I guess those violent protestants were not avid followers of newspaper comics. And they weren’t complaining about the “gag”; it was my depiction of Dennis’s new pal that got their tails in a knot. I gave them a miniature Stepin Fetchit when they wanted a half-pint Harry Belafonte. It seems that Sammy Davis, Jr., was the only one who could safely poke fun at the minorities. To this day, Jackson remains in the ink bottle. A pity. Dennis, Anyone? The Ketcham Menace at 35. Hank Ketcham. A real man’s name, all angles and edges. The name of a boxing manager, maybe; a hockey coach; a bounty hunter. Henry Ketcham. A lot softer, somehow. Easily the name of the patient, devoted father of, say, a 5-year-old boy. Probably even goes to church. Hank Ketcham, progenitor of “Dennis the Menace,” used to be Henry. Still is, sometimes. In between, he’s Hank, the millionaire golfer/cartoonist of Pebble Beach by way of the Golf Course of Geneva. A Henry waffles over a 20-foot putt. A Hank knocks it straight in, no fooling around, and heads for the next tee with a glint in his eye. Dennis, forever 5, turned 35 this month, celebrating his magical 6th/5th birthday just before his daddy celebrated his. Hank/Henry turned 66, gracefully and unequivocally. Dennis remains ingenuous, mischievous, curious, fun-loving, disarmingly frank. Hank is businesslike, iconoclastic, sharp, driven, complex, a little waspish; a consummate professional; a perfectionist. (Henry? Oh, Henry is still ingenuous, mischievous, curious, fun-loving, disarmingly frank. . . .) “Every birthday Dennis is 6,” says Ketcham over chili and Bloody Marys at the Pebble Beach Lodge. “He blows out the candles on his cake, and then he’s 5 again. Try that in your living room.” Why a perpetual 5? “Well, it’s a preschool age, so he goes to kindergarten only a couple of hours a day. “He’s in a vacuum of protection. He’s too old to put back in the playpen and too young for school. Too little to hit and too small to put in jail. A High Energy Level. “If he grew any older he’d know better, but now he has an honesty, a curiosity, a high energy level and all the time in the world. “So it works out better that way--for him and for me.” No Siblings for Dennis. Why has the Mitchell family never expanded, a la “Blondie”? Wouldn’t it provide more ideas, make Ketcham’s life a little easier? “Well, Dennis has always wanted a brother--an older brother--but a sibling would dilute the whole family situation. He has girlfriends, of course, in the neighborhood, but a baby sister would destroy the balance I want to illustrate. “As for making it easier, that’s one thing--unfortunately--I’ve never tried to do. Actually, I make it harder and harder. I take more time with the drawing; I do more research; I demand more accuracy. . . .” Nevertheless, there is always the perspective of a little boy. Is there a part of Ketcham--tycoon, world traveler, manor lord, boss--that is forever 5? “I guess so, I guess there are little kids in all of us. And there’s a lot of macho man in little boys. . . .” Earlier in the day, in Monterey’s Jaycee-funded, Ketcham-designed Dennis the Menace Park, a little boy, not quite 5, eyes a rain puddle the size of the Caspian Sea, at least to him. He hesitates for fully two seconds, gauging the puddle’s depth, then sets out on the dead run, a blur of shorts and sneakers in a rooster tail of muddy water. Never breaking stride, the kid scoots across a suspension bridge, slides down a concealed chute and scrambles up a non-negotiable concrete cliff. At the summit, he thrusts out his jaw and hitches his soggy pants with his wrists, Cagney-style. Then he grins down at his father, a grin no less dazzling for want of four or five teeth. “Never could control that kid,” says Bill Pennycook of little Will. “Quite a boy, isn’t he?” Pennycook, along with some 700 other parents and kids, has lined up at the park in the lee of El Estero Lake for the pleasure of having Ketcham himself sign ecological posters featuring Dennis, two for $5, proceeds to benefit the park. The turnout is extraordinary in light (or gloom) of a vicious gale battering the peninsula--and spawning the mud puddles that kids seem to prefer to the sterility of heated pools. Inside the clubhouse, Hank Ketcham, in the guise of Henry, sits at the end of a long table, in red plaid shirt, black pants, black boots, a windbreaker slung over a chair back; a slim, fit body thumbs its nose at an incongruous thatch of white hair. Like a Macy’s Santa, Ketcham greets his young constituency with infinite patience, shaking hands, chatting, taking pains to spell each name right. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., an hour beyond cut-off time, he smiles and signs, signs and smiles, and when it’s all over, he signs some more posters for the stragglers, all the way across the park and out into his ’59 Mercedes, shipped back from Europe and stunningly maintained. “He’s got to be the best-natured man in the world,” marvels one harried mother as Ketcham stoops to conquer one last time, with an autograph and a pat on a tousled head. “Good-natured?” says Ketcham back at the lodge. “Well, on demand. I was just doing my shtick out there. They advertised pretty heavily, and if I’m gonna be there, I’d better do it graciously. No reason to be owly about it. “At home, maybe it’s a little different. Sure, I shout at the kids a little bit (Dania, 13, and Scott, 9, by his second marriage to Austrian-born Rolande). In truth, I’m more like Mr. Wilson (the menace’s crotchety next-door neighbor) than Mr. Mitchell. . . .” Indeed. Ketcham (Hank, not Henry) is nobody’s stereotype. Some men march to a different drummer. Ketcham plays his own drum: --Having enrolled at the University of Washington as an art major and drama minor, Ketcham quit after a year: “I quit because I didn’t want to watch the parade, I wanted to march in it.” --Having established a lucrative sideline in comic books and paperback collections, Ketcham abruptly took both off the market: “I stopped doing comic books when the price went up to 60 cents and they sold them mostly in airports and liquor stores. My little readers can’t afford the price, and they don’t frequent those places. “I backed out of the paperback business because the paper was so cheesy and the reproduction was so bad and the space allotted was ill-suited. I spend too much time on my graphics not to have them. treated a little better.” --Having been approached by his fellow cartoonists to join them in the crusade against hunger in Africa, Ketcham declined: “I think we have other priorities right here. I prefer to do everything I can for my neighbors, then the Peninsula, then the state, then the country. My priorities are not overseas, for God’s sake. We’ve got plenty of problems right here. . . .” --Having been described, with little hyperbole, as “an artist of exceptional integrity,” Ketcham’s opinion of the bulk of today’s cartoonists is less than complimentary: “I like Lynn Johnson (“For Better or for Worse”), Jim Unger (“Herman"--"the funniest damn thing”) and Johnny Hart (“B.C.”), but basically, you don’t have any artists any more. “One reason is that you don’t have the space. The publishers are missing the boat. Newspapers are run now by lawyers and accountants who look only at the bottom line. It’s stupid, because features are something TV cannot offer, something that attracts newspaper readers. But they flay them, bury them, shrink them. “As a result, no self-respecting artist is going to get involved, because he doesn’t have the elbow room. Eventually, it’ll all be a bunch of talking heads.” In Dennis the Menace Park--one of nine in the West; plans furnished gratis--the towheads are still buzzing over the appearance of “Dennis’ daddy.” So are the daddies. “I’m an avid reader,” confesses Pennycook. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t read the comics to the kids, and Dennis is a favorite.” “But this Ketcham,” he continues, “now there’s a real artist. What’s he worth, millions? TV shows, lunch boxes . . . lives in Pebble Beach, does he? Well, he’s worth every penny. Glad he lives out this way.” The Ketcham spread, off 17-Mile Drive ($5 a head just to cruise through) is spectacular in a comfortable way. Ketcham gestures at the landscaping, not without pride: “It all came out of an inkwell.” Outside his studio, which is separate from the house, is a Ketcham-designed tree house, all forms and spaces and swings and roller slides and passageways. It was not always thus. Seattle-born, Ketcham was 12 when he started to draw more or less seriously. “I guess I wanted to communicate somehow. Oh, the drawings were terrible! Even when I started with Dennis they were just wretched! How any editor ever bought that junk. . . .” Ketcham matriculated at Washington, “but after seeing ‘The Three Little Pigs’ I had one thing on my mind: Walt Disney. I hitchhiked to Hollywood and got a job in an ad agency, changing the water. for the artists for $12 a week. Which was OK because I lived at a rooming house on Magnolia--three meals a day and a bike to ride to work--for $6 a week. “Then I got a job with Walt Lantz at Universal, assisting the animators, for $18. It was the tail end of the glory days of Hollywood and I loved it! I was on the back of the lot, where W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, Crosby, Edgar Bergen were all parading around. My neck was on a swivel! Marvelous!” Finally, Mecca. “Disney needed some artists to finish up ‘Pinocchio'--$25. I helped out with Jiminy Cricket. That was Ward Kimball’s unit--a real character. The Firehouse Five came out of that unit. . . .” Then, Pearl Harbor, a four-year-hitch in the Navy and marriage to “a little Boston-Irish girl” who became the model for Alice Mitchell and the mother of Dennis. War’s end. Free-lancing in New York, commuting from Westport, Conn. “Ice storms and droughts. I remembered a place called California, moved to Carmel and (in 1951) galvanized all my ideas into one character: Dennis (who’d been born in Westport).” Gangbusters. A 1959 trip to Russia led to 18 years overseas. “I went to do a cartoon-exchange program. . . . The State Department was very excited over getting Dennis distributed in the U.S.S.R. because, just as a matter of course, the Mitchells have an automobile, a dishwasher, a TV set, running water, a yard. We’re talking subtle propaganda here. It might have gone, too, but then Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2. . . . “When I came out of Russia and got to Paris I thought I was in Disneyland--the lights; the people dressed so well. I ran into Art Buchwald, who said, ‘You’re one of the few people who can live anywhere in the world. Why don’t you stay here?’ I thought, ‘Why not? I’ll spend a few months.’ ” Eighteen years, a second wife and two more children later, Ketcham left his penthouse overlooking Lake Geneva and headed home in 1977. Why? (1) “I wanted the children to have the benefit of a U.S. education,” (2) “ ‘Dennis’ was getting a little out of touch with America: hula hoops, skateboards, computers,” and (3) the dollar-franc exchange rate went to hell: “Peanut butter was $6 a jar. That was my breaking point.” On El Estero Lake, a duck sleeps with one eye open, a waterfowl barks at a frog, making a noise like prying open a sticky old door, and a little girl hunkers down by a free-form castle, munching a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Lunch over, the girl wanders over to a drinking fountain set in the yawning jaws of a yellow plaster lion. An even smaller boy has leaned over the fountain, with three others in line. “I wouldn’t drink that ,” says the girl, edging for position, “it’s all saliva .” Ketcham does not write all of Dennis’ lines, not by a long shot. In the main, he buys the gags from a giggle of a dozen writers, and makes no apology. “You can’t live without gag writers,” he says. “That would be ridiculous. Where would Johnny Carson be? Gleason? Hope? It’s a great institution. Of course, it’s my interpretation of the gags.” With jokes supplied, and with two artists having taken over the Sunday strip, why does Ketcham, at 66, still put in an eight-hour day, five days a week? In his studio, Ketcham, ever the perfectionist (“It’s my undoing”) demonstrates the painstaking care lavished on each panel. ” This is not a Punch-and-Judy layout, east and west,” he says, still tinkering with a perspective problem. “It goes into depth. “This is from inside a store, and the reader has to know instantly where he is. I ask the reader’s attention for only 10 seconds, so I’d better not have the panel confusing. I’d better have the line just right, the graphics just right. “I don’t want to make a sign saying ‘Lawyer’s Office’ or ‘Hardware Store'--or ‘Two-Way Wrist Radio.’ People have to know . “Then there’s the research. If I have to do a microscope, or a bicycle, I want it drawn so well that people won’t look at it, won’t notice it. Once they start noticing a funny bike you’ve drawn, you’ve lost ‘em; they’re not concentrating on the idea. “I look at that panel as if it’s the ground glass of a view camera, something I can move around as a director to see how to stage it. “Once I’ve staged it, I have to figure out the lighting, the decor, the costuming. “Now I’ve got to place the actors in certain areas, their heads tilted, their body actions just so. “And then I have to be the actor. “The whole thing is like show business, only you don’t hear the applause for three months.” Ketcham breaks off to conduct a short tour of the studio, and pauses at the photo of a little boy with the devil in his eye. The original Dennis? “No. He’s 40 now, and doing his own thing. We don’t communicate that much, I’m sorry to say.” Who’s the 5-year old in the picture, then? “That’s me ! Now does he look like a menace? Nice chunky little fella. Future Republican fella. Future grumpy old man.” Future Hank. Back at the lodge, Henry Ketcham looks out over his favorite golf course, where he’d be if it weren’t for that darn reporter. (Even when he lived in Geneva, Ketcham would return every year to play in the Clambake of old friend Bing.) “It gets frustrating sometimes,” he confesses, “year after year, doing the same thing. I want to bust out in other directions, do some writing, some painting. I want to play more golf. But I’m in jail. Babies need shoes.” Of a sudden, his mood brightens, a Henry sort of metamorphosis. “I didn’t go into this with any sort of premeditation, except to please myself. To enjoy it to the hilt. I did, and I still do. I love it.” Out on the fairway, a golfer has caught a 2-iron right on the sweet spot. Ketcham sighs. “There is one thing I’d like to do before I’m finished. What I want to do is maintain a high handicap and shoot my age.” 'Dennis' creator Hank Ketcham / Cartoonist who turned to fine art. 1 of 3 Hank Ketcham's first "Dennis the Menace" cartoon appeared in 16 newspapers on March 12, 1951. Reprinted by special permission from Dennis the Menace, 2001 North America Syndicate, Inc. via Associated Press Show More Show Less. 2 of 3 Hank Ketcham held up two of his favorite "Dennis the Menace" cartoons at his Pebble Beach studio in 1999. Associated Press file photo by Paul Sakuma Show More Show Less. Hank Ketcham, the artist who created the ornery cartoon kid Dennis the Menace, died in his sleep at his home in Pebble Beach yesterday at the age of 81. He is survived by thousands of drawings and paintings and by Dennis, who will continue in other hands. Mr. Ketcham suffered from heart disease and cancer, according to Linda Dozoretz, his public relations aide. "He passed away very peacefully. He had some bad spells and slipped away in his sleep," said Ellen James, a friend and neighbor. Henry King Ketcham was both a cartoon legend with an international following and a serious artist who devoted his last years to watercolors, oils and acrylics. Bil Keane, who draws the "Family Circle" strip, called Mr. Ketcham "The best pen-and-ink line artist in America" and Jim Davis, who created "Garfield, " said Dennis the Menace is "just classic." Despite the serene image of family life portrayed in the cartoon, Mr. Ketcham was estranged from his son Dennis, whose antics were the idea for the feature. Six years ago, Mr. Ketcham turned Dennis over to two associates, Marcus Hamilton, who does the daily panel, and Ron Ferdinand, who produces the Sunday color cartoon. Mr. Ketcham then turned to fine art and produced "an enormous body of work," according to Joanna Chapman of the Chapman Gallery in Carmel, which handled his paintings. The serious work reflected Mr. Ketcham's interests: jazz, music, sports and classical composers. His "Sophisticated Lady" painting made the cover of Art and Antiques magazine last summer. No matter how good his later work was -- and Chapman said it was very good - - Mr. Ketcham will be remembered for the impish Dennis, who was born at the age of 5 1/2 in 1950 and remained the same age for a half-century. Nearly everyone has known a child like Dennis -- an exasperating, lovable little boy who spent his time tormenting Mr. Wilson, the cranky neighbor next door, and driving his own parents to distraction. In his autobiography, "The Merchant of Dennis the Menace," Mr. Ketcham said, "Mischief just seems to follow wherever Dennis appears, but it is the product of good intentions, misdirected helpfulness, good-hearted generosity and perhaps an overactive thyroid. "But what a dull world it would be without any Dennises! Peaceful, maybe, but dull." His work was "a joyful pursuit realizing that you're trying to ease the pain of front-page news or television," he said this spring. He was one of his own fans: "I look back at some of my old stuff," he said, "and I laugh. I just burst out because I forgot about it." Born in Seattle, Henry Ketcham realized at the age of 6 that he wanted to be a cartoonist. When he was 10, he got his first commercial assignment -- to draw 100 cartoon heads for a classmate for 25 cents. He had his first cartoon strip in his high school newspaper, dropped out of the University of Washington and hitchhiked to California to work for the Walter Lantz studio. Later, he worked for the Walt Disney studios. During World War II, he served in the Navy drawing a cartoon promoting war bonds. While stationed in Washington, D.C., he met and married Alice Louise Mahar. Their son, Dennis, was born in 1946. The family moved to California and lived in a $12,000 house in Carmel while Hank Ketcham struggled to make it as a cartoonist. One day in 1950, Dennis was ordered to take a nap. Instead, he wrecked the bedroom. Alice was furious. "Your son is a menace!" she said. It was the classic cartoon moment: A cartoon lightbulb went off above Hank's head and Dennis the Menace was born. Dennis The Menace Television Special by Hank Ketcham. Four Dennis the Menace daily panel reprints. The Picnic (Table of Contents: 2) Dennis the Menace / comic story / 22 pages (report information) from Dennis the Menace Giant (Hallden; Fawcett, 1958 series) #22 - Dennis the Menace Television Special (Spring 1964) Indexer Notes. Based on the Dennis the Menace TV episode "Community Picnic" shown 24 June 1962, written by Keith Fowler and Phil Leslie. In that episode John Wilson replace George Wilson, and Tommy Anderson appeared; and Mr. Brady was Charles Brady. A Mr. Finch also appeared. The Big Clean-Up (Table of Contents: 3) Dennis the Menace / comic story / 21 pages (report information) from Dennis the Menace Giant (Hallden; Fawcett, 1958 series) #22 - Dennis the Menace Television Special (Spring 1964) Indexer Notes. Based on the Dennis the Menace TV Show episode "Paint-up Clean-up week" broadcast 27 November 1960; written by Dick Conway and Roland MacLane. TV episode also contains Tommy Andrews, and Mrs. Johnson. Sgt Mooney's first name is Theodore. Pretty Touchy (Table of Contents: 4) text article / 1 page (report information) from Dennis the Menace Giant (Hallden; Fawcett, 1958 series) #22 - Dennis the Menace Television Special (Spring 1964) Indexer Notes. "Card tricks in this book adopted from publications of the Assn. of American Playing Card Mfrs." Muscling In (Table of Contents: 5) Dennis the Menace / comic story / 26 pages (report information) from Dennis the Menace Giant (Hallden; Fawcett, 1958 series) #22 - Dennis the Menace Television Special (Spring 1964) Indexer Notes. based on the TV episode "Mr. Wilson's Uncle" which aired 18 February 1962, written by Budd Grossman. Characters in the show but not in the comic are Tommy Anderson and Seymour. Uncle Ned's last name on TV is Matthews. Dennis the Menace: The Community Picnic (Table of Contents: 6) text article / 8 pages (report information) from Dennis the Menace Giant (Hallden; Fawcett, 1958 series) #22 - Dennis the Menace Television Special (Spring 1964) Indexer Notes. Using the first few pages of the original Dennis script by Phil Leslie and Keith Flower, to show how television shows are written.