'Dennis the Menace' Creator Dies
[ B.O.Y.S.: Boys On Your Screen (The Message Board) ] Written by Ranger am 01 Jun 2001 22:52:15:
'Dennis the Menace' Creator Dies
By MARGIE MASON, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Hank Ketcham, whose lovable scamp ``Dennis the Menace''
tormented cranky Mr. Wilson and amused readers of comics for five decades, died Friday at
age 81.Ketcham, who died at his home in Pebble Beach, had suffered from heart disease and cancer,
said his publicist, Linda Dozoretz.``He had had some bad spells and he slipped away in his sleep,'' said Ellen James, a neighbor
and family friend.Unlike the late ``Peanuts'' creator Charles Schulz, who insisted on drawing every panel himself and had a clause in his contract
dictating that original drawings would end with his death, Ketcham stopped drawing Sunday panels in the mid-1980s and retired
from weekday sketches in 1994.Ketcham's assistants handled the bulk of the work after that, with Ketcham overseeing the feature daily by fax. The team, Marcus
Hamilton and Ronald Ferdinand, will continue the panels.Ketcham began the strip in 1951, inspired by the antics of his 4-year-old son. In March, Ketcham's panels celebrated 50 years of
publication - running in 1,000 newspapers, 48 countries and 19 languages.The strip inspired several books of cartoons, a television show, a musical, a 1993 movie and a playground in Monterey, where
Ketcham had his studio. The TV show, starring Jay North as Dennis and Joseph Kearns as Mr. Wilson, ran on CBS from 1959 to
1963.``It's a joyful pursuit realizing that you're trying to ease the pain of front-page news or television,'' Ketcham told The Associated
Press in March. ``There's some little bright spot in your day that reminds you that it's fun to smile.''``I look back at some of my old stuff and I laugh. I just burst out because I forgot about it,'' he said.
Despite its longevity, the strip has changed little since the 1950s. Dennis was always a freckle-faced ``five-ana-half'' - an appealing
if aggravating mixture of impishness and innocence.``Mischief just seems to follow wherever Dennis appears, but it is the product of good intentions, misdirected helpfulness,
good-hearted generosity, and, possibly, an overactive thyroid,'' Ketcham wrote in his 1990 autobiography, ``The Merchant of
Dennis The Menace.''``But what a dull world it would be without any Dennises in it! Peaceful, maybe - but dull,'' he said.
Fellow cartoonists praised his skills. Bil Keane, creator of ``Family Circus,'' once called him ``the best pen-and-ink line artist in
America today. He still is a brilliant technician when it comes to drawing the lines that make his cartoons so beautifully artistic.''Henry King Ketcham was born March 14, 1920, in Seattle and grew up there. He recalled he was no more than 6 when he knew he
wanted to be a cartoonist. One day he watched a family friend sketch Barney Google (news - external web site) and other
then-popular cartoon figures.``I couldn't wait to borrow his `magic pencil' and try my own hand at drawing these comic-strip characters,'' said Ketcham, who
promptly copied every comic he could get his hands on. ``It was a major discovery, and I was floating on air with excitement.''In 1938, he dropped out of the University of Washington after his freshman year and went to Southern California to work as an
animator, first for Walter Lantz, creator of ``Woody Woodpecker,'' and then for Walt Disney. Ketcham worked on ``Pinocchio,''
``Bambi,'' ``Fantasia'' and Donald Duck shorts.When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Navy, where he was put to work drawing cartoons for Navy
posters, training material and war bond sales.A free-lance cartoonist after the war, Ketcham was living in Carmel when he got the idea for ``Dennis the Menace'' in October 1950.
His wife, Alice, burst into his home studio, exasperated that their 4-year-old son, Dennis, had dismantled his room instead of taking
a nap.``Your son is a menace!'' she said.
The strip with the towhead tornado, crabby neighbor Mr. Wilson and a rangy, bespectacled dad who looked like Ketcham himself
debuted in 16 newspapers. It was an instant hit, and the following year a collection of Dennis cartoons was a best seller.Despite the strip's real-life inspiration, Ketcham didn't depend on family life for ideas. He used comedy writers and credited the
team approach for the strip's longevity.``Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people,'' Ketcham told The
Associated Press in a 1994 interview. ``Otherwise, you settle for ... mediocrity - or you burn yourself out.''Ketcham and his first wife had been separated when she died in 1959 of a drug overdose. He and son Dennis drifted apart, and they
spoke infrequently in later life.He made his first trip abroad in 1959, to swap Dennis drawings for Soviet-sketched cartoons. The CIA (news - web sites) heard of
the trip and asked him to take snapshots with a spy camera.On a flight from Moscow to Kiev, he saw ``big circles and long rectangular shapes,'' he said. ``I had my sketch book and I would
put them down, and the flight attendant would walk by and I would put a big nose and some eyes and make the whole thing into a
funny face. So I had a whole book full of funny-face cartoons at the end that I didn't know how to read.''Sometime later, Ketcham met a CIA official and mentioned his days behind the Iron Curtain.
Ketcham said, ``I'm sorry I didn't have anything to report. He said, 'Yeah, I know, Hank, we haven't sent any more cartoonists on
any more missions.'''Ketcham stayed in Europe, drawing Dennis from Geneva for 17 years and relishing the peace of being thousands of miles away
from business associates. He returned to the United States only infrequently and used the Sears catalogue to keep abreast of details
of the changing American way of life.A second marriage ended in divorce. He moved back to California in 1977 with his third wife, Rolande and their two children, Scott
and Dania, and drew the comic from his home along scenic 17 Mile Drive.He stopped drawing the Sunday strip in the mid-1980s but carefully supervised the process. He kept up the weekday strip through
1994.For Ketcham, giving up ``Dennis the Menace'' did not mean retirement; he concentrated on his more serious artwork, oil and
watercolor portraits. While glad the strip continued, Ketcham didn't care if it outlived him.``I'm not in it for posterity. People look at it for 30 seconds ... then it gets used to wrap fish,'' he said. ``Now my paintings, that's
something else. My bid to posterity is my paintings.''