‘Dennis’ creator Ketcham dies at 81

By Margie Mason

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Hank Ketcham, whose lovable scamp "Dennis the Menace" tormented cranky Mr. Wilson and amused readers of comics for five decades, died Friday. He was 81.

Ketcham, who died at his home in Pebble Beach, had suffered from heart disease and cancer, said his publicist, Linda Dozoretz.

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 said 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!"

Henry 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 and other then-popular cartoon figures.

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.

For Ketcham, giving up "Dennis the Menace" didn’t 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.

On the Net: Ketcham gallery: www.hankketcham.com