Dennis The Menace TV Show

I hated that show. It just seemed obnoxious to me. I don't care to revisit it to see if I still hate it.

I liked the cartoon, the 1950s tv show I only found out as an adult a couple of years ago, so no.

[quote]I liked the cartoon

Jay North who played Dennis, was the voice of BamBam in the "Pebbles and BamBam Show," also starring the voice of Sally Struthers.

I enjoy it. It’s funny.

Mr. Wilson was right about Dennis. He's an insufferable brat.

The worst part is that horrible theme song. And the crotchety actor who played Mr. Wilson. A show of this kind wouldn’t fly on todays modern TV.

My problem was Dennis was a pest not a menace.

Now Hazel, for some reason I loved that show.

Joseph Kerns was great as George Wilson. Gale Gordon was terrible as John Wilson.

John Wilson was terrible as Noel Coward's manager and business partner.

Isn’t this like asking, “Who watches Spongebob Squarepants?” It’s for children!

Sal Mineo fucked Jay North - of course it was MANY years later.

I hated all the kids on that show. A big problem. In a show like that, you have to have some likability.

[quote]Sal Mineo fucked Jay North

No way, Sal was too hot, for Jay. Even when Sal was at a low point he was still way too hot for North at his best

Maya

I remember the reruns as a little kid…I liked it.

In retrospect, it's a show about a fussy queen in suburbia being tormented by the brat next door.

R9- Joseph Kerns and Gale Gordon had one thing in common-

They were both QUEENS

I discovered it on Antenna Tv and love it. Kearns as Mr Wilson is brilliant, North is perfect in the role, I cant imagine any other kid playing it. Kudos to his little friend Seymour who joined later and stole the shows he appears in, and of course cunty Margaret.

If you watch or analyse it as anything more than a harmless black and white vintage late1950s/early 60s version of a silly comic strip, of course you are going to be disappointed. It's very easy, and frankly ridiculous, to criticize it based on today's standards. But for what it is/was it's right on point.

Margo thought devil was a cuss word

R14 read the bio of Sal by Michael Michaud - all will be revealed.

I used to watch reruns of it when I was a kid back in the 80s. It was just terrible.

Jay North grew up to be a male prostitute.

Wait - Glad Gordon was both Mr. Wilson AND Mr. Mooney?!?

The cartoon was great! The black and white TV show is shite.

"Dennis The Menace"

Will that be the title of Dennis Quaid's biopic a few decades from now?

I like the one where Dennis thought he was getting a pony for Christmas.

Considering that the character of Margaret is pretty much the personification of the DL, it's no wonder this show is being torn to shreds...

When Mary Wickes is cast as a man-crazy lady, you know that show had to be a mess.

Jay North couldn’t act for shit. His mother owned a child model /talent agency and that’s why he got the show. All child actors in 50s & 60s were related to someone who was connected to the studios in some way.

His uncle wrote tv theme songs & had contacts in the business.

I watched it every Sunday night. I was eight.

The 90s movie's Dennis the Menace grew up to be pretty cute and left acting.

Dennis once made a guest appearance on The Donna Reed Show - it was horrible to see those two worlds collide.....from the Hollywood studios of Columbia Pictures.

r35

that was the one where dennis sang, "she can't find her johnny angel dad"

I watched it as a kid because it was about a kid. But I couldn’t enjoy it because it came on Sunday night and the next day was Monday. Same with Lassie.

I remember a local channel ran it during kids slots when I was little. I liked it but that was mainly because I thought Jay North was cute. I was a child when watching so it was ok. Most guys I was attracted to at the time were towheaded blonds. They still remain my weakness.

Like Jerry Mathers on Leave It To Beaver, Jay North was very good when the show started. Like Mathers, the trouble started when he started to age and lost the "cuteness factor". Luckily LITB was able to switch to hunky Wally and the show remained enjoyable. On DTM, they kept surrounding the aging North with younger kids as friends, which just seemed weird. Also, the death of Joseph Kearns really affected the focus of the show. First they had his "brother" (Gordon) move in with his sister-in-law, then later they dumped poor "Martha Wilson" for Gale Gordon's newly discovered wife. A mess all around.

Dennis was easy and with all those spasms and moving about it could be rather exciting.

Playing choo-choo hookup, I mean.

I am interested in R37's remark. I was just thinking, over the Xmas holidays, about how depressing Sunday night tv seemed to me during grade school, and I realized that it was really the "end of the weekend blues" - the idea of facing Monday in the 2nd grade was just as awful as it was all through my working life. Why is that? How could it have seemed awful in exactly the same way, to have to go to school, as having to go to a job every Monday, year after year? Yet the feeling of isolation, futility, and dread was EXACTLY the same, even to 7-year-old me, and I had completely forgotten all about that until just about a month ago. Anyone else? Doesn't it seem weird?

This link claims that Sal Mineo had enjoyed same sex relations with singer Bobby Sherman, actor Rock Hudson, Jay North (Dennis the Menace), David Cassidy and Jon Provost (“Timmy” of Lassie fame).

^But not Lassie himself? Interesting.

Loved "Dennis The Menace." It was great...one of my earliest memories of television. Same goes for "Leave It To Beaver" and "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

Like Leave It To Beaver and the two youngest Brady Bunch kidd. It had a preteen child actors on the cusp of puberty act younger than their actual ages. It's always a bit creepy.

R28 = Lisa Simpson

Does anyone remember the urban legend Dennis/Jay was actually a girl and that when she started developing they had to bind her breasts down, until finally they were too big to do so and they had to cancel the show?

To be honest, most child stars are not cute to me. They are usually too old and told to act like toddlers and say sassy lines.

The girl who played Margaret went to the same elementary school as me. She was only in school when she wasn't filming. She was very quiet. The only reason I even remember her is that she had just witnessed a horrific accident with a Volvo and she was really upset because Volvos were supposed to be safe and everyone in the car died. Her dad drove a Volvo. It was a weird conversation. I still remember it after all these years.

Jay North is now 70.

[quote] No way, Sal was too hot, for Jay. Even when Sal was at a low point he was still way too hot for North at his best

I could see how Sal could want a crack at Jay's crack.

"According to Michael Gregg Michaud, there was a sexual liaison between Sal Mineo and Jay North in or about 1970, when Mineo was about 31 and North was about 20"

Sal, you perv!

So Dennis got to menace Sal's body.

Maybe Sal got to do to Jay what his character did to Don Johnson.

Jay North was quite bitter about his acting experience as a kid on the show. He didn't age particularly well unfortuately. But Jon Provost from "Lassie" grew up to be pretty gorgeous.

Paul Petersen of "Donna Reed Show" started a support group for former child stars. They have had some documentaries made about them and some of the problems of being famous when you're a kid and then the show is canceled and for the most part you're a has-been and unemployable for the most part. Petersen seems like a really nice guy.

From the above article:

He went through years of personal turmoil and emotional anguish (divorces, drug experimentation, weight gain) before his recovery. Reportedly abused and mishandled during his peak years by on-set relatives/caretakers, Jay has since been instrumental in providing advice and counseling to other professional child/teen stars in the same boat.

If you watch through a modern lens and see Mr. Wilson as an allegory to Red States and Dennis as blue, the show still sucks.

Jay North had a rough time of it during his time on that show

According to the Mineo bio - North came to Sal's house to audition for a role in the jail play "Fortune In Men's Eyes".

His live in sometime lover was leaving the house as North stripped down to his tighty whities - a fetish of Sal's. The couple retired to the bedroom to continue the audition.

Sal tried to bed Jon Provost - but Jon wouldn't have it......

Terrible show. Worst casting in history. Such a disappointment, since the print comic was really funny, maybe my favorite.

Yeah all ex-child stars who did drugs and behaved badly as teens & grownups claim it was their parent or their caretakers fault.

Many teens act out. The difference is most aren't famous and most did not have easy access to drugs back then. Hollywood child stars basically grow up too early and have exposure to a party lifestyle.

There was some movie where the young Jay North showed his naked ass, which would be considered kiddie porn today.

That was " Maya," R 64.

Trivia: Dennis the Menace’s father & Patty Duke’s father both played the same teacher on Dobie Gillis.

[quote] There was some movie where the young Jay North showed his naked ass, which would be considered kiddie porn today.

Same with Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet.

"Maya" I think was the movie to feature North's butt at some point.

If it was an audition for " Fortune..." I guess Sal really did an R55 on Jay. I wonder who else he got to "audition."

Sal really loved those pretty blond twinks. Went from being passed around to doing the passing around.

R70 Who doesn't love pretty blond twinks? It is like fucking an angel.

R71 I prefer dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin personally. Twink Sal is more my type. But to each their own.

R59 Thank you for posting that. Katie Couric missed a LOT of interview opportunities there. She kept cutting his off when he was about to say something good- when he referenced the abuse from his uncle, when he was talking about how he was in a dark place. I wonder if it was on purpose- if he had alleged something more traumatic than being slapped in the face if they were afraid of being sued. He is VERY angry for what he said occurred, I suspect there is much more there. A little kid doesn't draw pictures of killing people around him at 7 or 8 unless there is something really disturbing going on. I wish she had let him speak.

Jay North's co-star in "Maya" was Sajid Khan, who for some inexplicable reason was in every issue of Tiger Beat and 16 Magazine, sandwiched between Davy Jones, Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy.

Not everyone likes white boys. And being Indian was likely more "safe" than being Black.

Mr Pomfritt I was astonished at your post and had to go look it up.

You are indeed correct that Herbert Anderson played you in a couple of episodes early on in the Dobie series. You must have left to be in Dennis while William Schallert took over in the later episodes.

Still trivia to be learned here on DL.

Patty Duke’s mother Jean Byron played 2 teachers on Dobie Gillis. The first was Dobie’s math teacher, Mrs Adams. Dobie had concocted a doomed affair with an older woman to get the attention of a girl he was interested in. The girl saw Dobie talking to Mrs Adams and assumed she was the older married woman. Mayhem abounded.

The other teacher she played was Dr Burkhart. Herbert T Gillis was very concerned femme fatale Dr Burkhart wanted to whisk virginal Dobie off to the Pyramids of Egypt to seduce him in the desert sands. In a later episode, Herbert T and wife decided to do a makeover on “frumpy” Dr Burkhart.

[quote] And being Indian was likely more "safe" than being Black.

Since the 1966 film takes place in India, casting an Indian boy rather than a black one seems to have been a better choice? Don't you think? Not "woke" enough?

R78 I was talking about putting him in teen magazines.

I liked the finale when Dennis goes to Mrs Wilson and asks, "Why do you keep inviting me over when it's obvious I annoy the hell out of your husband"?

Then the camera pans to Mrs Wilson's face and fades out with her evil grin, thus revealing the "true menace."

57 year-old here. Always loved this show, or at least the first few seasons with Joseph Kearns. He was fucking hilarious as Mr. Wilson (Oh Great Scott!). What a queen! Gale Gordon was terrifically unfunny as the second Mr . Wilson.

Hard to believe that the horribly unfunny Gale Gordon has outlived Joseph Kearns by almost 60 years.

r82 needs to go back to high school and retake either Math or Typing. Gale Gordon died in 1995. Kearns died in 1962. that's 33 years.

[quote]Gale Gordon was terrifically unfunny as the second Mr . Wilson.

Gale Gordon managed to have a very long career being terrifically unfunny, especially on Lucille Ball's three crappy later sitcoms.

That’s funny, R66 R76.

They had a teacher named French Fry?

Gale Gordon is one of those actors who works best in small doses. He had some wonderful moments as a guest star on I Love Lucy, but would have been horrible as Fred Mertz. The reason The Lucy Show and (especially) Here's Lucy were so inferior to ILL was the fact that Ball had Gordon and the atrocious Mary Jane Croft in prominent roles.

I seem to recall that Gale Gordon could occasionally be funny as the school principal on "Our Miss Brooks," but I don't think his role on that show was as prominent. Small doses, as R86 pointed out.

GG actually wasn't that bad on that horrific Lucy Calls The President. In the Lucy Hour he played a judge and that imperious manner suited the character.

R86 so true.

Can you imagine Gale Gordon & the awful Bea Benaderet as Fred & Ethel.....their schtick would have killed the show.

[quote]Can you imagine Gale Gordon & the awful Bea Benaderet as Fred & Ethel.....their schtick would have killed the show.

"The awful Bea Benaderet" was fine in her longtime supporting role as neighbor Blanche Morton on the Burns and Allen show and certainly didn't bring a lot of schtick to the part. She would have been fine as Ethel. But Gale Gordon would have been awful as Fred.

[quote]Can you imagine Gale Gordon & the awful Bea Benaderet as Fred & Ethel.....their schtick would have killed the show.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Just listen to "My Favorite Husband" radio shows, which are all on YouTube. Both are hysterically funny saying the exact same lines Vance and Frawley said.

It was the writers that made it work.

Of course on that show Gordon was a banker as was George.

Gordon also played "the rich Texan" on Burns and Allen radio show and was funny. That character was cloned on the Simpsons.

Jay North played Mr. Mooney's" delinquent nephew" at about age 15 in a "Here's Lucy" episode.

[quote]Jay North grew up to be a male prostitute.

Well, I never paid for it.

Jay North grew up to be Bam Bam Rubble

Jay North was good looking as a young man.

[quote] "The awful Bea Benaderet"

That one line tells me you know nothing. Not only was she great on many radio shows, playing varied characters, on TV she was superb as Blanche on Burns and Allen, she was great as Pearl on The Beverly hillbillies playing a role very different than she had on B&A, then she got to star on Petticoat Junction. While her appearances as Pearl led to PJ, Kate Bradley was a very different character from Pearl or Blanche. So she spent almost 20 years on TV playing three characters on three iconic shows, and each character was unique and different. She is one actress from early TV that DID NOT rely on schtick. Also, on B&A she had a very difficult job. She had to be both funny and at times act as the straight man to one of the greatest screwball comedians of all time. It was a much harder job than Vivian Vance had on I Love Lucy. Because as great as Lucy was her character was NEVER as screwy as Gracie Allen, who often drifted in comedy of the absurd. In addition, she created Betty Rubble who was also unique.

Who knew that the execrable one note ugly Bea Benederet would have a rabid fan on DL?

Listen to My Favorite Husband you clearly see it was the WRITING that made that show and I Love Lucy, since many scripts were used verbatim.

The odd thing is Lucy O'Ball had much more chemistry with her fake radio husband Richard Denning, than she did with her real life TV husband, Desi Arnaz.