As the title character in the midcentury sitcom “Dennis the Menace,” Jay North, who died Sunday at 73, was among my first TV stars, even before I had a notion of what a TV star was. And he was definitely a star — billed over the adults who played his parents and perennially put-upon neighbor Mr. Wilson, memorably played by the great Joseph Kearns.
I lived as a child on a double dose of Dennis, in the daily paper, where Hank Ketcham‘s character first saw life in 1951, and on TV. I suppose I was aware of the show, which ran originally from 1959 to 1963 and in reruns for many years thereafter — it’s currently available on Peacock and sundry other platforms — before the comic, because I certainly watched TV before I could read. (Though, come to think of it, the comics may have been read to me — oh, the great days of the funny pages.)
North’s first television appearance was as a guest on the local L.A. kids’ show “Engineer Bill’s Cartoon Express,” where he was spotted by a talent agent; small parts in various TV dramas and a couple of feature films led to “Dennis,” where he was poured into the iconic costume — overalls, striped shirt, with a slingshot poking out of a back pocket and a cowlick sticking up like a car antenna from the back of his head. Dennis is 5 years old in the comic; the actor was 8 when he began to play him and would continue until he was 12, by which time he was allowed at least to trade the overalls for trousers. (I was enough of a baby TV critic even then to feel the cognitive dissonance.)
The godfather of Calvin (of “Calvin and Hobbes”) and Bart Simpson, Dennis is, unlike them, very much a child; he has no adult thoughts, he’s not an instrument for satire. He’s not a smart-aleck, or a little devil. He is cheerful and serious, even about play. He’s afraid of nothing, confident in his own ideas, the way many children are and most later learn not to be, and secure in the knowledge that everyone loves him, even those who don’t particularly.
Read more: Jay North, child actor who played ‘Dennis the Menace,’ dies at 73
Indeed, he’s a good kid, even too good; his attempts to help lead to disasters (of a minor, correctable sort); things will get broken. One might say that where Dennis is concerned, no target of a good deed goes unpunished. (The brief opening credits picture him as an actual whirlwind.) In the comics, the character was occasionally made to sit in the corner (the gag was his explanation of whatever put him there), but was he ever punished on television? I would have to go through 146 episodes to find out, but I suspect not. If he was, it didn’t stick.
TV tots in that time were generally being prepped for adulthood; their misadventures led generally, and gently, to lessons learned. But there’s no point in trying to teach Dennis anything; on the page and screen, the Mitchells, who are tolerant, if often tested parents, are wise enough to know they can’t win — whatever they do, there’s another panel coming the next day, another episode coming the next week, and Dennis will remain the agent of chaos he was created to be.
For adult readers and viewers, he’s a comical scamp; to a kid, he’s an ideal. In my mind, he’s a little mixed up with my grade-school friend Danny Shannon, who as a blond kid with a certain bold insouciance was closer to Dennis (and to North) than I’d ever be, and alongside whom I’d read paperback collections of the cartoon, the way that the young people of the 21st century might look at their phones, side by side.
There was, of course, an unavoidable sell-by date for North’s Dennis. David and Ricky Nelson could age across “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet,” but, like Bart Simpson, Dennis Mitchell, tied to a cartoon, could not. The actor’s next and last television series was “Maya,” in 1967, a semi-sequel to a 1966 film in which he also starred. It lasted 18 episodes; I know I watched it, but I can’t tell you much other than that it was shot on location in India — unusual! — featured an elephant and co-starred Sajid Khan, America’s first South Asian teen idol, if you don’t count Sabu. (From Tiger Beat; “The deep look of wonder behind Sajid’s shining brown eyes is increasing every day. He can’t believe the love and success shown him here in America. It’s happened quickly with the arms of fans everywhere reaching out, clutching Sajid and telling him he’s their newest fave.” But I digress.) North, too, had his moment as a teenage pinup. What clips I could find of the show reveal him as a dark-haired stringbean, looking little like his younger self, playing new, mature attitudes.
North’s post-“Maya” acting career was scattered and brief. Filming “Dennis” had been by his own later account a bad experience — the aunt who was his on-set guardian was abusive — and he became involved with former “Donna Reed Show” star Paul Petersen’s A Minor Consideration, an advocacy group for recovering child actors. As an adult he did some cartoon voice work, including playing himself on an episode of “The Simpsons,” but didn’t seriously pursue a show business career.
The range of expression required from him on “Dennis the Menace” was not wide, and subtlety was never the point of the show. But it was North who brought the character from two into four dimensions, and he gave Dennis motion and music. The sound of his “Hellll-o, Mr. Wilson” (and “Good old Mr. Wilson” and “Gee, thanks, Mr. Wilson”) still lives in my ear. But he radiated a brightness and, well, menace distinct from any TV child actor of his time; he owned the role, while it fit him, and as much as anyone or anything, made the series a hit.
Although there have been a couple of other Dennises since, most notably Mason Gamble, opposite Walter Matthau, in a 1993 theatrical release (and less notably Justin Cooper, opposite Don Rickles, in the 1998 straight-to-video “Dennis the Menace Strikes Again”), I have not bothered to meet them. It would feel disloyal.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
