The Bash Street Kids

Detail from the first When the Bell Rings strip

The Bash Street Kids (originally titled When the Bell Rings) is a strip that runs in The Beano. It was created by Leo Baxendale.

Pleased with his work on Little Plum and Minnie the Minx, Beano' editor George Moonie asked Baxendale to create a third feature for the comic. Inspired by a picture that Baxendale had sent to the comic beforehand (and since forgotten about), Moonie suggested a strip entitled When the Bell Rings consisting of two or three small panels and a final, large pane with a crowd scene, depicting a horde of children leaving school.

The first When the Bell Rings strip appeared in The Beano issue 604, dated 13 February 1954, and had a winter scene. D.C. Thompson did not provide a script and so Baxendale wrote it himself. The strip was renamed The Bash Street Kids in 1956, and underwent a number of changes: the brief story-structure and emphasis on crowd scenes were replaced with something more conventional, and the horde of anonymous children was whittled down into a smaller cast of specific characters (although two of these characters - Toots and a then-unnamed Danny - appeared in the very first strip). It has become a regular in the comic, featuring in every issue.

A more recent interpretation of the kids

Baxendale drew the strip until 1962, when David Sutherland replaced him, initially in a similar style, but simplifying it later in the decade. Sutherland has drawn the majority of the strips since then, except for a period from 1999 to 2000, when Nigel Parkinson took over. The strip has also had a number of ghost artists, including Gordon Bell in the early 1970s, John Sherwood later on in the 1970s, Keith Reynolds in the 1980s and Tom Paterson in the early 1990s. In recent years, Mike Pearse and Kev F. Sutherland have also occasionally drawn the strip.

Characters

Like many long-running UK comic strips, The Bash Street Kids is anachronistically frozen in the era in which it began. It portrays Class 2B of Bash Street School, Beanotown, where the teacher and headmaster still wear mortar boards and gowns and pupils sit at wooden desks with inkwells. They are taught by a stereotypical teacher, who is known as "Teacher" (his wife is called "Mrs Teacher"). The ten regular pupils are:

• Danny - The leader. Wears a skull and crossbones sweater and a floppy red school cap. He is quite crafty, and was appointed leader very early on in the strip, after he gave each kid a wine gum.

• Erbert - The shortest bash street kid. A short-sighted boy who struggles to see, even with his thick spectacles. 'Erbert is probably the least mischievous student and, in one strip, he was sent to Posh Street school, because he was thought to be better suited there - but the other students saw him as one of the Bash Street gang and bullied him, and he was rescued and brought back to Bash Street.

• Fatty - A fat boy who can never stop eating. Being called Fatty does not bother him, and it is only in the later strips that Fatty has been made fun of for his weight, to which he usually reacts by trying to prove the others wrong.

• Plug - The tallest Bash Street kid, and so ugly that when he pulls a face, he becomes handsome. Despite this, he is the only one with a girlfriend. He later appeared in his own comic, Plug (1977-1979), starring himself and his two pets, Pug from "Pup Parade" and Chunkee the Monkey. This strip was later incorporated into The Beezer.

• Sidney - Toots' twin brother and the keeper of a dozen animals. He has spiky hair like a chimney sweep's brush. He and his sister are often fighting and Teacher refers to them as the "Terrible Twins".

• Smiffy - A good natured but very stupid boy, he always gets things wrong and is very easily confused. Father Dougal in Father Ted could be a grown-up Smiffy.

• Spotty - Originally called Jasper, a short character who resembles a Christmas pudding. Wears and extraordinarily long tie.

• Toots - Sidney's twin sister, the only girl in the class. A tomboy, she is tough and rather bossy, but very much one of the gang.

• Wilfrid - A thoughtful, introspective boy, whose thoughts are hidden behind the the green jumper that goes all the way up to his nose. Rarely speaks.

• Cuthbert Cringeworthy - The brightest child in the class, and a teachers' pet who tends to be bossy, rude, spoilt and ostracised by the others. First appeared in 1972, and looks rather like Teacher. In more recent strips, while still a swot, he is more one of the gang and his intelligence sometimes gets them out of trouble.

References

• A Very Funny Business, 1978, p.9