Cartoonist HANK KETCHAM died today at 81. -- The Classic TV Site Forum

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Date Posted: 16:26:33 06/21/01 Thu
Author: Hugh
Subject: Cartoonist HANK KETCHAM died today at 81.

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 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!''

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.

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.

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

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