Bash Street Kids

The strip now known as The Bash St Kids was created as 'When the Bell Rings' by Leo Baxendale, and first appeared in The Beano in issue #604 on the 13th February 1954. It became 'The Bash Street Kids' in 1956 and has been a regular feature in the comic ever since, arguably the second most popular feature after Dennis the Menace.

The Bash St Kids concerns the misadventures of Class 2B of Bash St School and their cast of supporting characters-notably Teacher (who still wears a mortar board even now, decades after they disappeared from most establishments), the Headmaster (likewise), Olive the dinner lady, the Janitor and Winston the school cat. The kids themselves are: Danny (sometimes called Deathshead Danny because of histinctive skull & crossbones shirt), Smiffy, Spotty (whose name may actually be Jasper), the myopic 'Erbert, Wilfrid (he of the face obscuring jumer), the twins Sidney and Toots, Fatty, and Plug, though in early strips a huge cast of mostly unnamed kids (the exceptions being Teddy, Jimmy and Ella, though Jimmy may actually have been Smiffy) appeared, with most of the more familiar current cast coming later. There are also a couple of irregular members of the class-Teacher's pet Cuthbert Cringeworthy and Wayne. The only characters who appear to actually have real names are Smiffy (James Smith, though he's also been referred to as John Smith) and Danny (Daniel Deathshead Morgan). Teacher's real name is apparently Algernon.

Though created by Baxendale, he was replaced in 1962 by artist David Sutherland, who has come to be regarded as the definitive Bash St artist since then.