Mr. X

[dandaman2001]

Once upon a time, on Christmas morning, 1990, a middle-aged gentleman appeared as a guest on a revival of the 1950s game show "To Tell the Truth."

The segment Mr. X, as I'll refer to him, appeared on was "One on One." A lady by the name of Barbara Cohen, a resident of El Toro, California, was chosen by announcer Burton Richardson from the studio audience to guess Mr. X's true story.

As one might expect, Mr. X had 2 stories to tell in this segment, only one of which was true--first story: he was Hank Ketcham, the man who created the "Dennis The Menace" cartoon strip that inspired, among other things, 2 Saturday-morning cartoons, a 1950s TV series starring Jay North (now on DVD) conceived by TV producer James Fonda, and a 1993 live-action feature film conceived and written by the late John Hughes. The second story: he was Johnny Marks, the man who wrote the song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

In the first story, as Hank Ketcham, when asked by guest panelist Chris Lemmon (Jack's grown son) what inspired the character of Dennis The Menace, Mr. X responded, "My son." When asked by regular panelist Peggy Cass who played Dennis on TV?, Mr. X responded, "Jay North." And when asked by guest panelist Orson Bean what Dennis's neighbor's name was, Mr. X responded, "George Wilson," to which host Lynn Swann, who retired from pro football to host this revival, jokingly quipped, "He's in an Insane Asylum right now."

In the second story, as Johnny Marks, when asked by Chris Lemmon how many chord changes there are in the first verse, Mr. X responded, "There are only 4 chord changes in the whole song." When asked by Peggy Cass whether the song was written for the special or was it written first and the show came later, Mr. X responded, "It was written from a book in 1949, and the book was given away by the Montgomery Ward Company as a freebie." And when asked by Orson Bean if he had a favorite recording artist besides Gene Autry the original, Mr. X responded, "Bing Crosby did a pretty good job."

At the end of the segment, when asked to guess Mr. X's true identity, Ms. Cohen guessed that he was the man who created "Dennis The Menace" based on his looks, sense of humor, and knowledge about the subject.

After the guess, Lynn asked, "What is your true story, Mr. X?" To which Mr. X responded, "To Tell The Truth, My name is Hank Ketcham and I created Dennis The Menace." As a result of guessing correctly, Barbara won $500.

Hank's background is quite interesting: Henry King "Hank" Ketcham was born on March 14, 1920 in Seattle, Washington, the son of Vernon Weaver Ketcham and Virginia King. Hank's great-grandfather, James Weaver, ran twice for U.S. President--and lost both times.

After graduating high school in 1937, Hank enrolled at the University of Washington, only to drop out a year later to pursue a career as a Walt Disney animator. Upon learning that Disney wasn't able to hire him right away, he worked for 14 months under Walter Lantz, the creator of "Woody Woodpecker." After 14 months working for Walter Lantz, Disney hired Hank to work for him.

Among other Disney projects, during his tenure as a Disney animator, Hank worked on "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," and "Donald Duck" shorts before enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1942. During his Navy stint, Hank, who was a photographer's assistant, first class, found time to develop a fictional Navy cartoon character known as "Half Hitch."

In 1945, after World War II came to a close, not only did Hank leave the Navy with an honorable discharge, but so did his cartoon character, Half Hitch, who was retired from the Navy along with everyone else in the era.

While in the Navy, Hank met and fell in love with Alice Mahar. They married in 1944, and soon after Hank left the Navy, Alice was pregnant with their first child.

In November 1945, Hank and Alice became 1st-time parents to a boy, Dennis Lloyd Ketcham.

In October 1950, Hank was in the midst of drawing a caricature of himself and Dennis, just shy of age 5, when Alice said to him, "Hank, your son, Dennis, is a Menace."

Hank soon began work on what eventually became a comic strip he titled "Dennis The Menace," rechristening his family the Mitchell family (but keeping his family's real first names, especially Dennis). The comics were first published in 18 newspapers on March 12, 1951.

In 1959, during the midst of his success as a cartoonist, Hank's wife, Alice, fatally OD'd and died of an accidental drug overdose, leaving Hank a young widower with son Dennis.

Soon after Alice's death, Hank and Dennis relocated to Geneva, Switzerland, where he found love with Anne Stevens, a fellow American he'd met in Geneva. They were married in 1960, and divorced soon after.

In 1969, Hank met a woman named Rolande Praepost, who he would marry later that year. Hank and Rolande gave Dennis a half-brother, Scott, and half-sister, Dania, during their 32-year marriage.

In 1994, Hank retired from "Dennis The Menace" and left the comic strip in the hands of Marcus Hamilton and Ron Ferdinand--who continue to draw the comics together to this day.

Hank spent the last 7 years of his life in peaceful retirement in his Carmel, California home. Though he and his son Dennis were estranged for most of Dennis's adult life, that doesn't change the mark Hank left in the world.

On June 1, 2001, Hank Ketcham, age 81, died of prostate cancer.

[biffbronson]

Thanks for the interesting story! It's remarkable how many comics creators of his generation worked for Disney animation at one time. Some didn't stay long, but nonetheless it was quite an enterprise.