WEBVTT - Part Two: The Dennis the Menace Creator was a Shockingly Bad Man

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<v Speaker 1>Also media.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where

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<v Speaker 2>I Robert Evans, was just bearing my soul to my guest,

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<v Speaker 2>the cartoonist Randy Millholland, about the fact that I missed

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<v Speaker 2>drawing cartoons. I just brought up the great Aesop rock

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<v Speaker 2>song Rings, which is about like realizing that drawing is

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<v Speaker 2>the thing you used to do and being kind of

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<v Speaker 2>quietly devastated by that grifter.

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<v Speaker 3>At first, I was like, no, no, yes, I'm a cartoonist,

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<v Speaker 3>so you know, it's the thing.

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<v Speaker 2>Like I alwaysknew I wanted to write, and I had

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<v Speaker 2>initially wanted to do that as like a cartoonist because

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<v Speaker 2>I was kind of like coming into my adolescence the

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<v Speaker 2>same age that like Hank was when he's watching these

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<v Speaker 2>yearly Disney Disney cartoons. I was reading like first generation webcomics, right,

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<v Speaker 2>like Sluggy freelance and shit like that. That, like there's

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<v Speaker 2>people who were able to like make a living cartooning

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<v Speaker 2>on the Internet. And I was always like, well, that

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<v Speaker 2>seems like the way to do it. What a what

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<v Speaker 2>a lush, lavish life these web comic artists. Oh, one

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<v Speaker 2>day that'll be me.

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<v Speaker 3>I did have someone's like sending an angry email, like

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<v Speaker 3>I know that you, you know, are so comfortable in

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<v Speaker 3>your mansion. I was living in an hour of cartoons.

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<v Speaker 3>I was living in a one room apartment at the time.

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<v Speaker 3>Like I I guess, uh cool.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's this there's this Nazi cartoon and it's problematic

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<v Speaker 2>and it's I'll give you one guess as to like

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<v Speaker 2>who the they is, But like the text underneath this

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<v Speaker 2>very problematic art is like, if you want to know

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<v Speaker 2>who rules you, look at who you're not allowed to criticize.

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<v Speaker 2>And I want to replace the racial caricatures with just

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<v Speaker 2>like a guy drawing a cartoon, like the secret masters

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<v Speaker 2>of the world Web comic artists.

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<v Speaker 3>They rule us all unhappiness.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the petty arcade guys, the sweet guy. Though I

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<v Speaker 2>will say I have not met any of them. I

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<v Speaker 2>did see Will Wheaton once at Penny Arcade Expo, and

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<v Speaker 2>I nearly took my vengeance on him for what he

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<v Speaker 2>did to that poor space captain in that fourth season

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<v Speaker 2>episode of Star Trek The Next Generation Unforgivable, Unforgivable Will.

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<v Speaker 3>First time I ever met Will Wheaton, I told him

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<v Speaker 3>because he never in the same age I was like,

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<v Speaker 3>you know, when we were kids, I was always so

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<v Speaker 3>jealous of you because you were on the Starship Enterprise.

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<v Speaker 3>And he's like, look, however cool you think it was.

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<v Speaker 3>It was way cooler and you watch I was like,

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<v Speaker 3>damn it, dude.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, man, he got to know Riker, He got to

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<v Speaker 2>watch that man reinvent sitting down on chairs.

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<v Speaker 3>Never been done the same since, really hasn't. That was

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<v Speaker 3>the h I think that's really what taught usuals.

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<v Speaker 2>That was the Manhattan Project for sitting down. Uh so

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<v Speaker 2>we're back in the story of Hank Katch him. When

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<v Speaker 2>we last left off, his wife Alice had left him.

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<v Speaker 2>He blames this on her temperamental irish nature, which he

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<v Speaker 2>also blames her alcoholism on. And this is not fair,

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<v Speaker 2>but she is an alcoholic right now. I don't think

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<v Speaker 2>she's an alcoholic, she's irish. I think she's an alcoholic

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<v Speaker 2>because it was the fifties and who wasn't right, like

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<v Speaker 2>a health nut ended every day with a full pint

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<v Speaker 2>glass of straight bourbon. That was the way people lived.

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<v Speaker 3>Like Martini's in barbiturate field bun diet hills were a

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<v Speaker 3>way of life.

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<v Speaker 2>You have called where this is going? Because she is

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<v Speaker 2>unfortunately naming barbituates and alcohol, which listeners don't do. This

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<v Speaker 2>has been a long digression from the fact that Hank

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<v Speaker 2>Ketchum is going to blame every problem that his wife

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<v Speaker 2>has on the fact that she's Irish. Now, look, she

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<v Speaker 2>is an alcoholic. I am sure that was a contributing

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<v Speaker 2>factor to why their marriage didn't work. But I also

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<v Speaker 2>suspect a contributing factor to her alcoholism was the fact

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<v Speaker 2>that her husband did not want her or their child

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<v Speaker 2>around and preferred spending time with a fake family that

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<v Speaker 2>he had drawn to spending time with his actual family.

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<v Speaker 2>I can see how that might make a problem worse. Right,

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<v Speaker 2>I'm not inside this marriage. It couldn't helped, right, not really.

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<v Speaker 2>Now there are some other possible clues as to what's

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<v Speaker 2>wrong in this marriage from some of Hank's early cartoons.

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<v Speaker 2>From that Seattle Times article quote, Dennis persistently tries to

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<v Speaker 2>drive a wedge between Henry and Alice by exposing their flirtations.

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<v Speaker 2>He narks out Dad on the beach to a furious Alice. Boy,

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<v Speaker 2>did we meet a pretty girl? Her name was Sally Holt.

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<v Speaker 2>I forget her phone number. Likewise, he deals poor Henry

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<v Speaker 2>another blow to his masculinity in front of Henry's male friend.

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<v Speaker 2>If you're so handy, how come mom had the man

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<v Speaker 2>next door come fix the leg on the card table?

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<v Speaker 3>God damn.

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<v Speaker 2>We get a couple things from this here. For one thing,

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<v Speaker 2>he is kind of hinting at this like constant suspicion

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<v Speaker 2>of infidelity that may have been a factor in their relationship.

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<v Speaker 2>But also, to make this more devastating, again, Dennis is

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<v Speaker 2>a kid and aware of the cartoon that's coming out.

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<v Speaker 2>His parents break up and his dad starts drawing cartoons

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<v Speaker 2>about he and his wife fighting. Where the cause of

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<v Speaker 2>the fighting is Dennis. Now, that could fuck with your

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<v Speaker 2>head a little as a kid, right, that's the cardoon

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<v Speaker 2>fuck that that could do some When we talk about

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<v Speaker 2>the ethics of like basic stuff on your life, you

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<v Speaker 2>know that's generally okay, But maybe if you're a parent,

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<v Speaker 2>don't blame the cartoon version of your son for the

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<v Speaker 2>problems of your marriage. That might hurt them.

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<v Speaker 3>Actually, that could Everyone gets the newspaper. Yes, every kid

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<v Speaker 3>reads the comics. Yeah, and there's no ways kids his

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<v Speaker 3>friends didn't know his dad drew this comic.

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<v Speaker 2>No, No, this is like, honestly, there's really not much

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<v Speaker 2>like like mister Beast is probably like in terms of

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<v Speaker 2>like his level of popularity, the closest we have to

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<v Speaker 2>somebody like Hank Ketchum in terms of the actual penetration

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<v Speaker 2>of a single piece of children's media in the time, right,

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<v Speaker 2>like it's so popular, and yeah, this would be like

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<v Speaker 2>a pretty fucked up thing to deal with as a kid,

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<v Speaker 2>in addition to like dealing with the fact that your

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<v Speaker 2>parents are splitting up and things are about to get

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<v Speaker 2>a lot worse because Alice leaving brings an immediate threat

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<v Speaker 2>to Hank Ketchum's life, which is that since they're split

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<v Speaker 2>up now, he's gonna wind up with partial custody at

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<v Speaker 2>least of his son, And partial custody means you might

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<v Speaker 2>have to spend time parenting that kid, and that is

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<v Speaker 2>not a thing Hank wants to do.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, No, no, No, father in the fifties is into

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<v Speaker 3>that idea.

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<v Speaker 2>Absolutely not so as soon as the two split up

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<v Speaker 2>like that same year, Hank sends twelve year old Dennis

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<v Speaker 2>to live at a private boarding school. And here's how

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<v Speaker 2>Hank describes the reasoning behind this decision. He suffered severe

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<v Speaker 2>learning disabilities that were not being properly addressed by the family.

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<v Speaker 2>His mother too caught up in luncheon's teas and bouts

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<v Speaker 2>with demon rum, couldn't focus seriously on much of anything.

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<v Speaker 2>His well intentioned father was buried in creative work and

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<v Speaker 2>wasn't spending time with his small family. And like, it's

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<v Speaker 2>kind of like you try to give yourself a little Like, well,

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<v Speaker 2>I also didn't do enough, but like, yeah, his mom

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<v Speaker 2>is all going out to lunch all the time, and

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<v Speaker 2>his dad is well intentioned, but he's like two busy

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<v Speaker 2>joint cartoons to raise his child, and it's most messed

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<v Speaker 2>up here. I have never seen any real supposition as

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<v Speaker 2>to what Dennis's learning disabilities may have been. He's not

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<v Speaker 2>diagnosed with anything as far as I can tell, given

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<v Speaker 2>state of things in that period of time, I think

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<v Speaker 2>there's a very good chance he didn't have a learning disability.

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<v Speaker 2>He was like acting out and having trouble in school

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<v Speaker 2>because his home life was really difficult, and when things

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<v Speaker 2>got tough, his dad sends him away. Right, Like that

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<v Speaker 2>makes more sense to me than any kind of disability

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<v Speaker 2>you might have had.

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<v Speaker 3>He was an upset child. He was a child, and yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>divorce was so taboo in the fifties and there's no way. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>like other kids didn't know. I'm sure his life was

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<v Speaker 3>kind of hellish.

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<v Speaker 2>He's dealing with that, right, like the fact that this

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<v Speaker 2>is a taboo thing. It's so unprecedented seeming to him.

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<v Speaker 2>And also again, his mom is an alcoholic, and that's

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<v Speaker 2>also a thing to across to bear as a child, right.

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<v Speaker 3>He is the victim in the situation.

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<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, and Dennis is We have the actual Dinnis's recollections

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<v Speaker 2>of this period of his childhood, and he would later

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<v Speaker 2>tell People Magazine, I didn't know what was going on,

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<v Speaker 2>except that I felt Dad wanted me out of the way,

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<v Speaker 2>which is like a devastating way to feed.

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<v Speaker 3>No child, no child feel that way.

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<v Speaker 2>Especially if you are your dad's meal ticket. He's getting

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<v Speaker 2>rich off of a pretend version of you, and he

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<v Speaker 2>won't even raise you like that's real, real bad. So

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<v Speaker 2>this childhood nightmare is exacerbated by the fact that Dennis

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<v Speaker 2>the Menace the cartoon is hugely popular among kids of

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<v Speaker 2>his age group, and whenever they found out that he

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<v Speaker 2>was the original Dennist, he became the source of unwanted attention.

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<v Speaker 2>Years later, Hank would cop to some of this and

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<v Speaker 2>the effect that it had on his son, telling the

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<v Speaker 2>Washington Post, these things happened, which they don't. They never

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<v Speaker 2>happened to another kid, Hank. No one else has ever

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<v Speaker 2>gone through what your son did.

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<v Speaker 3>Look like at Phill Keene and his kids, who he

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<v Speaker 3>based the Family Circus off of. Yeah, Glenn and Gil

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<v Speaker 3>Keen became cartoonists, like he was very proud of them.

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<v Speaker 3>They apparently had a really good life. So there's an

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<v Speaker 3>option here.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, you can base things on your life. Maybe

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<v Speaker 2>not this way. No, Yeah, And even honestly, if he'd

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<v Speaker 2>done everything the same with the comic but just kept

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<v Speaker 2>his son and raised him, it probably would have been fine.

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<v Speaker 2>But that's not what he's gonna do. Hank would add.

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<v Speaker 2>This was even worse because his name was used. He

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<v Speaker 2>was brought an unwillingly and unknowingly, and it confused him.

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<v Speaker 2>And like, yeah, Hank, but I think what confused him

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<v Speaker 2>more was you just not being there because you're his dad.

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<v Speaker 2>So Alice, again, this is I hinted at this earlier.

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<v Speaker 2>This is the fifties. She is an alcoholic, and like

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<v Speaker 2>every person who drinks too much in the fifties, she's

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<v Speaker 2>also taking too many barbituates. Right, this is a great

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<v Speaker 2>way to get really fucked up, and it's a great

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<v Speaker 2>way to die suddenly, which unfortunately she does a few

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<v Speaker 2>months after he starts boarding school. The same year his

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<v Speaker 2>parents break up, the same year he sent away to

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<v Speaker 2>boarding school, his mom dies driving past Mount Shasta from

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<v Speaker 2>an interaction of alcohol and barbituates. This is unfathomably devastating

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<v Speaker 2>for any child. Right, in the best case scenario, your

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<v Speaker 2>mom dying suddenly is like the worst moment of your

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<v Speaker 2>childhood obviously, right, you know, like that's the it's horrible

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<v Speaker 2>let alone, like the fact that he is dealing with

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<v Speaker 2>this and the breakup of his parents, and the fact

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<v Speaker 2>that he has been sent to live alone at like

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<v Speaker 2>a boarding school, right, and that his dad blames it

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<v Speaker 2>on the fact that he has a bad brain.

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<v Speaker 3>Right.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm not saying that's what a learning disability is, but

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<v Speaker 2>that's very much how people talk about this.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm sure that in private, that was not how his

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<v Speaker 3>father termed it.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the fifties, not in the fifties. He's not being

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<v Speaker 2>woke about this, right, And Hank is he's not an

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<v Speaker 2>expert on tact and child rearing. So when again there's

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<v Speaker 2>no internet, right, there's phone service and stuff, but like,

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<v Speaker 2>as a kid, you're not connected to the world. Dennis

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<v Speaker 2>is locked away at this school, his mom dies, and

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<v Speaker 2>his dad decides not to tell him what he doesn't

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<v Speaker 2>let him know, and Hank in his autobiography is like,

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<v Speaker 2>I just couldn't bring myself to break the news over

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<v Speaker 2>the phone, right, which like, well, you're rich there, go

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<v Speaker 2>tell I get that, Like, yeah, maybe you want to

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<v Speaker 2>tell him in person, go be with your boy. But

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<v Speaker 2>he doesn't want to do that either, So instead of

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<v Speaker 2>like going to see his son and telling him or

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<v Speaker 2>calling him and telling him, he waits until the boy's

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<v Speaker 2>mother is buried and then lets him know. And by

0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.040
<v Speaker 2>the way, your mom's dad, sorry, bro, if like this,

0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:26.640
<v Speaker 2>that's such a devastating, traumatizing way to handle that, Like

0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.600
<v Speaker 2>not only are you alone, not only is your mom

0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.480
<v Speaker 2>dad and we're split up, but like I'm not even

0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:37.560
<v Speaker 2>gonna tell you until she's buried, And my god, that

0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:43.400
<v Speaker 2>is so cruel. That's that is that's very abusive. Yeah, man,

0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.920
<v Speaker 2>that's like we just talked about Steve Jobs being a

0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:47.800
<v Speaker 2>bad dad. I don't think he would have done this,

0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.200
<v Speaker 2>like he would have let the kid know that mom

0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:57.320
<v Speaker 2>was dead. That's a ship, Dad, that Jesus and like

0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.360
<v Speaker 2>this this the fact that he's not able to go

0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.240
<v Speaker 2>to the funeral. Dennis would later say, fox him up right.

0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.480
<v Speaker 2>Quote Mom had always been there when I needed her.

0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:06.640
<v Speaker 2>I would have dealt with losing her a lot better

0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.000
<v Speaker 2>had I been able to attend her funeral. Obviously, even

0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.480
<v Speaker 2>in the fifties, most parents don't need that explained to them.

0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.280
<v Speaker 2>Of course, the kids should be at the funeral. They

0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:16.559
<v Speaker 2>should have the option at least.

0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.640
<v Speaker 3>Oh my god, Like, I can't even imagine. How like

0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.840
<v Speaker 3>when you're that age, like twelve, like well a normal

0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.160
<v Speaker 3>twelve or thirteen year old, life is hard. Your body

0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.160
<v Speaker 3>is changing, nothing makes sense. Kids are mean as shit.

0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.840
<v Speaker 3>You don't see your parents, but your parents are divorced

0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.200
<v Speaker 3>when that's unusual. You're sent across the country to a

0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.280
<v Speaker 3>born school. You know your mom's an alcoholic. You're probably

0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.800
<v Speaker 3>doing worse and it's not going great. And then one day, oh,

0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.120
<v Speaker 3>by the way, your mom is in the ground. Yeah,

0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:50.360
<v Speaker 3>you didn't get to say goodbye.

0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.880
<v Speaker 2>Look, KD, I got good news and bad news. Bad

0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.800
<v Speaker 2>news mom's dead. Good news. You don't gotta go shopping

0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.360
<v Speaker 2>for a suit funeral's already done. I took care of

0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.359
<v Speaker 2>that for you, buddy. Have a good time being abandoned.

0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.800
<v Speaker 3>No more awkward holidays.

0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah you live in the school now. Yeah you're your

0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:14.040
<v Speaker 2>mom sober God only marginally worse than what he actually did.

0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.680
<v Speaker 2>So for his part, Hank is savvy enough in his

0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.560
<v Speaker 2>autobiography to know that describing this story the way it

0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:25.199
<v Speaker 2>actually happened would sound bad, so he explains her death

0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:30.120
<v Speaker 2>in his autobiography in this rather baffling passage, the little

0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.480
<v Speaker 2>girl from Malden that's his wife tried valiantly to cope.

0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.080
<v Speaker 2>She was a splendid wife and a loving mother, but

0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.559
<v Speaker 2>the world was spinning too quickly for her. She had

0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.800
<v Speaker 2>nothing to hold her steady except the relief she found

0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.880
<v Speaker 2>in barbituates and alcohol. My patients and knowledge of the

0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.800
<v Speaker 2>disease were woefully lacking, and tragically, she succumbed shortly after

0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:48.920
<v Speaker 2>her fortieth birthday.

0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.720
<v Speaker 3>Cool that poetry doesn't really help. No.

0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.720
<v Speaker 2>First off, he's nice in this paragraph to her she

0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.400
<v Speaker 2>was a great wife and mother, but like it comes

0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.960
<v Speaker 2>one paragraph after, he says she wasn't there for her

0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.240
<v Speaker 2>her son because of the demon rum and all of

0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.880
<v Speaker 2>those luncheons, So I don't really believe that he felt

0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.800
<v Speaker 2>this way about her. And then the instant like the

0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.280
<v Speaker 2>next thing that happens in this book, after he says

0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.600
<v Speaker 2>that she dies tragically, is not him talking about the

0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.000
<v Speaker 2>conversations he has with his son, you know, his attempts

0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.640
<v Speaker 2>to cope with grief himself, his attempts to help his

0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.840
<v Speaker 2>son deal with this. It is a sub chapter called

0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.880
<v Speaker 2>blind Rebound Again, and this is literally about a rebound

0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.360
<v Speaker 2>relationship he has. He goes from my wife died and

0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.960
<v Speaker 2>not to Here's what happened to my son, Here's how

0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:36.920
<v Speaker 2>I talked to him anything. He doesn't say anything about

0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:38.800
<v Speaker 2>his kid at all, about the kid they share. That

0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.240
<v Speaker 2>is the inspiration for the comic. That is why he

0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.440
<v Speaker 2>has an autobiography. He goes to talking about a lady

0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:49.000
<v Speaker 2>he wanted to fuck. This story starts at Disneyland where

0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.960
<v Speaker 2>he's like, he's at Disneyland and he sees a young

0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.600
<v Speaker 2>man who's alone and it makes him sad and it

0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.800
<v Speaker 2>reminds him that it's nice to be with somebody, right.

0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.400
<v Speaker 2>It was a sad sight and reminded me how much

0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.280
<v Speaker 2>I depend on being with someone. This must be a

0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.880
<v Speaker 2>reaction to all the crummy rooming houses and lonely weekends

0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.080
<v Speaker 2>and holidays. I spent feeling sorry for myself, no question

0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.000
<v Speaker 2>about it. I'd make a lousy monk.

0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.320
<v Speaker 3>I would like to dig him up. He's so bad,

0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.560
<v Speaker 3>punch him. What the fuck?

0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.960
<v Speaker 2>It's such an evil moon man way of talking about,

0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.240
<v Speaker 2>like your wife dying and abandoning your son. I was like, yeah,

0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, I completely gave up on our responsibilities as

0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.480
<v Speaker 2>a father. But then at Disney World I realized having

0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:33.280
<v Speaker 2>sex is nice.

0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.680
<v Speaker 3>There is no empathy in this man.

0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:37.600
<v Speaker 2>It's such a vile person.

0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.880
<v Speaker 3>This is Scott Adams level of like I don't see

0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:40.720
<v Speaker 3>beyond my own day.

0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, at least you know, I don't know if

0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:45.800
<v Speaker 2>this is true. But well, no, Scott, I'm not going

0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:47.640
<v Speaker 2>to say at least with Scott Adams, I will say

0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:48.120
<v Speaker 2>nothing for you.

0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.040
<v Speaker 3>Scott good good.

0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.120
<v Speaker 2>So look, I want to be clear here. I don't

0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.200
<v Speaker 2>think he had a responsibility to stay in that marriage.

0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:55.080
<v Speaker 2>I don't think anybody has.

0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.280
<v Speaker 3>A responsibility unhappy.

0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.080
<v Speaker 2>Marriage, whether or not they have a kid. But I

0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.320
<v Speaker 2>do think that if the mother of your child dies,

0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.280
<v Speaker 2>your job at that point, even if you're split up,

0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.560
<v Speaker 2>is to focus more on that kid, right, because they've

0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.400
<v Speaker 2>lost their mother and that's what parents should do. Your

0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:13.520
<v Speaker 2>job is not to abandon them. So you can go

0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.640
<v Speaker 2>get laid at disney World like that is the acceptable

0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:18.240
<v Speaker 2>thing to do.

0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.720
<v Speaker 3>Going to Disneyland to get some strange Yeah.

0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.400
<v Speaker 2>Kind of weird, bizarre, bizarre, Robert, I really.

0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.880
<v Speaker 1>Am going to revisit my take on titling for this thing.

0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.600
<v Speaker 1>You can do the history's greatest monster.

0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.160
<v Speaker 2>The history's greatest monster. For the tennis the menace guy,

0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.920
<v Speaker 2>you can do that.

0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:40.680
<v Speaker 1>I'm okay with it.

0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know who else? Sophie is history's greatest monster?

0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:46.120
<v Speaker 3>Oh?

0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:47.360
<v Speaker 1>Is it capitalism?

0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:58.160
<v Speaker 2>Our sponsors? Yeah, because they made you listen to this. Ah, everybody,

0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.040
<v Speaker 2>we're back and we're just having a great time.

0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.040
<v Speaker 3>Those are as in services, I feel contented.

0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.439
<v Speaker 2>Dennis is enduring one of the most traumatic childhood experiences

0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.160
<v Speaker 2>I can conceive of, and while he's doing this alone

0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.960
<v Speaker 2>at a boarding school, his dad agrees to go on

0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.080
<v Speaker 2>a blind date with a stewardess named joe Anne Stevens

0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.080
<v Speaker 2>now Kank is clear that all he knows when he

0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.280
<v Speaker 2>books this date is that she's a stewardess, and he

0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.800
<v Speaker 2>informs us that people in his day called stewardess's stew's.

0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:28.560
<v Speaker 2>I've actually read a lot about air travel in this

0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.919
<v Speaker 2>period of time. I've never heard this before. I'm not

0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.359
<v Speaker 2>gonna say he's wrong, but that's a stupid thing to

0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:34.280
<v Speaker 2>call a stewardess.

0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.240
<v Speaker 3>That sounds like something he called them, and he wants

0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.200
<v Speaker 3>to it to sound like, yeah.

0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:46.440
<v Speaker 2>Says stew's, stew's. What a weird thing to call a stewardess.

0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.720
<v Speaker 2>You see those stews on the flight? Hey, STU, bring

0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.840
<v Speaker 2>me some STU? What a weird What a weird time

0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:53.240
<v Speaker 2>that was?

0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:54.280
<v Speaker 3>I hate everything about that.

0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna try that next time I'm on a plane,

0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:00.240
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna call the stewardess or stewardess STU, yat me

0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:00.840
<v Speaker 2>some drinks.

0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.119
<v Speaker 1>I feel like they should immediately go on to strike

0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.240
<v Speaker 1>the first time STU is announced.

0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah that that's a strike worthy thing, and they can

0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.560
<v Speaker 2>shut down the whole country. We saw it happen under Trump, right, yep.

0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.080
<v Speaker 2>Stewardesses have a lot of power for stewart. I don't

0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:19.720
<v Speaker 2>know what the there's probably another turn flight attendant, right, yeah, yeah,

0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:21.160
<v Speaker 2>what are you gonna call them? You can't call them

0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.560
<v Speaker 2>stews now, Flindant's that's a terrible thing to call them

0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:26.200
<v Speaker 2>better than Stew's.

0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.000
<v Speaker 1>Arguable, I agree it's better than Stew's.

0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:34.160
<v Speaker 2>So this lady, Joanne Stevens works when he meets her,

0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.119
<v Speaker 2>she's a stewardess on the specially chartered jet the Nixon

0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.399
<v Speaker 2>administration is using the campaign. I know, I know, but

0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.840
<v Speaker 2>I mean I will say for joe Anne that you

0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.880
<v Speaker 2>must have hazard pay for that, the degree of harassment

0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.919
<v Speaker 2>you have to encounter as a fifty stewardess on the

0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:53.600
<v Speaker 2>Nixon plane.

0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.520
<v Speaker 3>There is no part of her that wasn't.

0:18:55.320 --> 0:19:01.320
<v Speaker 2>Pinched, indescribable. And Hank, by the way, very much a

0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.359
<v Speaker 2>Nixon fan. He describes Yeah, He describes himself as being

0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.199
<v Speaker 2>intoxicated by joe Anne's free spirit lifestyle and deciding that

0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.920
<v Speaker 2>her influence convinced him it was time for him to travel,

0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.439
<v Speaker 2>and this, eventually, through a somewhat cecuitous route, leads to

0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.800
<v Speaker 2>him embarking on a new life overseas. He and Joanne

0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.959
<v Speaker 2>get married, and he moves to Switzerland. To his credit,

0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.959
<v Speaker 2>he does not leave Dennis behind. To his end, not credit,

0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.720
<v Speaker 2>he does something a little worse. Here's how a People

0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.639
<v Speaker 2>magazine article in nineteen ninety three describes what happened next.

0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.040
<v Speaker 2>Dennis was sent to a local boarding school, where, already

0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.240
<v Speaker 2>a slow student, he had even more difficulty learning foreign languages.

0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.280
<v Speaker 2>His stepmother was unsympathetic. Joanne was unused to children, says Hank.

0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.119
<v Speaker 2>She and Dennis didn't get along. What's unsaid here is

0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.280
<v Speaker 2>that not only does Hank take joe anne being unused

0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.320
<v Speaker 2>to children as an excuse to send his son back

0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.600
<v Speaker 2>to the US, he does so pulls him out of

0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.000
<v Speaker 2>whatever life he has in the States at a boarding school,

0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.480
<v Speaker 2>puts him in this Swiss boarding school, makes fun of

0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.879
<v Speaker 2>him basically for not being smart enough to pick up

0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.119
<v Speaker 2>German overnight, and then when his new fling is like

0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.400
<v Speaker 2>I don't really like kids, he sends his son back

0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:15.240
<v Speaker 2>to an American boarding school alone on his birthday.

0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.040
<v Speaker 3>What the fuck?

0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.280
<v Speaker 2>This is like a psychological experiment for like how badly

0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:23.760
<v Speaker 2>can you fuck up a child?

0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.600
<v Speaker 3>This is mommy dearest level shit, It's really bad.

0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.000
<v Speaker 2>Like I was like, can you hang most of an

0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.760
<v Speaker 2>episode on like how bad apparent one guy was to

0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.199
<v Speaker 2>one kid? And I guess you can because he is

0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:37.920
<v Speaker 2>such a bad dad.

0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.920
<v Speaker 3>Did he have a checklist of like well, no, let's

0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.040
<v Speaker 3>just go fuck it all up. Yeah?

0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, is this guy like philipz Embardo secretly like carrying

0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:53.080
<v Speaker 2>out some fucked up experiment for unclear reasons. Dennis eventually

0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.919
<v Speaker 2>graduated from boarding school in nineteen sixty six, two years

0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.399
<v Speaker 2>behind his original class. Hank and Joe Anne devoid a

0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.359
<v Speaker 2>few years after this, and Hank remarried a woman named

0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.240
<v Speaker 2>or remarried to a woman named Rolanda.

0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.639
<v Speaker 3>Uh oh, so he basically sent his kid away for

0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:10.359
<v Speaker 3>a marriage that even last.

0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:14.160
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that doesn't last. The marriage with Rolanda does better.

0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:18.160
<v Speaker 2>He has two children with her, and he does parent them.

0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.400
<v Speaker 2>I'll give him this. He is much better with these kids,

0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:23.720
<v Speaker 2>from everything we know, than he was with his first two,

0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.080
<v Speaker 2>which doesn't really make up for not or with his

0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.159
<v Speaker 2>first son, which doesn't really make up for it. I

0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.400
<v Speaker 2>found a two bar, Robert, Yeah, not a high bar.

0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:34.800
<v Speaker 2>I found an old two thousand and one article in

0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.600
<v Speaker 2>the Pittsburgh Post Gazette by Sharon Randall, who talked to

0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.680
<v Speaker 2>Hank before his death, and he expressed some regret here

0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.320
<v Speaker 2>quote pausing a moment to rearrange some pencils on his desk,

0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.600
<v Speaker 2>he added, sometimes young fathers scrambling to make a living,

0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:49.399
<v Speaker 2>to climb the ladder. Leave it to the mother to

0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.560
<v Speaker 2>do all the parental things. But you get back what

0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:53.800
<v Speaker 2>you put into a child. It's like a piano. If

0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:55.720
<v Speaker 2>you don't give it much attention, you won't get much

0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.439
<v Speaker 2>out of it. And I actually you could frame that

0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.639
<v Speaker 2>as growth, but I actually think that's bad because like

0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.840
<v Speaker 2>you don't you shouldn't take care of your child because

0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.080
<v Speaker 2>you get something from it. It's because that life you're

0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.280
<v Speaker 2>responsible for. You helped create it, so you should take

0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:12.960
<v Speaker 2>care of it as well as you can.

0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.919
<v Speaker 3>I have a child, yeah six. I take her to

0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:19.879
<v Speaker 3>all of her speech therapy appointments, I do her doctor

0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.640
<v Speaker 3>appointments I do. I have no guarantee she will take

0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.000
<v Speaker 3>care of every one day, and if not her fucking job,

0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.719
<v Speaker 3>she may she may turn eight things like you know what,

0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.800
<v Speaker 3>I'm out by old man. That's her right. I'll be heartbroken,

0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.399
<v Speaker 3>I will be shattered, but it's her right. I didn't

0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.640
<v Speaker 3>have a kid for an investment. I had a kid

0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:41.600
<v Speaker 3>because I wanted to have a kid and I was

0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.680
<v Speaker 3>able to. I have a partner who wanted to have

0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:44.480
<v Speaker 3>a child as well.

0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.639
<v Speaker 2>I am a strong believer in that children have no

0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.560
<v Speaker 2>inherent responsibility to their parents. You did not ask to

0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:52.280
<v Speaker 2>be brought into the world. You are not in debt

0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.040
<v Speaker 2>to them. Parents have an inherent response. If you're going

0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.720
<v Speaker 2>to create life, you have a responsibility to it, right,

0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.040
<v Speaker 2>And he just ad gates it in the case of

0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:02.800
<v Speaker 2>one of his kids. And then he's like, I was

0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.320
<v Speaker 2>too interested in my career, which was based on my

0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:08.960
<v Speaker 2>son to raise my son. He's like a piano, which

0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.000
<v Speaker 2>is also fucked up because like he actually got a

0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.359
<v Speaker 2>lot more out of his son, his first son, than

0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.720
<v Speaker 2>he did the kids he actually raised because his first

0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.400
<v Speaker 2>son is his meal ticket. But whatever I mean.

0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:23.440
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, literally, the destroyed childhood of his first child r

0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:26.200
<v Speaker 3>paid for the childhoods of all the other kids afterwards.

0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, so it works out well for them, right.

0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.640
<v Speaker 2>So for Hank's part, the worse he was to his son,

0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:37.240
<v Speaker 2>the better his cartoon Boy tended to do. In nineteen

0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:40.840
<v Speaker 2>fifty nine, it inspired a live action adaptation, which is like,

0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:42.720
<v Speaker 2>He's one of the first cartoon might have been the first.

0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:44.359
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if it was the first, but it

0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.600
<v Speaker 2>was certainly one of the first cartoons to get like

0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:47.879
<v Speaker 2>a live action adaptation.

0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.400
<v Speaker 3>There were a few others before that. I'm I'm sure

0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:54.120
<v Speaker 3>Joe Paluka had one. Yeah, there were a few, but yeah,

0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.800
<v Speaker 3>it was probably the most successful. But if you read

0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:02.240
<v Speaker 3>the comic and then like see like it's it's a sitcom,

0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:04.080
<v Speaker 3>it's nothing really like.

0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.560
<v Speaker 2>No, and it's like there's people will talk about like

0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.280
<v Speaker 2>the show being bad for its its child actor. I'm

0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:12.120
<v Speaker 2>not going to bring that down as like a thing

0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:13.640
<v Speaker 2>on Hank's against Hank.

0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:14.920
<v Speaker 3>Because no, that's not his fault.

0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:18.520
<v Speaker 2>That's most child actors have, at least up until very

0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:21.840
<v Speaker 2>recently had. It's just a you probably shouldn't make a

0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:23.400
<v Speaker 2>kid suddenly world famous.

0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:27.080
<v Speaker 3>And I would say the physical and mental abuse that

0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:32.760
<v Speaker 3>Jay North isn't I think he suffered was the fault

0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:34.679
<v Speaker 3>of all the adults around him. Because it was his

0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:36.639
<v Speaker 3>and an uncle or his managers, and they were the

0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.200
<v Speaker 3>ones abusing him. It was obviously then uncle's fault, but

0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:43.600
<v Speaker 3>also the adults who saw this and did fucking nothing. Yeah,

0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:46.800
<v Speaker 3>but you can't really blame Ketch them. He wasn't involved

0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:48.520
<v Speaker 3>beyond he not paid. No.

0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:50.240
<v Speaker 2>And it's one of those things every time I read

0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:54.320
<v Speaker 2>about shit like this, I'm not a particular Harry Potter guy,

0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:56.919
<v Speaker 2>but when it comes to the movies. Everything I've read about,

0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.800
<v Speaker 2>like how both the parents of those kids and their

0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:02.960
<v Speaker 2>co hosts were like, these kids, we have to really

0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:06.080
<v Speaker 2>be on the ball to protect them, because this is

0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:08.040
<v Speaker 2>going to be a disaster for all of them if

0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:10.720
<v Speaker 2>we're not really careful. And it seems like they mostly

0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:12.679
<v Speaker 2>have ended up pretty well. I know Daniel Radcliffe had

0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:14.919
<v Speaker 2>is like his tough years, most of us do, but

0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:17.040
<v Speaker 2>like he's doing great. I think the rest of them

0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:18.720
<v Speaker 2>seem to be doing well. Like you got to be

0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:20.639
<v Speaker 2>weird owl, Yeah, you got to be weird out. What

0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:23.560
<v Speaker 2>more can you ask for in a life? So good

0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:26.520
<v Speaker 2>on all of the adults involved in that situation, but

0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:27.280
<v Speaker 2>not this one.

0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:29.080
<v Speaker 3>There was no Ja Lloyd situation.

0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:33.159
<v Speaker 2>There was Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh god, that's another bleak

0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:35.159
<v Speaker 2>one man.

0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:38.040
<v Speaker 3>Man. The world really hates kids.

0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.119
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it sure does. Now. During this period after he

0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:44.200
<v Speaker 2>moved to Geneva, Hank decided to stop reading the news.

0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:46.800
<v Speaker 2>He's a millionaire by this point, and he decides there's

0:25:46.800 --> 0:25:49.440
<v Speaker 2>nothing but bad stuff on the news, so he doesn't

0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:51.800
<v Speaker 2>read it anymore. And because he's living in a foreign country,

0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:53.240
<v Speaker 2>he feels like he needs to stay up to date

0:25:53.280 --> 0:25:56.159
<v Speaker 2>on American culture. And he does this by subscribing to

0:25:56.160 --> 0:25:59.159
<v Speaker 2>the Seers Catalog, which he claims gave him an accurate

0:25:59.160 --> 0:26:03.560
<v Speaker 2>look at the esthetic of American life. This apparently worked. Yeah,

0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:07.840
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, Okay, I think what what works? I

0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:10.359
<v Speaker 2>don't think he keeps up to date with American life.

0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:12.520
<v Speaker 2>But what works about Dennis the Menace is that it's

0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:15.159
<v Speaker 2>kind of permanently stuck in an idolized version of the

0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:19.040
<v Speaker 2>fifties that never existed, right, Which is fine for a cartoon.

0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:21.200
<v Speaker 2>It's fine if it's not based on your real life

0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:22.400
<v Speaker 2>and the family you abandoned.

0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:22.600
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:26.439
<v Speaker 1>For people that don't know what Sears is, can you

0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:27.399
<v Speaker 1>explain that before?

0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:31.800
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, anymore?

0:26:32.200 --> 0:26:35.160
<v Speaker 2>Kids know how? Like Target and Walmart? They're these big

0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:38.359
<v Speaker 2>stores people used to go to before Amazon to buy stuff.

0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:41.840
<v Speaker 2>Well back even before then, people would buy stuff they

0:26:42.000 --> 0:26:44.280
<v Speaker 2>Sears had some big stores, but mostly they had a

0:26:44.320 --> 0:26:46.560
<v Speaker 2>catalog and it would go to your house where you

0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:49.200
<v Speaker 2>lived on the prairie with your family until you all

0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:51.800
<v Speaker 2>died of diphtheria, and you would order stuff once a

0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:54.399
<v Speaker 2>year from the Sears catalog to get the things you needed,

0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:59.760
<v Speaker 2>and they sold everything you could get, house kits they sold.

0:27:00.000 --> 0:27:03.439
<v Speaker 2>We have multiple guns that are antiques that were originally

0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:06.520
<v Speaker 2>sold to people mailed to their door through catalogs. I

0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:08.600
<v Speaker 2>don't have any automatic weapons, but they would ship you

0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:09.600
<v Speaker 2>machine guns.

0:27:09.640 --> 0:27:11.440
<v Speaker 3>Back then, they had their own, They had their own

0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:14.760
<v Speaker 3>knockoff atari in the Yeah, did we had a bunch

0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:16.960
<v Speaker 3>of cartridges that worked in their tarty six hundred.

0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:17.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:18.080
<v Speaker 3>From them.

0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:22.320
<v Speaker 2>It's it's it's it's a wild tale. So that's how

0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:24.160
<v Speaker 2>he stays in touch. And it's one of those things.

0:27:24.800 --> 0:27:27.520
<v Speaker 2>Dennis the Menace is successful in large part because it

0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:30.280
<v Speaker 2>stays trapped in the past, and this was very much

0:27:30.359 --> 0:27:33.720
<v Speaker 2>due to Hank's personality. He told The Washington Post, turmoil

0:27:33.840 --> 0:27:37.000
<v Speaker 2>is something I don't need other than what I generate myself,

0:27:37.040 --> 0:27:39.399
<v Speaker 2>which is shows more self knowledge than the rest of

0:27:39.400 --> 0:27:40.440
<v Speaker 2>the statements he makes.

0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:41.600
<v Speaker 3>Damn man.

0:27:42.080 --> 0:27:45.280
<v Speaker 2>Unfortunately for Hank, but fortunately for the rest of the world.

0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:47.960
<v Speaker 2>During kind of the period where Dennis the Menace is

0:27:48.000 --> 0:27:51.000
<v Speaker 2>hitting its stride, the civil rights movement is also picking

0:27:51.080 --> 0:27:53.320
<v Speaker 2>up steam. Right this kind of the mid sixties is

0:27:53.359 --> 0:27:56.040
<v Speaker 2>when when a lot of that stuff really starts to

0:27:55.720 --> 0:28:00.200
<v Speaker 2>to boil over and Hank, living this wealthy Geneva expat life,

0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:03.280
<v Speaker 2>is like scared and kind of angry at all of

0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:06.320
<v Speaker 2>this stuff he's seeing, which is like confusing and threatening

0:28:06.359 --> 0:28:09.560
<v Speaker 2>to him, and he retreats inside of himself more and

0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:12.600
<v Speaker 2>more as the civil rights movement goes on. He expressed

0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:14.920
<v Speaker 2>to The Washington Post later a sentiment that he kind

0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:18.800
<v Speaker 2>of in Dennis the Menace, he replaced the real, tumultuous

0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:21.960
<v Speaker 2>America of the day with his own cartoon version. And

0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:24.520
<v Speaker 2>I think it's also true that he replaced his own

0:28:24.560 --> 0:28:28.720
<v Speaker 2>tumultuous and failed first family with this fake version. Right,

0:28:29.200 --> 0:28:31.600
<v Speaker 2>both of these are things that he's doing with this cartoon.

0:28:31.640 --> 0:28:34.119
<v Speaker 2>He's very much using it as a tool to escape reality.

0:28:34.640 --> 0:28:36.960
<v Speaker 2>He is a lifelong Republican voter, so perhaps this is

0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:38.240
<v Speaker 2>not surprising, but.

0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:40.480
<v Speaker 3>That's not excuse because you have people wing al cap

0:28:40.480 --> 0:28:44.800
<v Speaker 3>who are lifelong Republicans. And he used his power to

0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:46.720
<v Speaker 3>do a comic call the Martin Looking Junior in the

0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:51.120
<v Speaker 3>Montgomery story, Oh, to promote Martin Luking Junior, because and

0:28:51.200 --> 0:28:54.280
<v Speaker 3>al Capp is a piece of shit, but like he's

0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:57.240
<v Speaker 3>still one thing about him. He was for integration.

0:28:58.200 --> 0:29:00.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was a kind of guy you had back then.

0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:03.400
<v Speaker 2>Like there's there's a number of those from entertainment where

0:29:03.440 --> 0:29:05.880
<v Speaker 2>it's like well, this man was a monster everywhere else

0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:07.920
<v Speaker 2>in his life, but he was firmly on the side

0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:08.600
<v Speaker 2>of integration.

0:29:09.720 --> 0:29:15.400
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Capp was a big admirer of King. And you know,

0:29:15.400 --> 0:29:17.240
<v Speaker 3>then you have like Charles Schultz.

0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:19.000
<v Speaker 2>We're talking about.

0:29:19.640 --> 0:29:22.240
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm gonna hide.

0:29:22.640 --> 0:29:26.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Oh yeah, oh god, this that's what's coming up here, buddy.

0:29:26.880 --> 0:29:29.280
<v Speaker 3>Oh no, so uh.

0:29:29.440 --> 0:29:31.400
<v Speaker 2>I do want to continue first with a quote from

0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:34.240
<v Speaker 2>that Washington Post article. It is a world where ketch

0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:36.200
<v Speaker 2>Him is in control. These are people I want to

0:29:36.240 --> 0:29:38.360
<v Speaker 2>live with, he says of the characters and the musical

0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:41.640
<v Speaker 2>so familiar from the cartoon Dennis, his parents Alice and

0:29:41.680 --> 0:29:44.440
<v Speaker 2>Henry Mitchell, and their next door neighbors, George and Martha Wilson.

0:29:44.680 --> 0:29:46.680
<v Speaker 2>If they aren't what I like, I erased them. The

0:29:46.720 --> 0:29:49.080
<v Speaker 2>headlines can be murderous and bloody, but in my world,

0:29:49.120 --> 0:29:52.320
<v Speaker 2>the birds are singing, and that is such a telling line.

0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:54.040
<v Speaker 2>If they aren't what I like, I erased them, because

0:29:54.080 --> 0:29:56.560
<v Speaker 2>that is what you did to your own son, mm hmm,

0:29:57.200 --> 0:29:59.360
<v Speaker 2>like when he didn't turn out the way you wanted

0:29:59.640 --> 0:30:00.720
<v Speaker 2>as a small child.

0:30:00.960 --> 0:30:01.440
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:30:01.560 --> 0:30:03.680
<v Speaker 2>Now you won't be surprised to hear from that that

0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:06.640
<v Speaker 2>the world he creates does not include black people for

0:30:06.760 --> 0:30:10.640
<v Speaker 2>quite some time. Right, Yeah, Hank's cartoon is not unlike

0:30:10.880 --> 0:30:13.880
<v Speaker 2>most popular culture made by white people in that time, right,

0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:16.600
<v Speaker 2>and that it ignored the existence of black Americans to

0:30:16.640 --> 0:30:19.240
<v Speaker 2>a large degree. And like, I think one of the

0:30:19.240 --> 0:30:20.720
<v Speaker 2>first times I was aware of this is a kid.

0:30:20.840 --> 0:30:23.720
<v Speaker 2>Every Christmas my family would watch the Bing Crosby Danny

0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:27.280
<v Speaker 2>k movie White Christmas. Stuff about that movie. The only

0:30:27.320 --> 0:30:30.040
<v Speaker 2>black people you see are working as like white staff

0:30:30.040 --> 0:30:33.120
<v Speaker 2>on a train, right, and they don't say anything. That's

0:30:33.160 --> 0:30:36.040
<v Speaker 2>the only time you see any black people in that movie.

0:30:36.680 --> 0:30:39.440
<v Speaker 2>That was just I mean, that was It's not good,

0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:42.920
<v Speaker 2>but that was like not Hank is not unique, right,

0:30:43.000 --> 0:30:45.280
<v Speaker 2>And in this in his criteria.

0:30:45.400 --> 0:30:49.400
<v Speaker 3>There was a problem in general with black representation and

0:30:49.440 --> 0:30:54.680
<v Speaker 3>comic sup It's like, if you wanted to see black representation,

0:30:55.080 --> 0:30:58.720
<v Speaker 3>either it was blackfrees characters, yeah, or you had to

0:30:58.760 --> 0:31:01.760
<v Speaker 3>go to black newspaper papers where you have comic strips,

0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:05.520
<v Speaker 3>which that the world of black comic strips are amazing

0:31:05.600 --> 0:31:07.360
<v Speaker 3>and none of people know about them.

0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:09.240
<v Speaker 2>Is there any reading you might recommend on that you

0:31:09.240 --> 0:31:09.680
<v Speaker 2>could pull up.

0:31:10.760 --> 0:31:14.080
<v Speaker 3>My spouse has actually been going through archives and collecting

0:31:14.160 --> 0:31:16.200
<v Speaker 3>old strips. If you want to send you a file

0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:17.800
<v Speaker 3>of some of the ones we have found, because we've

0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:19.000
<v Speaker 3>found some really cool ones.

0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:20.320
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that'd be a great thing to be able

0:31:20.320 --> 0:31:21.960
<v Speaker 2>to like host and just let people go through.

0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:24.920
<v Speaker 3>If it's post that is the goal, I think a

0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:28.400
<v Speaker 3>lot of it. Well, it's it's but even then, like

0:31:28.480 --> 0:31:30.640
<v Speaker 3>I have an article that was published in seventy three

0:31:31.360 --> 0:31:35.240
<v Speaker 3>when Beatle Bailey brought in a black character and how

0:31:35.320 --> 0:31:38.840
<v Speaker 3>there were newspapers in seventy three dropping it. Yeah, and

0:31:38.920 --> 0:31:42.320
<v Speaker 3>mart Walker's response was, it's unrealistic to have a comic

0:31:42.400 --> 0:31:45.200
<v Speaker 3>about the army and not have a black character at present.

0:31:45.320 --> 0:31:45.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:31:45.720 --> 0:31:49.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And that's like it's nineteen sixty five is when

0:31:49.360 --> 0:31:53.040
<v Speaker 2>a major publisher produces the first dedicated comic book with

0:31:53.080 --> 0:31:56.200
<v Speaker 2>a black hero, Right, is that Lobo? Yeah, it's Lobo

0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:59.280
<v Speaker 2>nineteen sixty five, and that's just two years after the

0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:01.920
<v Speaker 2>first black man wins an Academy Award for a leading role.

0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:03.200
<v Speaker 2>And it's it's Sydney Poidier.

0:32:03.320 --> 0:32:06.479
<v Speaker 3>Obviously that it was also Del Commons do del Commas,

0:32:06.480 --> 0:32:07.960
<v Speaker 3>as I recall, they were kind of in their Hail

0:32:08.000 --> 0:32:10.640
<v Speaker 3>Marry years and they were just desperately trying. Yeah, there

0:32:10.680 --> 0:32:16.680
<v Speaker 3>had been a comic in the forties. I can't remember

0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:22.520
<v Speaker 3>the name that all Negro Comics, which was created in

0:32:22.600 --> 0:32:25.640
<v Speaker 3>forty seven, and it was created by back black creators.

0:32:26.520 --> 0:32:29.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and this is this is a period where I mean,

0:32:29.200 --> 0:32:32.479
<v Speaker 2>like that kind of stuff I think I would love

0:32:32.520 --> 0:32:35.320
<v Speaker 2>to know more about. Like it's it's it's such an

0:32:35.440 --> 0:32:38.280
<v Speaker 2>uphill battle, right to try and to try and make

0:32:38.320 --> 0:32:41.600
<v Speaker 2>sure that, like the the popular culture that most people

0:32:41.600 --> 0:32:45.840
<v Speaker 2>see as reflecting America includes black people, right, Like that

0:32:45.840 --> 0:32:49.160
<v Speaker 2>that's that's such a struggle during this period of time.

0:32:49.200 --> 0:32:51.000
<v Speaker 2>I think a lot about like you watch those old

0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:53.840
<v Speaker 2>Star Trek episodes and like a Hurrah often doesn't have

0:32:53.880 --> 0:32:55.959
<v Speaker 2>a whole lot to do. They clearly like didn't always

0:32:56.000 --> 0:32:58.800
<v Speaker 2>know what should we have this character doing. But just

0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:01.480
<v Speaker 2>like having you know, Whoopie Goldberg talks about this, just

0:33:01.520 --> 0:33:03.400
<v Speaker 2>the fact that there was a black woman on television

0:33:03.440 --> 0:33:05.640
<v Speaker 2>that wasn't anybody's maide, that was like doing a real job,

0:33:05.680 --> 0:33:08.080
<v Speaker 2>that was an officer like everybody else, was a huge

0:33:08.080 --> 0:33:13.800
<v Speaker 2>fucking deal. And you know that extends to the world

0:33:13.880 --> 0:33:17.400
<v Speaker 2>of cartoons. And I think one of the first, maybe

0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:21.960
<v Speaker 2>the first really major white cartoonists to start including a

0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:25.240
<v Speaker 2>black character in his cartoon was Charles Schultz, as you

0:33:25.360 --> 0:33:28.040
<v Speaker 2>kind of hinted at a bit ago, nineteen sixty eight,

0:33:28.200 --> 0:33:31.000
<v Speaker 2>is when he introduces Franklin. And I want to talk

0:33:31.040 --> 0:33:32.880
<v Speaker 2>about Schultz for a little bit, not because what he

0:33:32.920 --> 0:33:37.320
<v Speaker 2>does is like heroic. It's not. It's beyond the minimum,

0:33:37.360 --> 0:33:41.360
<v Speaker 2>but it's not like a wild act of radicalism or whatever.

0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:44.800
<v Speaker 2>We're going to be covering how Hank handles the same situation,

0:33:45.120 --> 0:33:47.400
<v Speaker 2>and I want to start with how a basically decent man.

0:33:47.440 --> 0:33:49.760
<v Speaker 2>And I think Chuck Schultz was a basically decent man.

0:33:50.000 --> 0:33:51.240
<v Speaker 3>I've never heard a bad word about him.

0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:53.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I've never heard a bad word about him. Handles

0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:56.520
<v Speaker 2>integrating a black character into his cartoon and why he

0:33:56.560 --> 0:33:58.960
<v Speaker 2>does it. Here's what he says about the decision to

0:33:58.960 --> 0:34:01.680
<v Speaker 2>add Franklin to the comic strip later. I could have

0:34:01.680 --> 0:34:03.680
<v Speaker 2>put him in long before that, but for other reasons

0:34:03.680 --> 0:34:05.880
<v Speaker 2>I didn't. I didn't want to intrude upon the work

0:34:05.920 --> 0:34:07.400
<v Speaker 2>of others. I think he's talking about some of those

0:34:07.400 --> 0:34:10.439
<v Speaker 2>black cartoonists you mentioned earlier here, so I held off

0:34:10.440 --> 0:34:12.920
<v Speaker 2>on that. But finally I put Franklin in. And there

0:34:12.960 --> 0:34:15.040
<v Speaker 2>was one strip where Charlie Brown and Franklin had been

0:34:15.040 --> 0:34:17.560
<v Speaker 2>playing on the beach, and Franklin said, well, it's been

0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:19.560
<v Speaker 2>nice being with you. Come on over to my house

0:34:19.600 --> 0:34:23.399
<v Speaker 2>sometime again. They didn't like that. Another editor protested once

0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:25.440
<v Speaker 2>when Franklin was sitting in the same row of school

0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:27.919
<v Speaker 2>desks with Pepper and Patty and said, we have enough

0:34:27.920 --> 0:34:29.879
<v Speaker 2>trouble here in the South without you showing the kids

0:34:29.920 --> 0:34:32.799
<v Speaker 2>together in school. But I never paid attention to those things.

0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:35.880
<v Speaker 2>And I remember telling Larry Rutman, president of United Features

0:34:35.920 --> 0:34:38.680
<v Speaker 2>Syndicate at the time, about Franklin. He wanted me to

0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:40.359
<v Speaker 2>change it, and we talked about it for a long

0:34:40.400 --> 0:34:42.959
<v Speaker 2>time on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, well, Larry,

0:34:43.040 --> 0:34:44.920
<v Speaker 2>let's put it this way. Either you print it just

0:34:44.960 --> 0:34:46.960
<v Speaker 2>the way I draw it, or I quit. How's that.

0:34:47.360 --> 0:34:50.080
<v Speaker 2>So that's the way things ended. But I've never done

0:34:50.160 --> 0:34:52.200
<v Speaker 2>much with Franklin because I don't do race things. I'm

0:34:52.200 --> 0:34:53.879
<v Speaker 2>not an expert on race. I don't know what it's

0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:56.080
<v Speaker 2>like to grow up as a little black boy. And

0:34:56.120 --> 0:34:57.680
<v Speaker 2>I think that gives you a really good idea of

0:34:57.760 --> 0:35:02.479
<v Speaker 2>like how a well meaning person would handle this. First off,

0:35:02.719 --> 0:35:05.439
<v Speaker 2>he does go beyond the minimum here when he's like, look, man,

0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:08.879
<v Speaker 2>who's your next pick for Charles Schultz, if I won't

0:35:08.920 --> 0:35:11.760
<v Speaker 2>make this comic for you peanuts.

0:35:11.840 --> 0:35:16.480
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and he was at the height of his popularity, absolutely,

0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:18.839
<v Speaker 3>and like it was, it would have been a big

0:35:18.880 --> 0:35:22.080
<v Speaker 3>deal and that's meaningful. Yeah, it would for him to

0:35:22.120 --> 0:35:24.239
<v Speaker 3>walk away from that, that's a walk away from a

0:35:24.400 --> 0:35:25.520
<v Speaker 3>lot of money.

0:35:25.800 --> 0:35:29.080
<v Speaker 2>He's arguably not maybe not the only cartoonist, but certainly

0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:31.440
<v Speaker 2>one of the only cartoonists who could have forced something

0:35:31.520 --> 0:35:33.759
<v Speaker 2>like this into a major cartoon, who could have forced

0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:36.200
<v Speaker 2>them to show like integrated schools and stuff in his

0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:38.759
<v Speaker 2>cartoon because he had that much cloud. And it's good

0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:39.799
<v Speaker 2>that he used it that way.

0:35:40.000 --> 0:35:43.080
<v Speaker 3>There were other people who could have. But like from

0:35:43.120 --> 0:35:46.400
<v Speaker 3>the article from seventy three, I remember like Ernie Bushmuller,

0:35:46.440 --> 0:35:48.040
<v Speaker 3>who did an Nancy was like, no, I don't want

0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:50.400
<v Speaker 3>to no, I don't want to touch political stuff that

0:35:50.440 --> 0:35:54.480
<v Speaker 3>he Yeah, one of my predecessors, Bud Sagingdorf, worked in Popeye.

0:35:54.760 --> 0:35:56.600
<v Speaker 3>I kind of get his viewpoint. He's like, the way

0:35:56.640 --> 0:36:00.439
<v Speaker 3>I draw everyone, when you put a brown skin tone

0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:02.839
<v Speaker 3>on them, it looks like a racist character. Is like,

0:36:02.960 --> 0:36:04.520
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to make this worse.

0:36:05.120 --> 0:36:08.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I think that's not unfair necessarily.

0:36:08.960 --> 0:36:11.920
<v Speaker 3>Like he was understanding like, if I do this, it

0:36:12.040 --> 0:36:15.920
<v Speaker 3>looks Yeah, the history of comics and how black people

0:36:15.960 --> 0:36:17.640
<v Speaker 3>have been treated in.

0:36:17.560 --> 0:36:20.399
<v Speaker 2>Comics, I shouldn't be the guy to do this, right, Yeah,

0:36:20.760 --> 0:36:22.759
<v Speaker 2>that's fair. And I think that what Schultz did again,

0:36:22.800 --> 0:36:24.600
<v Speaker 2>I think it's I don't want to go like overboard

0:36:24.760 --> 0:36:26.680
<v Speaker 2>praising him because he's not putting his life on the

0:36:26.680 --> 0:36:28.400
<v Speaker 2>line here. But I think what he is doing, what

0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:30.319
<v Speaker 2>he would say he's doing, is he's looking at people

0:36:30.320 --> 0:36:32.319
<v Speaker 2>putting their lives on the line and saying, well, like,

0:36:32.840 --> 0:36:34.719
<v Speaker 2>I am in a position where I can force this

0:36:34.800 --> 0:36:37.200
<v Speaker 2>through and I should, right. I don't really know how

0:36:37.200 --> 0:36:39.320
<v Speaker 2>to write this character. But maybe that's not what matters

0:36:39.400 --> 0:36:42.880
<v Speaker 2>right now. What matters is just showing that Charlie Brown's America,

0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:45.600
<v Speaker 2>which is one of the most popular depictions of fictional America,

0:36:45.880 --> 0:36:49.000
<v Speaker 2>includes black people, Right, And that's a good thing to do, Right,

0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:52.239
<v Speaker 2>That's a that's a praiseworthy some amount of praise at least.

0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:53.000
<v Speaker 2>That's it's worthing.

0:36:53.040 --> 0:36:55.400
<v Speaker 3>Not that he'd never really talked about there during his lifetime.

0:36:55.400 --> 0:36:57.360
<v Speaker 3>It's only in the last few years that's come out. Yeah,

0:36:57.480 --> 0:36:59.560
<v Speaker 3>and they're actually doing a short I think where I

0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:03.160
<v Speaker 3>may come out a cartoon special. Yeah, about Franklin. That's

0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:05.000
<v Speaker 3>a retelling of that first storyline.

0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.319
<v Speaker 2>And I think it's also perfectly fair for Schultz to

0:37:07.320 --> 0:37:09.120
<v Speaker 2>be like, look, man, I'm not the guy to start

0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:12.839
<v Speaker 2>making points about like race in America or like try

0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:14.640
<v Speaker 2>to depict the life of a young black boy in

0:37:14.680 --> 0:37:16.960
<v Speaker 2>the sixties. No, he's not right when it comes to Pena,

0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:19.480
<v Speaker 2>I shouldn't be doing that. I just want to make

0:37:19.719 --> 0:37:21.279
<v Speaker 2>people to know that he's here. And I think that

0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:24.560
<v Speaker 2>is respectable, and I think it's worth covering this respectable

0:37:25.000 --> 0:37:29.440
<v Speaker 2>attempt to add, like to integrate the world of comics.

0:37:29.480 --> 0:37:32.960
<v Speaker 2>You could say with what Hank Ketcham does. About two

0:37:33.080 --> 0:37:37.320
<v Speaker 2>years after Schultz Debut's Franklin in nineteen seventy, Hank Ketcham

0:37:37.400 --> 0:37:40.920
<v Speaker 2>adds his first black character to Dennis the Menace and Randy,

0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:43.040
<v Speaker 2>have you seen this comic?

0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:45.720
<v Speaker 3>I did not know there was a black character.

0:37:46.080 --> 0:37:49.600
<v Speaker 2>Oh boy, his name is Jackson, and I'm just gonna

0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:52.400
<v Speaker 2>have so if you show it to you and you can.

0:37:52.320 --> 0:37:58.720
<v Speaker 3>Just hold on, he's I can get my what the fuck?

0:38:00.360 --> 0:38:05.320
<v Speaker 3>What the fuck that is? He's a sambo character.

0:38:06.040 --> 0:38:08.440
<v Speaker 2>I don't think that is white lips. That is the

0:38:08.440 --> 0:38:10.759
<v Speaker 2>best way to describe him. I don't know how to

0:38:10.800 --> 0:38:13.920
<v Speaker 2>actually like describe how he draws this character.

0:38:14.120 --> 0:38:18.120
<v Speaker 3>I will with one character with white lips. He is

0:38:18.280 --> 0:38:22.240
<v Speaker 3>a cart He's a nineteen forties character.

0:38:23.000 --> 0:38:26.920
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I have seen and the caption we'll get to that.

0:38:27.160 --> 0:38:29.359
<v Speaker 2>I want to know, like I thought when I saw this,

0:38:29.480 --> 0:38:31.880
<v Speaker 2>because I used to do a lot of stalking Nazis online,

0:38:31.920 --> 0:38:34.680
<v Speaker 2>I have seen neo Nazi comics from the nineties that

0:38:34.760 --> 0:38:38.400
<v Speaker 2>depicted black people almost identically to the way that he

0:38:38.440 --> 0:38:41.399
<v Speaker 2>does in this Like it is bad people, some.

0:38:41.360 --> 0:38:44.799
<v Speaker 3>Of the movie bad So. My spouse and I one

0:38:44.840 --> 0:38:47.480
<v Speaker 3>of our hobbies as we go through newspaper archives. I

0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:51.239
<v Speaker 3>love looking for lost comic strips that note but that

0:38:51.440 --> 0:38:53.800
<v Speaker 3>means I also see a lot of really weird racist

0:38:53.800 --> 0:38:56.680
<v Speaker 3>shit from the nineteen ten and nineteen This could have

0:38:56.760 --> 0:38:58.439
<v Speaker 3>been printed in nineteen twenty one.

0:38:58.600 --> 0:39:01.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's wild how bad it is for nineteen seventy.

0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:05.359
<v Speaker 3>That is, he has giant white lips. You can't see

0:39:05.360 --> 0:39:08.200
<v Speaker 3>his nose. He is ink black. He is as black

0:39:08.200 --> 0:39:09.200
<v Speaker 3>as the father's hair.

0:39:09.200 --> 0:39:11.160
<v Speaker 2>And like he doesn't have like the Popeye guy. I

0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:13.920
<v Speaker 2>get that argument. Like my all of my characters are caricatures.

0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:15.440
<v Speaker 2>I don't really know how to draw a black person

0:39:15.480 --> 0:39:16.480
<v Speaker 2>and not have it look like a.

0:39:16.400 --> 0:39:18.240
<v Speaker 3>Problem different from everything else he ever draws.

0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:22.440
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, he draws normal looking people as a general rule.

0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:25.479
<v Speaker 3>Now here's my question, though, I need to know this. Yeah,

0:39:25.800 --> 0:39:28.280
<v Speaker 3>Ketchum did have ghost artists and ghost writers.

0:39:28.840 --> 0:39:30.000
<v Speaker 2>No, this was him.

0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:30.799
<v Speaker 3>Oh, this was Hims.

0:39:31.200 --> 0:39:34.120
<v Speaker 2>It was not Wiseman that I don't think has even

0:39:34.160 --> 0:39:35.319
<v Speaker 2>started yet. This is him.

0:39:35.680 --> 0:39:37.920
<v Speaker 3>No, how Wise been working in the fifties, but he

0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:39.719
<v Speaker 3>was mostly working on the comic book I think.

0:39:40.080 --> 0:39:42.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I like and the comic book he talks

0:39:42.600 --> 0:39:44.840
<v Speaker 2>about that that winds up coming on and coming off

0:39:44.880 --> 0:39:47.840
<v Speaker 2>because it gets too expensive. But like, yeah, this is

0:39:47.880 --> 0:39:49.560
<v Speaker 2>because he writes about this.

0:39:49.480 --> 0:39:51.319
<v Speaker 3>Like he takes he takes credit for this.

0:39:51.400 --> 0:39:52.319
<v Speaker 2>He takes credit for this.

0:39:52.400 --> 0:39:53.760
<v Speaker 3>Yes, oh shit, I wouldn't.

0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:57.480
<v Speaker 2>And there is so that the cartoon we're talking about,

0:39:57.640 --> 0:39:59.799
<v Speaker 2>we were so bold over by how racist it is.

0:39:59.840 --> 0:40:04.480
<v Speaker 2>Like it is. You've got Dennis the MENACE's dad mowing

0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:06.480
<v Speaker 2>the lawn and he's looking over and there's Dennis, and

0:40:06.520 --> 0:40:08.640
<v Speaker 2>there's Jackson, and Dennis said.

0:40:08.520 --> 0:40:09.719
<v Speaker 3>The father looks terrified.

0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:13.400
<v Speaker 2>The father looks scared to see this little boy. Dennis says,

0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:17.080
<v Speaker 2>I'm having some race trouble with Jackson, he runs faster

0:40:17.200 --> 0:40:20.120
<v Speaker 2>than I do. What is that saying?

0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:20.560
<v Speaker 3>Man?

0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:24.000
<v Speaker 2>Like, what is that even saying? Like I know what

0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:28.000
<v Speaker 2>he's saying is like Dennis doesn't see race, right, Like

0:40:28.040 --> 0:40:30.160
<v Speaker 2>that is the actual point of the comments, which.

0:40:30.000 --> 0:40:33.279
<v Speaker 3>Is also it's funny. It's a holy, I don't understand thing.

0:40:33.040 --> 0:40:37.000
<v Speaker 2>And again, like there's something quietly political about that first

0:40:37.000 --> 0:40:39.759
<v Speaker 2>like Franklin strip where because he's just making the point that,

0:40:39.800 --> 0:40:42.279
<v Speaker 2>like Franklin is welcome in Charlie Brown's home, right, And

0:40:42.360 --> 0:40:44.960
<v Speaker 2>actually in that time that is kind of a political statement.

0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:47.839
<v Speaker 3>It's like the same part of mister Rogers episode where

0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:51.320
<v Speaker 3>yes he shares a foot wash with a black man.

0:40:51.400 --> 0:40:53.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, or when he like shares a hug or something

0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:55.840
<v Speaker 2>with like that guy who was suffering from HIV to

0:40:55.880 --> 0:40:58.000
<v Speaker 2>be like, look, you don't have to treat these people

0:40:58.040 --> 0:41:02.400
<v Speaker 2>with Is that a subtle politic, Yes, a subtle, meaningful,

0:41:03.040 --> 0:41:06.920
<v Speaker 2>earnest politics as opposed to whatever the fuck this is.

0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:10.600
<v Speaker 2>And a lot of people get angry at this cartoon.

0:41:10.920 --> 0:41:13.520
<v Speaker 2>Hank even alleges that there are violent attacks as a

0:41:13.520 --> 0:41:17.360
<v Speaker 2>result of this cartoon. This is from his autobiography, a

0:41:17.400 --> 0:41:19.760
<v Speaker 2>harmless little play on words and I felt a soft,

0:41:19.800 --> 0:41:23.680
<v Speaker 2>amusing beginning. Not so. The rumbles started in Detroit, then

0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:26.879
<v Speaker 2>moved south to Saint Louis, where rocks and bottles were

0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:29.840
<v Speaker 2>thrown through the windows of the Post Dispatch newspaper. Boys

0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:31.920
<v Speaker 2>were being chased and hassled in Little Rock, and in

0:41:31.920 --> 0:41:35.440
<v Speaker 2>Miami some herald editors were being threatened. The cancer quickly

0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:37.040
<v Speaker 2>spread to others large cities.

0:41:38.560 --> 0:41:40.839
<v Speaker 3>Am I wrong? No? Is the children who are?

0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.040
<v Speaker 2>It's the people? And like, did you ever describe racism

0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:46.359
<v Speaker 2>as a cancer or just people getting angry that you

0:41:46.440 --> 0:41:49.239
<v Speaker 2>drew a slur in your cartoon, Hank, I.

0:41:49.840 --> 0:41:52.080
<v Speaker 3>Would say, if he has a you know what, I

0:41:52.160 --> 0:41:55.040
<v Speaker 3>drew this, and I did not think about the fact

0:41:55.160 --> 0:41:58.239
<v Speaker 3>I was thinking that with the mind of a man

0:41:58.320 --> 0:42:01.279
<v Speaker 3>born the twenties. Yeah, like I should have stepped back.

0:42:01.320 --> 0:42:03.600
<v Speaker 3>I should have He needed someone in that room to

0:42:03.680 --> 0:42:05.200
<v Speaker 3>say that's not okay.

0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:07.359
<v Speaker 2>It does say a lot about the state of the

0:42:07.360 --> 0:42:10.120
<v Speaker 2>industry that this comic presumably passes through a bunch of

0:42:10.160 --> 0:42:11.640
<v Speaker 2>people's hands before it goes up it.

0:42:12.160 --> 0:42:15.480
<v Speaker 3>Dude, I did a comic not long ago that was

0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:18.719
<v Speaker 3>it was a throwaway Popeye strip and the joke was

0:42:18.880 --> 0:42:20.600
<v Speaker 3>when I was a child, I was convinced the song

0:42:20.640 --> 0:42:23.120
<v Speaker 3>Caughton Eye Joe was about a zombie. So I just

0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:25.520
<v Speaker 3>trip about that and when my editor is like, heyesse,

0:42:25.520 --> 0:42:28.280
<v Speaker 3>you know there might be some racist history to that song.

0:42:29.280 --> 0:42:33.080
<v Speaker 3>And so there was a meeting about the strip, and

0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:36.200
<v Speaker 3>I mean, there's an article it's questionable. And my whole

0:42:36.200 --> 0:42:38.400
<v Speaker 3>thing was like, okay, we'll just pull it, Like just

0:42:38.440 --> 0:42:40.960
<v Speaker 3>pull it, like even if it's not true, someone out

0:42:40.960 --> 0:42:42.920
<v Speaker 3>there might think it. I don't want to hurt someone's feelings.

0:42:43.000 --> 0:42:47.120
<v Speaker 3>But like, multiple editors got together with me. We had

0:42:47.120 --> 0:42:51.120
<v Speaker 3>a big discussion on it. Yeah, and that looked nothing

0:42:51.280 --> 0:42:51.760
<v Speaker 3>like this.

0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:56.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm sure the extent of this conversation was, like

0:42:56.440 --> 0:42:59.439
<v Speaker 2>he sends this cartoon, an editor on his fourth high

0:42:59.520 --> 0:43:01.319
<v Speaker 2>ball of at lunch was like.

0:43:01.520 --> 0:43:02.080
<v Speaker 3>Great work.

0:43:02.239 --> 0:43:04.680
<v Speaker 2>You're gonna fix the race problem in this country. And

0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.560
<v Speaker 2>then back to drinking eyeballs, like if that had.

0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:09.319
<v Speaker 3>Run in fifty five, I'm like, oh, yeah, of course

0:43:09.320 --> 0:43:09.960
<v Speaker 3>it fucking ran.

0:43:10.239 --> 0:43:13.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but seventies wild stuff.

0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:15.400
<v Speaker 3>Oh my fucking god.

0:43:16.080 --> 0:43:19.160
<v Speaker 2>So he describes being mad as hell at the reaction

0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:23.320
<v Speaker 2>that this gets and shamed he ought to be. Snopes

0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:26.160
<v Speaker 2>notes that at the time, a number of newspapers ran

0:43:26.239 --> 0:43:29.840
<v Speaker 2>apologies to their readers for this cartoon, and they provide

0:43:29.880 --> 0:43:33.160
<v Speaker 2>an example from the Cleveland Press. Yesterday's Dennis the Menace

0:43:33.200 --> 0:43:36.239
<v Speaker 2>cartoon offended a number of Press readers. The press apologizes

0:43:36.239 --> 0:43:39.600
<v Speaker 2>for the affront caused by the cartoonist. It assures subscribers

0:43:39.600 --> 0:43:41.160
<v Speaker 2>that such a thing will not happen again.

0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:43.319
<v Speaker 3>Oh I'm sure he was not happy about that. No,

0:43:43.480 --> 0:43:43.880
<v Speaker 3>he was not.

0:43:44.239 --> 0:43:47.799
<v Speaker 2>And normally I would say, why don't throw the cartoonist

0:43:47.840 --> 0:43:50.520
<v Speaker 2>under the bus? In this case, yeah, throw the cartoonist

0:43:50.600 --> 0:43:51.200
<v Speaker 2>under the bus.

0:43:51.320 --> 0:43:53.279
<v Speaker 3>Hobble him so he can't get out of the way yet,

0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:54.399
<v Speaker 3>so just let it go.

0:43:54.960 --> 0:43:58.080
<v Speaker 2>So catch him for reasons that are known only to God,

0:43:58.160 --> 0:44:01.760
<v Speaker 2>would make one more comic feature Ring Jackson. I will

0:44:01.800 --> 0:44:07.560
<v Speaker 2>say this Jackson is drawn less racist ly than before.

0:44:08.080 --> 0:44:12.680
<v Speaker 2>Not well, not good, but not the same.

0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:15.040
<v Speaker 3>I'm dreadnossd.

0:44:15.280 --> 0:44:17.600
<v Speaker 2>It's still not good. It's still maybe a little definitely

0:44:17.600 --> 0:44:23.960
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of a problem, but uh better, Okay, yeah,

0:44:24.160 --> 0:44:25.040
<v Speaker 2>yeah better.

0:44:25.360 --> 0:44:27.279
<v Speaker 3>I would actually think that's a totally different character, to

0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:28.120
<v Speaker 3>be honest.

0:44:27.920 --> 0:44:30.280
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it is drawn wildly differently.

0:44:30.400 --> 0:44:33.440
<v Speaker 3>So for the people who obviously can't see this, the

0:44:33.560 --> 0:44:37.160
<v Speaker 3>character is drawn less of as a giant ink blot child,

0:44:38.600 --> 0:44:41.279
<v Speaker 3>he still seems to have white lips, which is not good.

0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:43.919
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but also the like a third of his head

0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:45.840
<v Speaker 2>is white. I think just because of like where the

0:44:45.880 --> 0:44:46.799
<v Speaker 2>light's supposed.

0:44:46.440 --> 0:44:49.719
<v Speaker 3>To be the shine. But at this point in time

0:44:49.840 --> 0:44:54.680
<v Speaker 3>that black characters are shown with like a crosshatching, Franklin

0:44:54.719 --> 0:44:58.200
<v Speaker 3>was drawn the same way a lot of Like it's

0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:00.560
<v Speaker 3>just kind of how it was done. Yeah. Yeah, I

0:45:00.560 --> 0:45:04.279
<v Speaker 3>don't agree with it, but it's truth. Yeah. But yeah again,

0:45:04.360 --> 0:45:06.640
<v Speaker 3>like the white lips, like that's a weird tell tale

0:45:06.719 --> 0:45:09.560
<v Speaker 3>like that all you had to do was give like

0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:10.520
<v Speaker 3>the textured hair.

0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:11.399
<v Speaker 2>Yep.

0:45:12.160 --> 0:45:14.480
<v Speaker 3>I mean, look at a comic Curtis, which is a

0:45:14.480 --> 0:45:18.399
<v Speaker 3>granted drawn by a black creator, Like you can give

0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:25.439
<v Speaker 3>features that denote African American heritage without going to fucking stereotypes. Yeah,

0:45:25.920 --> 0:45:27.360
<v Speaker 3>arms are still jet black.

0:45:27.880 --> 0:45:31.160
<v Speaker 2>I think another thing you could do, and maybe other

0:45:31.160 --> 0:45:33.239
<v Speaker 2>cartoonists could have done too, is like, well, I don't

0:45:33.239 --> 0:45:35.120
<v Speaker 2>know how to draw this cartoon or make a point.

0:45:35.360 --> 0:45:37.840
<v Speaker 2>I'll just have a black cartoonist take over my strip

0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:40.640
<v Speaker 2>for a day, you know, yeah, like like put out something.

0:45:40.880 --> 0:45:42.759
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to do this, Hank, Like you could

0:45:42.840 --> 0:45:44.479
<v Speaker 2>use your clout here some other way.

0:45:45.280 --> 0:45:50.680
<v Speaker 3>Or actually hire a consultant, a black what go to

0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:53.720
<v Speaker 3>someone and say, like give them money because they shouldn't

0:45:53.719 --> 0:45:55.440
<v Speaker 3>have to do it for free.

0:45:55.280 --> 0:46:00.200
<v Speaker 2>Particularly after your first cartoon causes a riot, like oh,

0:46:00.560 --> 0:46:03.200
<v Speaker 2>you're not the one to handle this anymore. And the

0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:07.000
<v Speaker 2>cartoon itself is yeah, his mom's got two cookies and

0:46:07.040 --> 0:46:08.960
<v Speaker 2>she's like looking at the two boys.

0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:09.920
<v Speaker 3>And again she's nervous.

0:46:10.040 --> 0:46:12.839
<v Speaker 2>She's nervous. Dennis has his hand out towards Jackson. He's

0:46:12.880 --> 0:46:15.080
<v Speaker 2>like me and Jackson are exactly the same age, only

0:46:15.120 --> 0:46:18.919
<v Speaker 2>he's different. He's left handed. And again it's the same

0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:23.120
<v Speaker 2>punchline where like all of you, you know, silly Americans

0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:25.560
<v Speaker 2>and the civil rights movement care so much about race,

0:46:25.960 --> 0:46:28.759
<v Speaker 2>Dennis the menace, the boy I invented while ignoring my

0:46:28.800 --> 0:46:31.839
<v Speaker 2>own son, doesn't even see race, you know, like.

0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:34.759
<v Speaker 3>He feels like a concervative, Like, well, my character gets it.

0:46:34.800 --> 0:46:36.200
<v Speaker 3>What's wrong with you, liberals?

0:46:36.440 --> 0:46:39.000
<v Speaker 2>I'm much woker than you, but for living in Geneva

0:46:39.040 --> 0:46:43.840
<v Speaker 2>and ignoring the Civil rights movement. As the years go on,

0:46:44.280 --> 0:46:49.920
<v Speaker 2>Hank is going to increasingly defiantly avoid any interaction with

0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:51.840
<v Speaker 2>the real world or any hint that life for a

0:46:51.920 --> 0:46:55.560
<v Speaker 2>regular Americans was no longer the bland fifties daydream he

0:46:55.640 --> 0:46:59.280
<v Speaker 2>depicted in Dennis the Menace and had actually himself failed

0:46:59.280 --> 0:47:02.040
<v Speaker 2>to live in the nineteen fifties. And we are going

0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:05.200
<v Speaker 2>to talk about what happens to the real dnnis after

0:47:05.239 --> 0:47:08.800
<v Speaker 2>he gets out of school. But first, what's going to

0:47:08.840 --> 0:47:13.760
<v Speaker 2>happen to you is you're going to listen to these ads.

0:47:17.040 --> 0:47:20.799
<v Speaker 2>We're back, so we're talking about the real Dennis the

0:47:20.840 --> 0:47:23.880
<v Speaker 2>Menace again. Now he gets out of school in nineteen

0:47:23.960 --> 0:47:27.520
<v Speaker 2>sixty six. He never benefited from the protection his father's

0:47:27.560 --> 0:47:30.480
<v Speaker 2>wealth might have allowed him, and he joins the Marine

0:47:30.480 --> 0:47:34.520
<v Speaker 2>Corps in nineteen sixty six. Shit yes, and he goes

0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:38.360
<v Speaker 2>straight to Vietnam. He is stationed in Vietnam and he sees,

0:47:38.400 --> 0:47:40.160
<v Speaker 2>from what I can tell, pretty heavy combat.

0:47:40.440 --> 0:47:43.120
<v Speaker 3>So unlike his father who was drafted, he sees action.

0:47:43.719 --> 0:47:47.200
<v Speaker 2>Yes, he has a bad tour. People Magazine quotes him

0:47:47.200 --> 0:47:49.880
<v Speaker 2>as saying, my grandmother and aunt sent me letters, but

0:47:50.000 --> 0:47:53.000
<v Speaker 2>never Dad. When People Magazine went to Hank and were like,

0:47:53.040 --> 0:47:54.560
<v Speaker 2>did you not send your son letters when he was

0:47:54.600 --> 0:47:57.680
<v Speaker 2>in Vietnam, they note quote Hank insists he did write

0:47:57.719 --> 0:48:00.319
<v Speaker 2>to his son. I know who. I believe it's based

0:48:00.360 --> 0:48:02.240
<v Speaker 2>on the rest of this story. I know who I believe.

0:48:02.640 --> 0:48:08.719
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's if I'm not mistaken. He was also in

0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:12.480
<v Speaker 3>the seventies doing like a military comical half Hitch, wasn't he? Oh?

0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:12.799
<v Speaker 1>Was he?

0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:17.879
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? He kitcham did a strip? Oh no way, yeah,

0:48:18.440 --> 0:48:20.440
<v Speaker 3>I'm double checking it. He did it like during That

0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:23.239
<v Speaker 3>was his World War II comic Half Hitch. But he

0:48:23.320 --> 0:48:25.520
<v Speaker 3>brought it back from seventy to seventy five.

0:48:26.080 --> 0:48:28.200
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, for just at the tail end of Vietnam.

0:48:28.320 --> 0:48:34.320
<v Speaker 2>Huh a couple of years after. Weird, that's peculiar, but

0:48:34.440 --> 0:48:36.880
<v Speaker 2>not interested in his own son, who was technically serving

0:48:36.880 --> 0:48:39.600
<v Speaker 2>in a branch of the Navy. Sorry Marines. That's the truth.

0:48:40.080 --> 0:48:42.520
<v Speaker 2>So Dennis the Minis sees some shit in Vietnam and

0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:45.120
<v Speaker 2>he comes home with severe PTSD. The real Dennis the

0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:49.880
<v Speaker 2>Menace is a traumatized nom veteran. He has trouble functioning

0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:52.080
<v Speaker 2>in society. He is unable to really hold down a

0:48:52.160 --> 0:48:55.120
<v Speaker 2>job for a considerable period of time. He moves through

0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:57.360
<v Speaker 2>a lot of like low paid gigs. He's a prison

0:48:57.360 --> 0:48:59.640
<v Speaker 2>guard for a while, he's a ranch hand, and by

0:48:59.719 --> 0:49:02.960
<v Speaker 2>night he's living in Ohio and is generally described in

0:49:03.480 --> 0:49:06.320
<v Speaker 2>articles at the time as being estranged from his father.

0:49:07.840 --> 0:49:10.400
<v Speaker 2>When some people would reach out, he would make comments

0:49:10.400 --> 0:49:13.560
<v Speaker 2>to the effect that like, yeah, being having a popular

0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:16.040
<v Speaker 2>comic named after me and based on me by my

0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:20.120
<v Speaker 2>dad who abandoned me, really messed with me. And again

0:49:20.160 --> 0:49:23.160
<v Speaker 2>Hank's response to this is these things happen. They don't.

0:49:23.719 --> 0:49:26.759
<v Speaker 3>No, they really don't. Yeah, really shouldn't now.

0:49:27.160 --> 0:49:29.239
<v Speaker 2>For reasons that probably aren't surprising, the real Dennis the

0:49:29.280 --> 0:49:32.480
<v Speaker 2>Menace has a tumultuous personal life. He has several divorces

0:49:32.840 --> 0:49:35.560
<v Speaker 2>for reasons I don't know. He is legally barred for

0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:39.000
<v Speaker 2>a time from seeing his teenage daughter Jennifer. Probably not

0:49:39.040 --> 0:49:42.920
<v Speaker 2>a great story there, that People article concludes. Every now

0:49:42.960 --> 0:49:44.640
<v Speaker 2>and then, as he did a couple of weeks ago,

0:49:44.719 --> 0:49:47.600
<v Speaker 2>Dennis phones his father. I see your movie is out,

0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:51.560
<v Speaker 2>said Dennis. And this is when the movie with the

0:49:51.600 --> 0:49:55.800
<v Speaker 2>guy from U fuck Edrithews bears Walter Matthous.

0:49:54.960 --> 0:49:56.320
<v Speaker 3>From Lloyd to the villain in the movie.

0:49:56.400 --> 0:49:58.920
<v Speaker 2>You're right, we'll talk about we'll talk about Walter Matthew

0:49:58.920 --> 0:50:02.000
<v Speaker 2>in a second that No, No, I love Walter math out.

0:50:02.880 --> 0:50:05.080
<v Speaker 2>I see your movie is out, said Dennis. I hope

0:50:05.080 --> 0:50:07.560
<v Speaker 2>you see it. Hank replied, Dennis said he hoped to.

0:50:07.800 --> 0:50:09.719
<v Speaker 2>He then announced that he and Janet, who's his wife

0:50:09.719 --> 0:50:11.719
<v Speaker 2>at the time, are quitting their jobs and resettling in

0:50:11.760 --> 0:50:14.680
<v Speaker 2>the Southwest, and asked his father to help finance their move.

0:50:15.120 --> 0:50:18.480
<v Speaker 2>That's the way many of our conversations go, says Hank sadly.

0:50:19.360 --> 0:50:21.719
<v Speaker 2>And like when you're reading every article you can find

0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:24.040
<v Speaker 2>about a guy, which I did for Hank, a funny

0:50:24.040 --> 0:50:26.200
<v Speaker 2>thing happens, which is that you pick up some patterns

0:50:26.719 --> 0:50:29.680
<v Speaker 2>in multiple interviews. He will tell people in this period

0:50:29.719 --> 0:50:32.680
<v Speaker 2>of time, my son only calls me to ask for money.

0:50:33.040 --> 0:50:35.240
<v Speaker 2>There's one exception to this, and it's a two thousand

0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:37.960
<v Speaker 2>and one article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette by Sharon Randall,

0:50:38.440 --> 0:50:42.200
<v Speaker 2>and in it, Hank speaks very differently about this part

0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:45.560
<v Speaker 2>of their relationship. Quote when I asked about Dennis, he said,

0:50:45.640 --> 0:50:47.640
<v Speaker 2>he checks in about twice a year, and if he

0:50:47.719 --> 0:50:51.200
<v Speaker 2>needs something, I try to help him. That's a really

0:50:51.200 --> 0:50:55.080
<v Speaker 2>different response from he only calls me when he wants money, right.

0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:57.080
<v Speaker 3>Which makes you think he caught some flack.

0:50:57.520 --> 0:50:59.040
<v Speaker 2>Did he catch some flack? Is it just because the

0:50:59.040 --> 0:51:01.440
<v Speaker 2>interviewer is a woman? Is he like into her? Does

0:51:01.480 --> 0:51:03.600
<v Speaker 2>he want to impress her Like I couldn't tell you

0:51:04.360 --> 0:51:06.880
<v Speaker 2>why he phrases it this way, but it really stuck

0:51:06.880 --> 0:51:09.000
<v Speaker 2>out to me, where every other time he's like he

0:51:09.080 --> 0:51:11.080
<v Speaker 2>just wants money, and this time he's like, I try

0:51:11.120 --> 0:51:11.920
<v Speaker 2>to help him when I.

0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:15.360
<v Speaker 3>Can, you know, try to be again. Yeah, and let's

0:51:15.719 --> 0:51:16.920
<v Speaker 3>suspect again.

0:51:17.719 --> 0:51:19.640
<v Speaker 2>In addition to like the I don't think that like

0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:22.120
<v Speaker 2>kids have a responsibility to your parents. If you have

0:51:22.200 --> 0:51:24.000
<v Speaker 2>money as a parent, I don't think you have a

0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:26.560
<v Speaker 2>responsibility to make your kids rich. I think it's actually

0:51:26.680 --> 0:51:30.040
<v Speaker 2>terrible for them if you do. But if you base

0:51:30.080 --> 0:51:33.200
<v Speaker 2>a cartoon on your son and kind of destroy his

0:51:33.360 --> 0:51:36.279
<v Speaker 2>childhood partly as a result of that, you probably do

0:51:36.320 --> 0:51:38.600
<v Speaker 2>owe him some of your millions. You should probably give

0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:39.560
<v Speaker 2>him some of your riches.

0:51:40.200 --> 0:51:42.279
<v Speaker 3>If I made a comic based off my daughter and

0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:44.320
<v Speaker 3>it became like I would feel like I'd have to

0:51:44.320 --> 0:51:45.799
<v Speaker 3>put at least some of the money aside for her.

0:51:45.960 --> 0:51:47.960
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I think most people would.

0:51:47.960 --> 0:51:49.920
<v Speaker 3>Because she had no abilit she's sick.

0:51:50.040 --> 0:51:52.480
<v Speaker 2>She can't no to that, and it's gonna affect her

0:51:52.600 --> 0:51:55.759
<v Speaker 2>life less now. But like back then, especially like cartoons

0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:59.919
<v Speaker 2>being as central as they were to like child culture. Yeah, now,

0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:03.440
<v Speaker 2>in that article, that People article by Michael Lipton. There's

0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:06.719
<v Speaker 2>a very devastating line where this comes from part of

0:52:06.719 --> 0:52:09.600
<v Speaker 2>the interview with Dennis. Quote. Dad can be like a stranger,

0:52:09.719 --> 0:52:12.600
<v Speaker 2>counters Dennis, who has never met his two half siblings.

0:52:12.840 --> 0:52:15.440
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes I think that if he died tomorrow, I wouldn't

0:52:15.440 --> 0:52:20.280
<v Speaker 2>feel anything. That's that's what we call in the narrative business,

0:52:20.400 --> 0:52:24.800
<v Speaker 2>a setup. So as soon as he's able to justify it, Hank,

0:52:24.880 --> 0:52:27.080
<v Speaker 2>as you've noted, takes a back seat in the production

0:52:27.120 --> 0:52:29.520
<v Speaker 2>of his own cartoon. He brings some ghostwriters and artists

0:52:29.520 --> 0:52:30.920
<v Speaker 2>to draw it. And I don't think there's anything wrong

0:52:30.960 --> 0:52:31.399
<v Speaker 2>with that. Shit.

0:52:31.560 --> 0:52:32.839
<v Speaker 3>No, that's happens.

0:52:32.920 --> 0:52:33.120
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:35.600
<v Speaker 2>Behind the Bastards is still a one man shop in

0:52:35.680 --> 0:52:38.480
<v Speaker 2>terms of the writing of episodes. But you know, if

0:52:38.520 --> 0:52:41.960
<v Speaker 2>I ever got the chance to retire wealthy and have

0:52:42.040 --> 0:52:44.279
<v Speaker 2>some some zoomer pretend to be me and use an

0:52:44.280 --> 0:52:46.759
<v Speaker 2>AI voice, maybe I've done that already. Maybe you don't know,

0:52:46.800 --> 0:52:50.399
<v Speaker 2>You'll never know if it's still me. I mean, you know, Randy, and.

0:52:50.360 --> 0:52:52.160
<v Speaker 3>You know so Bay guys like I could see you.

0:52:52.520 --> 0:52:55.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you can see me. So I don't know. I'm

0:52:55.120 --> 0:52:56.640
<v Speaker 2>not gonna I'm not gonna shit talk him on that,

0:52:56.719 --> 0:52:59.480
<v Speaker 2>especially since it's not an AI. Actual artists are getting

0:52:59.520 --> 0:53:02.400
<v Speaker 2>their stars, are building careers drawing the Dennist the Menace cartoon.

0:53:02.480 --> 0:53:05.200
<v Speaker 3>It is a very common thing throughout this entire industry.

0:53:05.360 --> 0:53:07.640
<v Speaker 3>So what's being wrong with that? The only cartoonist I

0:53:07.840 --> 0:53:10.839
<v Speaker 3>know of who was very big who refused, lets someone

0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:11.960
<v Speaker 3>draws comic with Charles.

0:53:11.800 --> 0:53:15.320
<v Speaker 2>Schultz, Yeah, yeah, Schultz, and obviously in Waterson.

0:53:15.600 --> 0:53:18.839
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Waterson, yeah, obviously yeah yeah. And Larson, Harry Larson

0:53:18.920 --> 0:53:19.480
<v Speaker 3>pretty sure, oh.

0:53:19.480 --> 0:53:22.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And also like those are guys,

0:53:22.840 --> 0:53:25.040
<v Speaker 2>like I think Larson just brought it back. If I'm

0:53:25.040 --> 0:53:25.919
<v Speaker 2>not mistaken, he's.

0:53:26.840 --> 0:53:29.520
<v Speaker 3>Book I believe he's doing them yea. And Waterson also

0:53:29.560 --> 0:53:34.040
<v Speaker 3>came from a different field. Waterson came from political comics, yes,

0:53:34.320 --> 0:53:36.120
<v Speaker 3>and like you can tell for his line work, that's

0:53:36.160 --> 0:53:38.400
<v Speaker 3>what he started out as. And I think when you

0:53:38.440 --> 0:53:42.719
<v Speaker 3>have political comics like Berkeley Breathe or Gryto, like that's

0:53:42.760 --> 0:53:45.200
<v Speaker 3>just not a field that normally has cost artists.

0:53:45.680 --> 0:53:46.040
<v Speaker 1>Got it.

0:53:46.160 --> 0:53:48.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I was a huge Bloom County fan as a

0:53:48.400 --> 0:53:51.520
<v Speaker 2>kid too. Didn't understand a lot of the comments about

0:53:51.560 --> 0:53:56.840
<v Speaker 2>like fucking the Symbionese Liberation Army and ship the news dropping,

0:53:57.320 --> 0:53:58.680
<v Speaker 2>but love that opus.

0:54:00.320 --> 0:54:00.960
<v Speaker 3>He's so fun.

0:54:01.120 --> 0:54:04.480
<v Speaker 2>I love cutter John, Yeah yeah, Bill a cat great stuff.

0:54:05.280 --> 0:54:07.520
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, I got no issue with the fact that

0:54:07.640 --> 0:54:11.520
<v Speaker 2>he gives up drawing his cartoon gradually. Obviously that makes

0:54:11.560 --> 0:54:15.360
<v Speaker 2>sense to me. He does it in favor of spending

0:54:15.440 --> 0:54:18.360
<v Speaker 2>his free time painting arts. He depictions of jazz singers

0:54:18.440 --> 0:54:21.080
<v Speaker 2>and other like he tries to start a fine art career,

0:54:22.239 --> 0:54:24.000
<v Speaker 2>and he would claim later in life that this is

0:54:24.080 --> 0:54:26.640
<v Speaker 2>the work he wanted to be remembered by. Dennis the

0:54:26.719 --> 0:54:30.279
<v Speaker 2>menace was, he admitted, just a money generator. His art

0:54:30.560 --> 0:54:32.440
<v Speaker 2>was what he was really in. Like that that was

0:54:32.520 --> 0:54:35.400
<v Speaker 2>the posterity, right, he says, He says in this interview

0:54:35.480 --> 0:54:38.359
<v Speaker 2>with s F Gate. Now my painting, that's something else.

0:54:38.600 --> 0:54:41.239
<v Speaker 2>My bid to posterity is my paintings. And here's a

0:54:41.280 --> 0:54:42.360
<v Speaker 2>painting he did of Jesus.

0:54:43.400 --> 0:54:44.160
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna hate this, sir.

0:54:44.360 --> 0:54:48.879
<v Speaker 2>I it's it's just weird. It's not bad, it's not bad,

0:54:49.239 --> 0:54:50.080
<v Speaker 2>but it's weird.

0:54:51.440 --> 0:54:52.360
<v Speaker 3>What the hell?

0:54:53.120 --> 0:54:55.880
<v Speaker 2>I guess that's hair because it's like on his armpits

0:54:55.920 --> 0:55:00.759
<v Speaker 2>and his chest. It looks like he's sticking into him. Yeah,

0:55:01.880 --> 0:55:05.279
<v Speaker 2>a little odd, but like, like not bad. I wouldn't say.

0:55:05.280 --> 0:55:11.320
<v Speaker 3>It's definitely it has influences of his It's weird he

0:55:11.400 --> 0:55:12.880
<v Speaker 3>doesn't want to remember for his comic because I know

0:55:13.000 --> 0:55:15.879
<v Speaker 3>a lot of artists, yeah, who love his line work,

0:55:16.040 --> 0:55:17.520
<v Speaker 3>like his line work was very influenced.

0:55:18.160 --> 0:55:20.440
<v Speaker 2>Certainly, I mean he's a good, good darget illustrator. I

0:55:20.560 --> 0:55:23.880
<v Speaker 2>certainly I find Dennis the Menace. I can probably recall

0:55:24.120 --> 0:55:27.440
<v Speaker 2>the basic animation of that cartoon with my eyes closed.

0:55:27.480 --> 0:55:29.839
<v Speaker 2>And I don't think I'll remember this Jesus painting very much.

0:55:31.440 --> 0:55:33.280
<v Speaker 2>Yea like bomba?

0:55:34.280 --> 0:55:35.360
<v Speaker 3>Is that Obama Jesus?

0:55:36.160 --> 0:55:38.400
<v Speaker 2>No, he didn't live that long, so he wouldn't have

0:55:38.440 --> 0:55:42.719
<v Speaker 2>done it. And here's an untitled painting a bearded man.

0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:44.920
<v Speaker 2>This is this one's weirder and untitled painting of a

0:55:45.000 --> 0:55:47.759
<v Speaker 2>bearded man in a dog collar reaching for a cigarette

0:55:47.760 --> 0:55:49.440
<v Speaker 2>while a dominatrix stands over him.

0:55:49.520 --> 0:55:50.400
<v Speaker 3>What the hell?

0:55:52.000 --> 0:55:55.120
<v Speaker 2>That's a weird painting from the fucking Dennis the Menace guy. Huh.

0:55:55.880 --> 0:55:57.560
<v Speaker 2>There's no title to it, so I don't know what

0:55:57.680 --> 0:56:01.400
<v Speaker 2>he was going for with this, Like I I it

0:56:02.000 --> 0:56:04.480
<v Speaker 2>clearly that's a dominatrix though, right, both of those.

0:56:04.560 --> 0:56:07.960
<v Speaker 3>Dominator Yeah, a pair of dominatrixes dominatrixes.

0:56:08.280 --> 0:56:10.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the guy's got like a golden or a

0:56:10.520 --> 0:56:13.560
<v Speaker 2>bronze collar. He's got like spiked collars around his hands too,

0:56:13.640 --> 0:56:17.040
<v Speaker 2>and he's like on his knees grasping for a cigarette.

0:56:17.080 --> 0:56:19.879
<v Speaker 2>Someone stepped on it looks like it's weird. It's weird.

0:56:20.239 --> 0:56:25.000
<v Speaker 3>The women were laced up knee high boots. Yeah, it's interesting.

0:56:25.200 --> 0:56:27.120
<v Speaker 2>This is like learning it's bad.

0:56:27.440 --> 0:56:29.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like learning one of the creators a Superman

0:56:29.960 --> 0:56:31.719
<v Speaker 3>did all that weird bondage and murder.

0:56:31.920 --> 0:56:35.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's definitely odd. It's not what I would

0:56:35.320 --> 0:56:37.480
<v Speaker 2>have called for him. It certainly doesn't remind me of

0:56:37.560 --> 0:56:40.400
<v Speaker 2>his cartoons. But it's like it's it's competently drawn.

0:56:40.719 --> 0:56:43.880
<v Speaker 3>It it's actually like the composition's nice. I like the

0:56:43.960 --> 0:56:46.319
<v Speaker 3>facial structure, like I like the line work.

0:56:47.560 --> 0:56:50.440
<v Speaker 2>I saw it online. I think this was going for

0:56:50.520 --> 0:56:52.840
<v Speaker 2>like two hundred bucks, so like it's affordable. If you

0:56:52.920 --> 0:56:55.160
<v Speaker 2>want to hank catch him original, you can. You can

0:56:55.239 --> 0:56:57.000
<v Speaker 2>probably make that happen for yourself.

0:56:57.200 --> 0:57:00.480
<v Speaker 3>I mean, stuff might not be I mean, I'm sure his.

0:57:00.600 --> 0:57:03.120
<v Speaker 2>Cartoons are price yer, but I don't think there's a

0:57:03.160 --> 0:57:07.960
<v Speaker 2>lot of interest in his weird Dominatrix art. So one

0:57:07.960 --> 0:57:10.080
<v Speaker 2>of the most interesting articles I ran into on the

0:57:10.120 --> 0:57:12.880
<v Speaker 2>Man's Personality was published by the La Times in nineteen

0:57:12.960 --> 0:57:16.080
<v Speaker 2>eighty six, and it's got some really good paragraphs. Having

0:57:16.160 --> 0:57:18.400
<v Speaker 2>been approached by his fellow cartoonists to join them in

0:57:18.440 --> 0:57:21.280
<v Speaker 2>the crusade against hunger and Africa catch them, declined, I

0:57:21.360 --> 0:57:23.920
<v Speaker 2>think we have other priorities right here. I prefer to

0:57:24.000 --> 0:57:26.440
<v Speaker 2>do everything I can for my neighbors, then the peninsula,

0:57:26.680 --> 0:57:30.520
<v Speaker 2>then the state, then the country. My priorities are not overseas, no,

0:57:30.600 --> 0:57:34.440
<v Speaker 2>of course, not for God's sake. Like yeah, yeah, a

0:57:34.640 --> 0:57:37.840
<v Speaker 2>very standard thing, but worth bringing up just in terms

0:57:37.880 --> 0:57:39.960
<v Speaker 2>of like the kind of guy he was. There's a

0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:42.800
<v Speaker 2>revealing moment in this article where the journalist is like

0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:45.440
<v Speaker 2>looking at his drawing desk in his office and sees

0:57:45.480 --> 0:57:47.560
<v Speaker 2>a picture of a little boy on the desk, and

0:57:47.640 --> 0:57:49.760
<v Speaker 2>he's like, oh, is that a picture of your son?

0:57:49.960 --> 0:57:53.880
<v Speaker 2>Dennis the original Dennis the Menace? And Hanks's answer is, now,

0:57:53.920 --> 0:57:56.520
<v Speaker 2>he's forty, now doing his own thing. We don't communicate

0:57:56.600 --> 0:57:58.840
<v Speaker 2>that much. So who's the five year old in the picture?

0:57:59.120 --> 0:57:59.560
<v Speaker 3>That's me?

0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:02.840
<v Speaker 2>Now? Does he look like a menace? Nice chunky little fella?

0:58:03.080 --> 0:58:07.520
<v Speaker 2>Future Republican fella future grumpy old man. God, what a

0:58:07.600 --> 0:58:12.840
<v Speaker 2>weird What a weird thing to say we like of

0:58:13.000 --> 0:58:16.120
<v Speaker 2>yourself for the cartoon that you draw about your kid

0:58:16.240 --> 0:58:20.000
<v Speaker 2>who you abandoned. A little weird. Yeah, so, I don't know.

0:58:20.400 --> 0:58:22.480
<v Speaker 2>You can have whatever opinion on his fine art you want,

0:58:22.560 --> 0:58:24.480
<v Speaker 2>but time has shown pretty clearly that he is not

0:58:24.560 --> 0:58:26.520
<v Speaker 2>going to be remembered for that. He will be remembered

0:58:26.560 --> 0:58:29.040
<v Speaker 2>for both Dennis the Menace and being a bad dad.

0:58:29.600 --> 0:58:31.960
<v Speaker 2>Hank himself died in two thousand and one, and his

0:58:32.120 --> 0:58:35.120
<v Speaker 2>first son, the original Dennist the Menace, did not attend

0:58:35.160 --> 0:58:36.120
<v Speaker 2>his funeral.

0:58:36.600 --> 0:58:39.000
<v Speaker 3>Nor would he Like do we know what he's doing now?

0:58:39.120 --> 0:58:39.600
<v Speaker 3>Is he okay?

0:58:39.840 --> 0:58:41.760
<v Speaker 2>I haven't heard much. I haven't heard anything about him

0:58:41.840 --> 0:58:43.360
<v Speaker 2>in the last few years. I mean, he would be

0:58:43.440 --> 0:58:46.320
<v Speaker 2>pretty old at this point. If he's still around, I

0:58:46.440 --> 0:58:50.360
<v Speaker 2>wish him the best. Uh maybe depending on what happened

0:58:50.360 --> 0:58:53.200
<v Speaker 2>with his teenage daughter. I guess I don't know fully,

0:58:53.360 --> 0:58:56.600
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, the dad didn't help with that, I'll tell

0:58:56.600 --> 0:58:57.120
<v Speaker 2>you that much.

0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:01.520
<v Speaker 3>I mean, like, you're abandoned by your family, like your

0:59:01.560 --> 0:59:04.520
<v Speaker 3>mom was probably not really present, your dad ditches you.

0:59:05.200 --> 0:59:09.400
<v Speaker 3>Then you go to fucking Vietnam. M Well, first of noo,

0:59:09.520 --> 0:59:11.560
<v Speaker 3>then you're gonna send your your mom dies, you don't

0:59:11.600 --> 0:59:14.600
<v Speaker 3>find out, your dad remarries, moves you across the world,

0:59:15.080 --> 0:59:17.200
<v Speaker 3>gets mad you're not learning a new language. When you're

0:59:17.400 --> 0:59:21.120
<v Speaker 3>having trouble learning, his new wife says and on one

0:59:21.200 --> 0:59:23.840
<v Speaker 3>and you get sent away that marriage doesn't even fucking

0:59:23.920 --> 0:59:27.600
<v Speaker 3>work out. Then you go in the Marines, serve in

0:59:28.240 --> 0:59:32.200
<v Speaker 3>a war that's fucking horrible. Come back to all that hate,

0:59:32.360 --> 0:59:35.720
<v Speaker 3>because let's be honest, I'm sure he was not treated

0:59:35.760 --> 0:59:38.560
<v Speaker 3>real well when he got back, and the government kind

0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:41.600
<v Speaker 3>of forgot about you, just like your dad did. There's

0:59:41.680 --> 0:59:43.600
<v Speaker 3>just so much pain and sadness there.

0:59:43.920 --> 0:59:45.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's uh.

0:59:45.640 --> 0:59:48.240
<v Speaker 1>And all people do is associate you with a cartoon

0:59:48.480 --> 0:59:51.320
<v Speaker 1>version of yourself that h from a dad who didn't

0:59:51.360 --> 0:59:51.520
<v Speaker 1>know you.

0:59:52.480 --> 0:59:57.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, your dad built an

0:59:57.480 --> 1:00:01.160
<v Speaker 3>entire world off you. There's there's been so as movies,

1:00:01.720 --> 1:00:04.960
<v Speaker 3>there were cartoon shows. I mean when I was a kid,

1:00:05.080 --> 1:00:07.360
<v Speaker 3>Dennis Lamas was like a Dairy Queen mascot.

1:00:07.840 --> 1:00:09.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, he's a d Q kid. And it's yeah

1:00:10.000 --> 1:00:12.960
<v Speaker 2>to think that, like from the perspective of Dennis the

1:00:13.040 --> 1:00:16.480
<v Speaker 2>real boy, the only moment where his dad paid attention

1:00:16.600 --> 1:00:18.840
<v Speaker 2>to him. Was that moment his mom yelled at him

1:00:19.120 --> 1:00:21.600
<v Speaker 2>that inspired the comic, and that was all his dad

1:00:21.720 --> 1:00:23.520
<v Speaker 2>needed from him and his entire life.

1:00:23.880 --> 1:00:27.760
<v Speaker 3>That is as a that's bleak.

1:00:29.560 --> 1:00:32.480
<v Speaker 1>I wonder if the author of Gone Girl got inspired

1:00:32.560 --> 1:00:35.840
<v Speaker 1>by this story when she wrote, Uh, look you know,

1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:38.280
<v Speaker 1>do you know? Do you know that what I'm talking about?

1:00:38.320 --> 1:00:39.320
<v Speaker 1>Anyone isn't that?

1:00:41.120 --> 1:00:41.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

1:00:41.400 --> 1:00:45.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So the the main the main female characters entire

1:00:45.320 --> 1:00:49.480
<v Speaker 1>life was her. Her mom wrote books called the Amazing

1:00:49.600 --> 1:00:54.960
<v Speaker 1>Amy and it was inspired by her. Remember that. And

1:00:55.920 --> 1:00:59.360
<v Speaker 1>I just wonder if the author I think the author's

1:00:59.440 --> 1:01:04.040
<v Speaker 1>name is gil Flynn. I just wonder if the maybe

1:01:04.400 --> 1:01:06.120
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of parallels there.

1:01:07.280 --> 1:01:13.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Well, everybody that's behind the bastards, Randy,

1:01:13.320 --> 1:01:14.680
<v Speaker 2>where can people find you? Online?

1:01:15.720 --> 1:01:18.120
<v Speaker 3>Probably crying in a corner for a while after that

1:01:18.240 --> 1:01:22.000
<v Speaker 3>goddamn story. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I

1:01:22.040 --> 1:01:25.440
<v Speaker 3>don't get brought on for the dying baby episodes, so

1:01:26.960 --> 1:01:28.080
<v Speaker 3>that's that's nice.

1:01:28.520 --> 1:01:31.160
<v Speaker 2>Just the traumatized child episodes.

1:01:32.240 --> 1:01:34.080
<v Speaker 3>An awful cartoon, which is a lot. I can't wait

1:01:34.120 --> 1:01:36.720
<v Speaker 3>to come back for l Cap or the guy who

1:01:36.760 --> 1:01:39.240
<v Speaker 3>did Annie. He was a piece of shit too something

1:01:39.320 --> 1:01:41.400
<v Speaker 3>Positive dot net. That is the comic Gun drawings in

1:01:41.440 --> 1:01:43.960
<v Speaker 3>two thousand and one. I also draw the Sunday Popeye

1:01:43.960 --> 1:01:47.040
<v Speaker 3>strips as well as the Thursday all of them Popeye comics.

1:01:47.920 --> 1:01:50.560
<v Speaker 3>I also do a comic called mouse Trap, which you

1:01:50.600 --> 1:01:52.920
<v Speaker 3>can find out mouse Trap Comic top Blog.

1:01:54.480 --> 1:01:57.920
<v Speaker 2>Well check all that out, folks, and uh go to Hell.

1:01:58.160 --> 1:01:58.560
<v Speaker 3>I Love you.

1:02:02.240 --> 1:02:04.920
<v Speaker 1>Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1:02:05.280 --> 1:02:08.560
<v Speaker 1>For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1:02:08.760 --> 1:02:11.919
<v Speaker 1>dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1:02:12.040 --> 1:02:14.360
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.