The
Bash Street Kids is a
comic strip in the
Beano concerning
Class 2B of
Bash St School, a fine institution where the teacher and the headmaster still wear
mortar boards[?] (square caps) and
gowns. The class contains 10
students:
- 'Erbert - A shortsighted boy who can see perfectly well without spectacles but with them he is as blind as a bat.
- Fatty Fudge - A boy that can never stop eating.
- Danny - The leader with the soul of a pirate. Wears a skull and crossbones jumper his gran knitted him, a floppy red school cap which indicates his rebellious nature, and is quite crafty with his own sort of intelligence.
- Spotty - A short sarcastic character who is often compared to a christmas pudding. He is quite handy when he wants to be, and his attire (like his extraordinarily long tie) often help the kids out in tough situations.
- Wilfred - An interesting boy, with thoughts hidden behind the depth of his green jumper. He often resembles a tortoise and has a mystery about his neck that he would never reveal. Whenever he takes off his jumper all we see is a vest up to his nose. He could be said to resemble Chad, a character who leans over walls in doodles and graffiti.
- Toots - Sidney's twin sister and the girl of the class and the youngest. A classy tomboy who can be as bossy as Danny when she wants to be, but has more of a heart than any of her friends. She is very tough and the boys have no problem letting her join in their games.
- Smiffy - The naive dumb one who often confuses genders and nouns, he can be very kind and aware or things but most of the time he can't even get the answer to 1+1.
- Plug (Percival Proudfoot Plugsley) - The hideously ugly one who uses his face to his best defense. In fact he's so ugly that when he pulls a face he becomes handsome. Yet there is more to Plug than that, he is also a very funny guy. Perhaps his name comes from Pug, a breed of dog which is ugly. Later, in the 1980s, he appeared in his own comic, The Plug Comic, which starred him and his two pets, Pug, from The Bash Street Pups, and Chunkee the Monkey, a monkey of course.
- Cuthbert Cringeworthy - clever one or school swot who is really just a clone of the teacher. The kids hate him and just when you begin to feel sorry for him he turns right around and becomes bossy and rude and spoilt. He has a name for every letter of the alphabet.
- Sidney - Toot's twin brother and the keeper of a dozen animals. He wishes to become a vet when he grows older because he knows more about animals than anything, which is quite useful to the class, and he always has spiky hair resembling a chimney sweepers brush[?] in which he takes pride.
It should be pointed out that each of the kids have parents which look exactly the same as that kid. Mrs. Teacher also looks like Teacher, she even has a moustache. I don't think Mrs. Headmaster has been seen and the Head has reportedly been going with Olive, the school cook of awful food, to events such as dances. But then again maybe Beano readers aren't interested in the private lives of teachers.
They have had various spin offs like the Bash Street Pups and Simply Smiffy and The Plug Comic. The strip was created by Leo Baxendale in 1954 under the title When the Bell Rings, and became The Bash Street Kids in 1956. Baxendale continued to draw it until 1962.