is the 8 year old right, should the old Dennis return?

[claig]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249633/Boy-8-writes-letter-Beano-complaining-politically-correct-D ennis-Menace.html

Haven't a clue, other than to say it works for my five year old. He thinks Dennis the Menace is fab.

My dd loves Dennis on the telly. I loathe him. I can't remember who does the voice, but it really grates. I tend to put my head over the cooker and into the extraction fan when she watches it.

my DS loved reading his uncle's old Beano annuals. kreecherlivesupstairs, I think the voice on TV is the old actor Leslie Phillips, he can be grating. smee, if he thinks the new Dennis is fab, he will love the old one even more. The old ones are probably only available on ebay nowadays, but they make a good change from Biff and Chip.

Interestingly DS has got a couple of my old Beano annuals and he doesn't seem to notice the difference. Have to say I'm quite glad some of the old stuff's gone. I wasn't all that comfortable reading stories with him where people are teased because they're bookworms or fat.

Dennis in the comics still picks on Walter the Softy and I'm sure he still has quite an armoury. He does look a bit tamer though, which is a shame. They are still giving various pieces of plastic artillery as free gifts (though for a change, some rather fetching googly eye specs this week).

yes you're right, the old ones were bad when they picked on people

I think children like to vicariously live out the pleasure of being naughty like Dennis. It is a shame that everything is becoming a bit goody twoshoes nowadays

The only thing that surprised me was Dennis being Northern. I'd always heard him as a Cockernee lad.

I've never seen the TV show but of course Dennis is Northern!

Presumably Walter is an effete southerner?

Not sure if Northern or not, but v middleclass surely? detatched house, large garden...dad in brown hairy slippers and v s=necked slipover. Basically Dennis is William Brown in another guise - i.e. ragamuffin posh

GrimmaTheNome, excellent
although being a Southerner, I'm not sure I should really find that funny at all

He doesn't seem to be good two shoes in the Beanos I've read of late and he's most definitely still got catapults. His main enemy seems to be 'softies', which is a much vaguer term I guess.

good to hear that he hasn't been completely transformed and still has his bag of tricks, the DM article is probably overdoing it

Walter does occasionally get the upper hand.

I do like some of the jokes in the Beano

My DS got given a subscription to [http://www.dcthomson.co.uk/subscriptions/default.asp?pageName=productDetails&productID=12 this] and now it's all he reads. Lots of pea shooting and I get to feed my secret Winker Watson addiction to boot

What I want to know is: why do they only have pictures of boys reading the Beano? my dd reads it and likes Minnie the Minx and the girl in the Bash Street Kids. I can't remember it being just for boys when I was younger. There aren't many magazines that aren't pink and/or always stuck to plastic toys.

Yes, he is right. Sod the PC Dennis! The writer of Just William or Horrid Henry wouldn't change them to make them better behaved. I will not be buying the Beano until he's changed back!

My niece read them until she was about 12 though, and DS has my old annuals, so I can't see why it's marketed at boys either muminlondon.