Beano favourites and unruly pupils of Class 2B the Bash Street Kids celebrate 65 years of school-based antics

ALTHOUGH none of them look it, today marks the 65th birthday of Beano favourites the Bash Street Kids.

Class 2B have been getting up to all sorts of classroom based hijinks and antics since their first appearance in the comic back on February 13, 1954.

Originally titled When The Bell Rings, the strip featured hordes of largely anonymous characters causing misery for Teacher.

Eventually whittled down to a cast of nine main characters (Danny, Smiffy, ‘Erbert, Spotty, Sid, Toots, Plug and Fatty), the strip was renamed Bash Street Kids in 1956.

The series was apparently inspired by scenes viewed from the offices of DC Thomson when the bell rang at a neighbouring Dundee school.

Its creator was the legendary Leo Baxendale, the man responsible for Minnie the Minx and Little Plum.

With their worst enemies being homework and telltales, the Bash Street Kids grew into being among the most well-loved Beano characters across generations.

To this day, they remain mainly frozen in a time of mortarboards, gowns and inkwells, but they’ve spawned their own books and video shorts and remain comic stalwarts.

The artists and writers have managed to create thousands of stories and scenarios based on a common experience for children across the country – the chore of going to school – with each character developing their own personalities and traits.

For their 60th anniversary, Dundee honoured the kids by naming a street in the West Marketgait area Bash Street.

And last year Bash Street was celebrated at The McManus art galley and museum as part of a Beano exhibition, which saw the venue renamed The McMenace

Happy birthday Bash Street!