STILL MORE DETECTIVE WORK (CONTINUED)

In his book A VERY FUNNY BUSINESS Leo Baxendale recalls redrawing Little Plum and Minnie the Minx from the BEANO as Barmy Army and Bad Penny in WHAM! and SMASH! However, he forgot to mention that he also redrew at least one set of The Bash Street Kids as The Tiddlers. Check out the scans below. The episode of The Bash Street Kids is from the BEANO Book 1960 and The Tiddlers is from WHAM! No. 64 (4th September, 1965). There is nothing in The Tiddlers set to suggest that Mr. Baxendale was over-exhausted or stressed out from working under a tight time schedule: the artwork is excellent and more detailed than in the original episode of the Bash Street Kids. Quite obviously the artist himself was pleased with the quality of the work because his signature appears on both pages of the set.

It is interesting to note that the Beatles theme was incorporated in two of Leo Baxendale’s remakes: the billboard poster in the set from WHAM! No. 64 below featured the whole band and Ringo Starr appeared in panel 5 of the Barmy Army set a week later (WHAM! No. 65) for no reason at all (see my previous post here).