The Beano's Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Show

The Beano's Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Show is a British puppet series based on characters from The Beano comic, which aired on The Children's Channel between 3 December 1990 and 27 June 1991. The show was directed and produced by Bob Harvey and written by Mike Barfield, with voices by Logan Murray and artwork by John Bonner.

Plot
Dennis the Menace lives in Beanotown and lives for a bit of mischief, while his best pal Gnasher chomps his way through life whilst gasping out the odd hiss of a word. Trying to stand in the way of Dennis' quest for unabashed fun and menacing are Mum and Dad, who just want their darling son to be less reckless and naughty. They would probably much rather he be like well-behaved Walter the Softy, who often finds himself on the receiving end of Dennis' pranks.

In addition to the standalone story segments, Dennis and Gnasher also starred in "Dennis Link Shows", taking place in the former's den, where they read viewer mail and presented other programming on The Children's Channel.

Production
Mike Barfield had been the producer, writer, researcher and co-presenter of Comic Cuts for British Satellite Broadcasting, produced by The Children's Channel's parent company Starstream. DC Thomson had partial ownership of The Children's Channel, who had been hoping for a long time that they would let them make a show based on Dennis the Menace from The Beano. When Starstream realised that Barfield was a fan of comics from doing Comic Cuts, they offered him the chance to write the pilot. DC Thomson liked it, and the show got commissioned.

Barfield had been reading The Beano since he was a child in the 1960s. He had old annuals and a few comics, but he did not read so many Beano comics once he was a teenager. He simply had to catch up with where Dennis had got to in the comics. Fortunately, it did not take long, and DC Thomson sent him a load of comics to read. Barfield knew the world, characters and language of Dennis the Menace well, and also had a good idea of what he could and could not do or say, as DC Thomson were careful about their characters and the image that they presented to the world. Dennis was still allowed to be naughty around 1990, but in order to get the nod to write for the character, Barfield was sent up to Dundee to meet the rest of the Beano team, including then-editor Euan Kerr. They took Barfield to lunch and they talked about the characters and what he could and could not write. Though Barfield tried to bring in other writers by getting friends of his to write sample scripts, DC Thomson rejected every one of them. As a result, Barfield ended up writing all 100 episodes, with one of them co-written by Bob Harvey, who directed and produced the series. Most of the episodes were not stories, but simply what Barfield and Harvey called "Dennis Link Shows". These were set in Dennis' den, where he and Gnasher would read viewer mail, before presenting other programming on The Children's Channel. Barfield also wove in story segments that had been written by himself in his flat in Shepherd's Bush and filmed earlier. John Du Prez composed the series' punk-style theme song.

The Children's Channel approached puppet company Ultimate Animates Productions, owned by David Barclay, about creating 3D puppets for the show. The first series featured only three puppets; Dennis, Gnasher and Walter. All other characters could only appear as drawings or be heard offscreen. The puppets were filmed against a green screen and superimposed over hand-drawn backgrounds, done in Paintbox by John Bonner and Bob Jobling. For the second series, two more puppets, Dad and Mum, were made. The comic's creators, such as David Law and David Sutherland, praised Ultimate Animates for making the most successful 3D versions of their characters that they had seen in 40 years. The characters were puppeteered by Barclay, Mike Quinn, Karen Prell, Christopher Leith, Geoff Felix, Ian Tregonning and Gillie Robic. All the character voices were supplied by Logan Murray.