“Dennis the Menace”, the cartoon about a naughty schoolboy, has been rebranded and will feature a menace no more.
The character will now be referred to as plain Dennis in the weekly Beano and its annual.
Publisher of the Beano, DC Thomson, said Dennis had “made mistakes in the past” but had now “moved away from his ‘menacing’ ways”.
Mike Stirling, head of Beano Studios Scotland, was adamant that Dennis had not actually been a menace for some time.
“Today’s Dennis is a flawed hero, a ten-year-old boy who fears nothing and sometimes gets into trouble as a result,” he told The Times.
“He makes mistakes just like any other person but his mistakes only make him more determined to succeed.
“He has moved away from his ‘menacing’ ways, but still dances to the beat of his own drum as a mischief-maker and is very much a leader amongst his pals.”
The removal of the word menace and the rebrand comes as a new CBBC series, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed, which will embrace difference and diversity, is set to start.
Some young fans have questioned whether Dennis has been tamed but Beano bosses have denied the change is a concession to political correctness.
Instead they have argued that this is just part of the evolution of Dennis’s character.
