Peck’s Bad Boy
Fictional Character
Date Of Birth:
c. 1875
Best Known As:
Naughty hero of the "Peck's Bad Boy" stories
Peck's Bad Boy was the fictional star of newspaper stories and books created by George W. Peck in the late 1800s. (Peck wrote the stories, hence the naughty character became known as Peck's Bad Boy.) In the stories, Hennery (or Henry) Peck was a mischievous lad who loved to play sneaky pranks on others, especially his father, for the sheer pleasure of creating mayhem. The stories were a huge hit in their era, and the name Peck's Bad Boy became a popular term for any incorrigible rule-breaker. George Peck collected his stories into several books, most notably Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa (1883).
Extra Credit
Peck’s Bad Boy was played by George M. Cohan in an 1891 stage adaptation of the stories. He was played in a 1921 silent film by Jackie Coogan (who the same year co-starred with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid and later was Uncle Fester on the TV sitcom The Addams Family) and in a 1934 ‘talkie’ by a later child star, Jackie Cooper… Peck’s Bad Boy was also the name of a popular jazz band of the 1920s… Peck’s Bad Boy is no relation to real-life actor Gregory Peck.
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