Peck's Bad Boy

Fictional Character

Peck's Bad Boy was the fictional star of newspaper stories and books created by George W. Peck in the late 1800s. 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.

Other popular pranksters: Bart Simpson, Pippi Longstocking and Ken Kesey.