In 1964 Boris Oman created a comic strip named “The Daredevil” based off his grandfather. “My grandfather was always a very peppy type of guy, never could you see a frown on his face. So, I wanted to put my own spin of his younger daredevil days on the funnies,” he said in an interview. The humorous strip was about a daredevil (Louis Venice) doing various tricks and stunts as his rival tries to outdo him, who always fails to do so. Since Oman did not have much money to publish in mainstream newspapers, he had to resort to putting the strip in obscure newspapers. Oman also created the novel “Mad & Bad: A Tale of the Worst Town on Earth” while creating the strip.
In 1974 a two-issue comic book was made for the ten year anniversary of the Daredevil. The comic told how Louis met his later wife (Claris) and how they got married. By the end of the second issue, they both have a baby boy named Dennis. “This, was actually based on how my parents met. Where they were from two different worlds but they managed to make it work. But there’s no way that Dennis is based off me, no sir,” Boris said in an interview. Dennis had triangle-shaped, fanglike teeth to make him appear as a “little devil” for he would frequently cause trouble.
Now with a cast of three, the strips continued. After about two months, executives thought that Dennis should have a sort of “partner-in-crime”, and thus, the new character Willis was added to the Venice family, who is only two years apart from Denis.
As the strip’s popularity grew, the comic was pitched for a live-action sitcom based on the characters. This was picked up and a pilot episode was made which aired on television somewhere in the mid to late 70s. Unfortunately the studio that made the pilot had gone into bankruptcy and the series met a premature end.
Later on, as the brothers grew up (Dennis, 10) (Willis, 8), executives discovered that the two were gaining much popularity with children, which led to Dennis and Willis being the main characters in their own comic strip named “The Daredevil Jr.” while the original Daredevil sadly fizzled away from syndication. There were meetings discussing whether to remove Dennis’ sharp teeth, but it was concluded that the teeth were so iconic that they decided to keep it as it is. They also made his hair spiky, so that it would be “easy for kids to doodle”.
In the mid 1980s, Ronald Newton, an animation advocate, adapted the Daredevil Jr. comic strip into a Saturday morning cartoon show, for he was a big fan of the comic strip. Executives thought the TV show would bring in a larger crowd of both viewers and readers. Many networks rejected the show, so it had to resort to being viewed on obscure channel stations, but it was popular nonetheless. “Although I love the comic, I always thought it could be built upon. Besides, kids love adventure,” Ronald said in the “making of” featurette. The show told about Dennis, Willis, and their friends having adventures in the park using their imaginations. Ronald was previously known for his creative views on the world of cartoons and his attempt to reboot Dacey Levi’s animated series of shorts, The Cartoon Coppers (1940’s).
As the series continued through the 1990s, the executives thought that the TV show would increase the amount of readers for the comic strip, but the show ironically took away most of the readers in favor of the TV series which evidently led to the slow demise of the Daredevil Jr. comic strip. In the midst of the decade, a made-for-TV movie was made for the series. Finally, as the 1990s came to a close, the Daredevil Jr. Show ended.
Throughout the 2000s, things were rather quiet for the Daredevil (Jr.) series. Dennis made an appearance in a skateboarding ad campaign, with an altered name, for the marketers thought “Daredevil Jr.” was too long. Either than that, there have been no activity from either series since.
Lately, rumors have said that Irving Sullivan (of “Zeke the Dirty Worker” and “The Story” fame) is planning to reboot the series for he was a fan of the TV show. Irving promises that it will be more action and fantasy oriented, and the comedy will be more zany than previous installments all while keeping the “family friendly” core of the series intact. We then asked Irving the current status of the series. “We’ve been playing around with a few concepts for some time, but it’s still uncertain if this’ll come to fruition, so please don’t speculate.” The new series would feature the whole Venice family instead of having the parents be cast to the sidelines. It would also feature a whole new setting, new supporting characters, new nicknames and a new love for video games for the main characters, and a new title which is said to be called, “The Dangerous Adventures”. Only time will tell if the new series pulls through and what will become of the Venice family cast of characters.