Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus 1938

Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus was released in 1938. Tommy Kelly starred as Bill Peck. This simple story revolves around Peck's adventures at the circus, helping a young female circus performer and getting to camp to run in a race.

Although the movie credits clearly state "Based upon characters created by George W. Peck", there really is little semblance to Peck's works. Peck's Bad Boy Hennery is named Bill in the movie. The 1906 Peck book- Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus" has virtually no connection with the movie whatsoever. Bill Peck plays a few practical jokes in the movie but they are really rather tame compared to the book's misadventures.

The 68 minute black and white movie was directed by Edward F. Cline. Other featured actors included Ann Gillis, Edward Kennedy and Benita Hume. When I watched this film I immediately recognized the voice (and young face) of William Demarest. Spanky McFarland also has a role.

This movie is available on youtube in its entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmP37fheGdk

Ephemera:

A small book in boards was adapted from the movie. See: http://www.georgewpeck.com/book22.html

A coloring book, Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus Coloring Book, was published in 1939. For more information see: http://www.georgewpeck.com/publishers/mcloughlin.html.

Posters, movie photographs, promo pieces and various other ephemera are readily available. Some are shown below.

	(14" x 11")

The campaign book is a promotional piece that gives information about the movie, actors, available posters and advertisement stereos for the movie. Presumably these items were made available to the theaters to help boost movie ticket sales.

The campaign book clearly spells out all of the publicity items that were available. Example are shown below.

Photographic movie scenes

Here is the front page of a two page advertisement for the Temple Theatre in Houlton, Maine.

Board Game
In 1939 a board game called Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus was published by Milton Bradley. It was "inspired" by the Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus movie. For information see http://georgewpeck.com/games.html.