The Old-School Dairy Queen Mascot That Lasted Over 30 Years But Disappeared In 2001

Fast food mascots come and go, and even the biggest chains have run through several ideas over the years. Ronald McDonald is synonymous with McDonald's, but don't forget Mac Tonight, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and a dozen other characters. Burger King has the King, Taco Bell had the Taco Bell dog, and Dairy Queen had Dennis the Menace for three decades. The comic strip character, a Bart Simpson like child in his antics, created by artist Hank Ketcham, dates all the way back to 1951. So where did he go, and when did Dairy Queen stop using him?

Dennis the Menace became a mascot for the Dairy Queen franchise in 1971. Although you may not know much about the character today, Dennis the Menace was incredibly popular. By the end of the 1950s, the comic strip was syndicated in more than a thousand newspapers. There was a Dennis the Menace TV show that ran for four years, a cartoon series, and a live action movie in the 1990s. However, Dennis was retired in 2001 as the culture outgrew him. "He was a wonderful fit for the brand at a time when the brand, culture and society were in a different place," Michael Keller, Dairy Queen's executive vice-president of marketing and R&D, told Brand Channel in 2004. "He just doesn't have the relevance with today's youth that he had with yesterday's youth."

Beyond Dennis the Menace becoming less relevant, the trademark license lapsed in December 2002. This occurred nearly 10 years after the Dennis the Menace movie was released, so there was plenty of time for whatever cultural influence Dennis had to fade away. And after 30 years, it's not unusual for a company to want to shake up its image a little bit.

The 2001 pivot away from Dennis the Menace was also one that took Dairy Queen towards the Grill and Chill concept. The company wanted to focus not just on the fact they sold ice cream, but hot food as well. Because this shift emphasized burgers and fish sandwiches over sweet treats, it makes sense that Dairy Queen would focus less on children and more on what it could offer customers of all ages.

This was not a quick switch that Dairy Queen was looking to pull off. Keller said the plan was to shift all of the franchise's locations to Grill and Chill over a 10- to 15-year period. That means they planned for this change to last until around 2019. It seems like Dairy Queen likes to take its time with branding. Thirty years of Dennis the Menace and then 15 years to build up the idea that they sell hot food. Nevertheless, even after all this time, the Dairy Queen Blizzard is still one of the best items on the menu while the hot dog is one of the worst. The pivot to being known for more than just sweet treats may still need more time.