The East Side Kids were one of the off-shoots from the original Dead End Kids series of films, and contained several of the original members who appeared in the series from time to time, most notably: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan and Gabriel Dell. Gorcey was the official leader, and second-banana/featured kid status shifted originally from Jordan to Hall who joined the gang in 1941.
The original East Side Kids in Monogram's East Side Kids of 1940 didn't feature any of the Dead End Kids, and was composed primarily of juvenile actors from Universal's Little Tough Guys series. Later that year Gorcey and Jordan were cast in the featured roles, and were usually abetted in their anarchistic mayhem by Gorcey's brother David, Sunshine Sammy Morrison (interestingly, this character, who was black, was on an equal footing with the others, which was certainly unusual for the forties), as well as a rotating cast from Universal's former series.
In the first few films, Dave O'Brien (Mish-Mash the Muttonhead from the Pete Smith shorts) played Jordan's older brother Knuckles Dolan, who always seemed to be getting roped into chaperoning the kids from adventure to adventure. The membership roster changed from film to film, until after Huntz Hall joined in 1941, when it more or less stabilized. Their films weren't as prestigious as the ones they'd made as the Dead End Kids, but were popular nonetheless, enough so that they were spun off in 1946 (when it was obvious even to the studios that they were no longer "kids") into the Bowery Boys, as whom they toiled until 1958.
The East Side Kids were, on the whole, less threatening than the original Dead Enders were, and most of their later films were played for comedy rather than social relevance. It was here that Gorcey's tough guy persona was crystalized, as well as Huntz Hall's second banana goofball identity, and this is the series that most fans of the genre most readily recall.
The original Dead End Kids were usually led by Billy Halop (though Jordan took over the leader role in the final Universal film), but both the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys were led by Gorcey whose Muggs McGinnes (the spelling would vary from film to film) became known for his often hilarious use of malapropisms and trademark fedora with the turned up brim. Likewise, Huntz Hall's addled knucklehead (Gimpty, Glimpy, and finally Sach) became his trademark complete with baseball cap and non-sequiturs.
Neither Halop nor Bernard Punsly (now a doctor) appeared in either the East Side Kids or Bowery Boys series, just as Gorcey never appeared with the Dead End Kids in the Universal films.
