The Dead End Kids were six young actors from New York who appeared in Sidney Kingsley 's play Dead End in 1935 on Broadway. They were then imported en masse to Hollywood by William Wyler in 1937 when he filmed the play, and proved to be so popular that they remained as a more or less viable entity until their final film (as the Bowery Boys) in 1958.

The original kids from the play were Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Charles Duncan, Bernard Punsly and Gabriel Dell . Sometime during the original run, Duncan was replaced in the role of Spit by Leo B. Gorcey , who went on to achieve some fame with the series as the resident weasel and wise guy. Gorcey later became better known as Muggs in Monogram's East Side Kids series, and as Slip Mahoney when Monogram (now known as Allied Artists ) changed the group to the Bowery Boys.

Following the success of Dead End, the kids (who were by nature rambunctious) ended up at Warner Bros., where they made several more films, most of which are considered to be the best they made as a group, especially Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), and They Made Me A Criminal (1939). The group (minus Gorcey) also worked at Universal during this time as the Dead End Kids along with Universal's own entry into the juvenile delinquent genre, the Little Tough Guys. They made several films for Universal before throwing in the towel in 1943. By this time, Jordan had left the series to star with Gorcey in the East Side Kids films, and Hall was busy working in both series.

The group added the term dead end kid to the language as it came to refer to any group of troublesome, boisterous youth, and became forever typecast in their roles, which may have led to the numerous problems and run-ins they subsequently had over the years with the authorities.

As of 1999, Huntz Hall and Bernard Punsly were the last surviving members of The Dead End Kids. Huntz Hall died in 1999 and Bernard Punsly died in 2004. Bernard Punsly was the last member of the Dead End kids who left to become a doctor in the United States Army.