The final film in Universal's series, Keep 'Em Slugging, was released in 1943, with Bobby Jordan replacing erstwhile ringleader Billy Halop.
Original Dead End Kids Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell followed Jordan and Gorcey to Monogram, as did freelance juvenile Billy Benedict of the Little Tough Guys.
The new series followed a more established formula than the prior incarnations of the team, with the gang usually hanging out at Louie's Sweet Shop (at 3rd and Canal St.) until an adventure came along.
In 1948 Bobby was replaced by Butch Williams, with former East Side Kids Bennie Bartlett and Buddy Gorman alternating in the role.
The proprietor of the malt shop where they hung out was the panicky Louie Dumbrowski (Bernard Gorcey, Leo's and David's real-life father).
Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, "Scruno" in the East Side Kids films, declined an invitation to rejoin the gang.
Gabriel Dell returned in the fourth entry, Spook Busters (1946), as "Gabe Moreno," a former member of the gang just out of the Navy with a French war bride in tow.
Gabe was a convenient "utility" character, frequently changing jobs (attorney, policeman, song plugger, reporter, television personality) to suit the story at hand—and the limited casting budget.
He reprised one of his East Side Kids roles in Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947), playing a myopic nerd with thick glasses, ascot, and cap.
The new approach literally paid off: "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters was the best moneymaker of all of them," Bernds told historian Ted Okuda in 1987.
Gorcey claimed to have quit, but Edward Bernds offered an opinion from behind the scenes: "He was even worse on Crashing Las Vegas than he was on Dig That Uranium, and I believe Ben [Schwalb] went to [studio executive] Walter Mirisch and said, 'It won't work; he's impossible and if we're going to continue this series we've got to do it with somebody else'... No, Leo was fired -- he drank too much and he couldn't do his work anymore.
"[4] The studio owed exhibitors three more films for the 1956 season, so Gorcey was replaced by Stanley Clements, a former tough-teen actor who had been in a few East Side Kids movies.
Clements, as "Duke Coveleskie," adapted to the series easily and completed the three films, which now starred "Huntz Hall and The Bowery Boys."
With Louie absent, the gang's new hangout was a rooming house, where they helped landlady Kate Kelly (played first by Doris Kemper, then by Queenie Smith).
Producer Ben Schwalb moved on to other projects at Allied Artists, but Huntz Hall still had two films left on his contract.
After the series concluded with In the Money, Allied Artists began a formal reissue program, continuing to release the films seasonally.
Initial distribution was advertised by Warner Bros. as being traditionally replicated on "pressed disc" media in anticipation of high demand for the films to be "remastered from the best available elements."