impish

North shot to fame playing Dennis, an impish child who wore baggy overalls with a slingshot in his back pocket and who often made a mess of things for his neighbor George Wilson.

With one foot in either place, we’re pulled between the impish naivete of childhood — when the future seemed vast and bright — and the doldrums of adulthood.

The figure of the author, typically a crotchety older man with an impish sense of humor and unabashed literary fervor, became a staple of his later work.

Decades later, few friends can recall the precise nature of Wellbaum’s work — something in engineering? — but all remember vividly his impish sense of humor, and his devotion to McKenna.

Wolf makes a concerted effort to get at the truth, but Reubens, like the impish Pee-wee, remains guarded.