When did those awkward, tormented creatures known as teenagers first crawl out of the primordial ooze and into American culture? Believe it or not, they didn't always exist. It was not until World War II, with grown men off fighting and grown women working in factories, that adolescents were left idle and unsupervised long enough to wreak havoc. In the forties, fifties, and sixties a new breed of youth evolved -- the juvenile delinquent -- and this state of emergency was quickly dramatized in every cultural medium. In Teenage Confidential, Michael Barson and Steve Heller conduct a guided tour through three decades of teen angst, displayed in shocking Technicolor on movie posters, paperbacks, comic books, advertising art, television shows, and Top Forty music paraphernalia. From Father Knows Best to Youth Runs Wild, this unflinching survey spotlights the sordid ways of our rebel youth.