Here is a Javascript function that I threw together the other day that will take the default format of a MySQL DATETIME or TIMESTAMP field (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) and convert it into a Date object in Javascript.

function parse_date(string) {
    var date = new Date();
    var parts = String(string).split(/[- :]/);

    date.setFullYear(parts[0]);
    date.setMonth(parts[1] - 1);
    date.setDate(parts[2]);
    date.setHours(parts[3]);
    date.setMinutes(parts[4]);
    date.setSeconds(parts[5]);
    date.setMilliseconds(0);

    return date;
}