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Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a long-lived series of comedy short films about a troupe of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, Our Gang was produced at the Roach studio starting in 1922 as a silent short subject series. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, went to sound in 1929, and continued production until 1938, when he sold the series to MGM. MGM continued producing the comedies until 1944. A total of 220 shorts and one feature film, General Spanky, were eventually produced, featuring over forty-one child actors. In the mid-1950s, the 80 Roach-produced shorts with sound were syndicated for television under the title The Little Rascals, as MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark.
About the series
Unlike many other motion pictures featuring children that are based in fantasy, producer/creator Hal Roach rooted Our Gang in real life: the majority of the kids were poor, and the gang was often put at odds with snobbish rich kids, officious adults and parents, and other such adversaries. The series was notable in that the gang included both African-Americans and females in leading parts at a time when discrimination against both groups was commonplace.
Directoral approach
Senior director Robert F. McGowan helmed most of the Our Gang shorts until 1933, assisted by his nephew Anthony Mack. He worked hard to develop a style that allowed the kids to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written for the shorts, but the kids very rarely saw them; instead McGowan would explain the scene to be filmed to each kid right before it was shot, directing the children using a megaphone and encouraging improvisation. Of course, when sound came in at the end of the decade, McGowan was forced to modify his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Directors Gus Meins and Gordon Douglas used a more streamlined approach to McGowan's methods, in order to meet the demands of the increasingly sophisticated movie industry. Douglas in particular was forced to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach was forced to halve the running times of the shorts from two reels (20 minutes) to one (10 minutes).
Finding kid talent
As the children grew too old to be in the series, they were replaced by new kids, usually from the Los Angeles area. Eventually, Our Gang talent scouting was done using large-scale national contests, where thousands of kids (and their parents) tried out for one open role. Norman "Chubby" Chaney (who replaced Joe Cobb), Matthew "Stymie" Beard (who replaced Allen "Farina" Hoskins), and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas (who replaced Stymie) all won major contests to become members of the gang. Even when there wasn't a massive talent search going on, the Roach studio was bombarded by requests from parents who were certain their children were perfect for the series. Two of these children included future child stars Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple, neither of whom made it into the gang.
African Americans in Our Gang
The Our Gang series is notable for being one of the first times in movie history that African-Americans and Caucasians were portrayed as equals, though some historians do not look favorably upon the characters of the African-American children today. The most important African-American child actors in the series were Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Matthew "Stymie" Beard (whose trademark oversized derby hat was a gift from fellow comedian Stan Laurel), and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas.
The Black children in Our Gang often epitomized the Stepin Fetchit stereotype of a "Negro," who provided comedy relief by talking in mangled English, and frequently being so frightened that either his hair stood on end, or he turned white with fear (a special effect created with negative film exposure techniques). Comedian Eddie Murphy controversially parodied Buckwheat in a series of skits for Saturday Night Live. In their adult years these actors became some of Our Gang's staunchest defenders, maintaining that its integrated cast and innocent storylines were far from racist. They explained too that the white children's characters were similarly stereotyped: the "freckled kid," the "fat kid," the "pretty blond girl," and the "mischievous toddler."
History
Early years
According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, when he was auditioning a child actress to appear in one of his films. The girl was overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her mother left the office, Roach looked out his window to a lumberyard across the street. There he saw a group of children having an argument. The children had all taken sticks from the lumberyard to play with, but the smallest kid had taken the biggest stick, and the others were trying to force him to give it to the biggest kid. After realizing that he had been watching the kids for 15 minutes, Roach thought a short film series about kids just being themselves might be a success.
Work began on the first two-reel shorts in the new "kids-and-pets" series, which was to be called Hal Roach's Rascals, later that year. Director Fred Newmeyer helmed the first version of the pilot film, entitled Our Gang, but Roach scrapped Newmeyer's work and had former fireman Robert McGowan re-shoot the short. Roach tested it at various theatres around Hollywood. The attendees were very receptive, and the press clamored for "lots more of those 'Our Gang' comedies." The colloquial usage of the term Our Gang led to it becoming the series' second (yet more popular) official title, with the title cards reading "Our Gang Comedies: Hal Roach presents His Rascals in..." The series was officially called both Our Gang and Hal Roach's Rascals until 1932, when Our Gang became the sole title of the series.
The first cast of Our Gang kids were recruited primarily from children recommended to Roach by studio employees, including photographer Gene Kornman's daughter Mary Kornman, their friends' son Mickey Daniels, Roach child actor Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, and family friend Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Jack Davis (actor), Jackie Condon, and Joe Cobb. Most of the early shorts were shot outdoors and on location, and also featured a menagerie of comic animal characters, such as Dinah the Mule.
Roach's distributor Pathé released One Terrible Day, the fourth short to be produced for the series, as the first Our Gang short on September 10, 1922; the pilot Our Gang wasn't released until November 5. The Our Gang series was a success from the start, with the kids' naturalism, the funny animal actors, and McGowan's direction making for a successful combination. The shorts did well at the box office, and by the end of the decade the Our Gang kids were pictured on numerous product endorsements.
The biggest Our Gang stars in this period were Sunshine Sammy, around whom the series was formed; Mickey and Mary, who were often paired together in both and a later teen-age version called The Boy Friends in the early 1930s; and little Farina, who eventually became both the most popular member of the 1920s gang and the first true African-American child star. Other early Our Gang kids were Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson, Scooter Lowry, and Andy Samuel.
Changing distributors
After Sammy, Mickey, and Mary left the series in the mid-1920s, Our Gang declined slightly in popularity, although it remained financially successful. McGowan was often sick and unable to work on the series, leaving Mack to direct many of the shorts from this period. New faces included Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Harry Spear, Jean Darling, and Mary Ann Jackson, while stalwart Farina served as the series' anchor. During this period, Hal Roach ended his distribution arrangement with the Pathé company, instead releasing future products through newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM released its first Our Gang comedy in September 1927. The move to MGM offered Roach larger budgets, and the chance to have his films packaged with MGM features to the giant Loews Theatres chain.
Adding sound
Starting in 1928, Our Gang comedies were distributed with phonographic discs that contained synchronized music-and-sound-effect tracks for the shorts. In spring 1929, the Roach soundstages were converted for sound recording, and Our Gang made its "all-talking" debut in April 1929 with the three-reel Small Talk. It took a year for McGowan and the gang to fully adjust to talking pictures, during which time they lost Joe, Jean, and Harry, and added Norman "Chubby" Chaney, Dorothy DeBorba, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Donald Haines, and Jackie Cooper. Jackie proved to be the personality the series had been missing since Mickey left, and his talent was seen to good effect in three 1930 Our Gang shorts, Teacher's Pet, School's Out, and Love Business. Love Business, not released until 1931, explored his crush on the new schoolteacher, pretty Miss Crabtree, played by June Marlowe. Jackie soon won the lead role in Paramount's feature film Skippy, and Roach sold his contract to MGM.
Transition
Jackie Cooper left Our Gang at the cusp of another major shift in the lineup, as Farina, Chubby, and Mary Ann soon also departed. Our Gang entered another transitional period, similar to that of the mid-1920s. Stymie, Wheezer, and Dorothy carried the series during this period, aided by veteran child actors Dickie Moore and Kendall "Breezy Brisbane" McComas. Unlike the mid-20s period, McGowan was able to sustain the quality of the series, with the help of the kids and the Roach writing staff.
New Roach discovery George "Spanky" McFarland joined the gang in 1931 at the age of three and would end up staying for the next eleven years. At first appearing as the tag-along toddler of the group, and later finding an accomplice in Scott Beckett in 1934, Spanky quickly became Our Gang's biggest child star, appearing in a number of outside features, appearing on many of the now-numerous Our Gang product endorsements and spin-off merchandise items, and popularizing the expressions "Okey-dokey!" and "Okey-doke!"
In late-1933, Robert McGowan, worn out from the stress of working on the kids comedies, left the series and the Roach studio, going over to direct features at Paramount. German-born Gus Meins assumed his role starting with Hi'-Neighbor! in 1934, working with assistant director Gordon Douglas and alternating directorial duties with Fred Newmeyer.
Wally Albright and Jackie Lynn Taylor joined the gang at this time; as did Billie Thomas, who within a few months of joining would begin playing the character of Stymie's sister "Buckwheat" (even though Thomas was a male). The Buckwheat character became a male in 1935 after Stymie left the series. The same year, Carl Switzer and his brother Harold joined the gang after impressing Roach with an impromptu performance at the studio commissary, the Our Gang Cafe, which was open to the public. While Harold would eventually be relagated to the role of a background player, Carl, nicknamed "Alfalfa", became Scotty Beckett's replacement as Spanky's sidekick. Darla Hood and Eugene "Porky" Lee also joined the gang in 1935. Tommy Bond (who had been an off-and-on member of the gang since 1933) resumed the role of Alfalfa's bully who longed to win Darla who was loved and pursued by Alfalfa.
Down to one reel / General Spanky
Our Gang was hugely successful during the 1920s and the early 1930s. However, by 1934, movie theatre owners were increasingly dropping two-reel (twenty minute) comedies like Our Gang and the Laurel and Hardy series from their bills, and running double feature programs instead. Although the Laurel and Hardy series was discontinued in mid-1935 (and Laurel and Hardy moved into feature films full-time), Roach's distributor MGM wanted him to continue making one-reelers (ten-minutes instead of twenty). The first one-reel Our Gang short, Bored of Education, won the Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film in 1936. Bored of Education also marked the directorial debut of former assistant director Gordon Douglas.
Also in 1936, the first (and only) full-length feature film starring the Our Gang kids was released, entitled General Spanky. Directed by Douglas and Fred Newmeyer, it starred Spanky, Buckwheat, and Alfalfa in a sentimental, Shirley Temple-esque story set in the Civil War. The film focused more on its adult leads (Phillip Holmes and Rosina Lawrence) than the kids, and was a box-office disappointment.
Roach produced one last two-reel Our Gang short, the lavish Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937), a parody on the Broadway Melody of 1938. Alfalfa, who aspires to be an opera singer, falls asleep and dreams that his old pal Spanky has become the rich owner of a swanky Broadway nightclub, where Darla and Buckwheat perform and make "hundreds and thousands of dollars."
Most casual fans of Our Gang remember the 1936-1938 shorts the best, especially the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" from Hearts are Thumps and Mail and "Female, the Laurel and Hardy-ish interaction between Alfalfa and Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla's on-again, off-again romance, and the comic team of Porky and Buckwheat.
As the profit margins declined due to to double features, Roach could no longer afford to produce the series, and sold the entire Our Gang unit (including the rights to the name, the Our Gang film backlog from 1927 to 1938, and the contracts for the actors, writers, and director Douglas) to MGM in May 1938.
The MGM era
The MGM- produced Our Gang shorts were not as well-received as the Roach-produced shorts had been, due to both MGM's inexperience with the brand of slapstick comedy Our Gang was famous for and MGM's insistence on keeping Alfalfa, Spanky, and Buckwheat in the series until they were teenagers. After a frustrated Gordon Douglas left MGM to return to Roach after completing only two films, MGM began using Our Gang as a training ground of sorts for future feature directors; George Sidney, Edward Cahn, Herbert Glazer, and Cy Endfield all worked on Our Gang before moving on to features. The new Our Gangers recruited by MGM were more in the vein of the "cute" kids that Roach had despised than the original gang. Robert Blake (using his given name of Mickey Gubitosi), Billy "Froggy" Laughlin (with his Popeye-esque trick voice), and Janet Burston were among the major additions at MGM. The series dropped in popularity, and financial success after 1939, and when more of the shorts began sustaining losses rather than turning profits, MGM discontinued Our Gang, releasing the final short, Tale of a Dog on April 29, 1944.
Starting in 1942, MGM licensed Our Gang to Dell Comics for the publication of Our Gang Comics, featuring the gang, Barney Bear, and Tom and Jerry. Our Gang Comics outlasted the series by five years, finally changing its name to Tom and Jerry Comics in 1949.
Post-history
Curley and Who Killed Doc Robbin
When Hal Roach sold Our Gang to MGM, he had retained the rights to buy back the rights to the Our Gang trademark, provided he did not produce anymore kids' comedies in the Our Gang vein. In the mid-1940s, he decided that he wanted to create a new film property in the Our Gang mold, and forfeited his right to buy back the Our Gang name in order to produce two Cinecolor featurettes, Curley and Who Killed Doc Robbin. Neither film was critically nor financially successful, and Roach instead turned his plans to re-releasing the original Our Gang comedies.
The Little Rascals
In 1949, MGM allowed Roach to buy back the rights to the 1927-1938 Our Gang shorts, provided he remove the MGM Lion studio logo, and all instances of the names or logos "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer," "Loews Incorporated," and Our Gang from the reissued film prints. Using a modified version of the series' original name, Roach packaged the 80 sound Our Gang shorts as The Little Rascals and had Monogram Pictures distribute the shorts; first to theatres starting in 1951, and then to television in 1955. Under its new name, The Little Rascals enjoyed renewed popularity on television, and many of the kids who watched the shorts never realized that many of them had been made almost a quarter century beforehand. Seeing the potential of the property's success, MGM began distributing their own Our Gang shorts to television in 1956.
The television rights to The Little Rascals were eventually assigned to a then-new distributor named King World Entertainment, and the success of The Little Rascals paved the way for King World to become one of the biggest television syndicators in the world; distributing, along with the Rascals, Oprah, Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune.
1979 brought The Little Rascals Christmas Special, an animated holiday special based on the gang and featuring voice work from Matthew "Stymie" Bead and Darla Hood. Hanna-Barbera brought the animated gang back from 1982 to 1984 in a series of Little Rascals television cartoons for ABC Saturday Mornings. Many producers, including Our Gang alumnus Jackie Cooper, made pilots for new Our Gang TV shows, but none of them ever went into production.
In 1994, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures released The Little Rascals, a feature film based upon the series and featuring interpretations of classic Our Gang shorts, including Hearts are Thumps, Rushin' Ballet, and Hi'-Neighbor! The film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, starred Travis Tedford as Spanky, Bug Hall as Alfalfa, and Ross Begley as Buckwheat; and featured cameos by the Olsen twins, Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, and Raven-Symoné. The Little Rascals was a moderate success for Universal, and for a short time a sequel and a television series were planned, but nothing came to pass.
Legacy and influence
The characters in this series became well-known cultural icons, and could often be identified solely by their first names. The characters of Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Darla, and Froggy were especially well-known, though like many child actors they were subsequently typecast and had trouble outgrowing their Our Gang images.
One notable exception is Jackie Cooper, who was later nominated for an Oscar and had a full career as an adult actor; among other roles his best known character is probably Perry White in the Superman movies. Robert Blake (Mickey Gubitosi) also went on to success as an adult in cinema (In Cold Blood) and television (Baretta).
Due to its popularity, a number of imitation kid comedy short film series were created by competing studios. Our Gang also spawned a large number of adults in later years who falsely claimed to have been a member of the popular group. Most notable is Jack Bothwell, who claimed to have portrayed a non-existent character named "Freckles" and went so far as to appear on the game show To Tell The Truth perpetuating this fraud.
The folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang was named in honor of the troupe, but had no other connection with it.
In 1994, Cabin Fever Entertainment began releasing a series of 22 Little Rascals VHS tapes, which featured uncut and restored copies of all 80 sound Roach shorts, and 5 of the silent films as well, all hosted by film historian Leonard Maltin. The first four of these tapes were repackaged for DVD in the early 2000s. MGM has released four non-comprehensive VHS tapes of its shorts, as well as the feature General Spanky. There are many other Our Gang and Little Rascals home video collections available; but most of these are comprised of shorts that have fallen into the public domain.
Currently, the rights to the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts are scattered. Hallmark Entertainment holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Little Rascals shorts, which it acquired after absorbing both Hal Roach Studios and Cabin Fever Entertainment in the late-1990s. King World continues to hold the television rights. The MGM-produced Our Gang shorts and General Spanky are now owned by Turner Entertainment (via Warner Bros.), and they appear periodically on the Turner Classic Movies cable network.
Key personnel
- For a list of the Our Gang kids, recurring adult actors, directors, and writers, please see Our Gang personnel.
Quotations
- "Okee-dokee!" and "Okey-doke!" (Spanky)
- "Oh-Tay!" (Porky and Buckwheat)
- *singing* "I'm the Barber of Seville!" (Alfalfa in "Our Gang Follies of 1938")
References
- Maltin, Leonard & Bann, Richard W (1977, rev. 1992). The Little Rascals: The Life & Times of Our Gang. New York: Crown Publishing/Three Rivers Press. ISBN 051-758325-9.
- Bogle, Donald (1973, rev. 2001). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Continuum. ISBN 082-641267-X.
Further reading
- Bond, Tommy, w. Genini, Ron (1994). Darn Right It's Butch: Memories of Our Gang/The Little Rascals. Delaware: Morgin Printing. ISBN 096-309765-2.
- Cooper, Jackie (1982). Please Don't Shoot My Dog: The Autobiography of Jackie Cooper. New York: Penguin Putnam. ISBN 042-507483-8.
External links
- The "Little Rascals/Our Gang" Webring is the fourth most active webring at webring.com. It includes links to a number of fan sites dedicated to Our Gang.
- Jean Darling's website. Darling was an Our Gang kid from 1926 to 1929.
- Shirley Jean Rickert's website. Rickert was an Our Gang kid from 1930 to 1931.