| Our Gang | |
|---|---|
 Title card for the 1937Our Gang comedy shortRushin' Ballet | |
| Created by | Hal Roach |
| Original work | Our Gang (1922) |
| Owners |
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| Print publications | |
| Book(s) | A Story of Our Gang: Romping Through the Hal Roach Comedies (1929) |
| Comics |
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| Films and television | |
| Film(s) |
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| Short film(s) |
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| Animated series | The Little Rascals |
| Television special(s) | The Little Rascals Christmas Special (1979) |
| Direct-to-video | The Little Rascals Save the Day (2014) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Series directors | |
| Series producers | |
| Series screenwriters | |
| Series musical directors | |
| Series cinematographers |
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| Series theatrical distributors |
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| First short | One Terrible Day (September 10, 1922) |
| Final short | Dancing Romeo (April 29, 1944) |
Our Gang (also known asThe Little Rascals orHal Roach's Rascals) is an American series ofcomedyshort films chronicling the adventures of a group of mischievous children in a working class neighborhood ofLos Angeles. Created by film producerHal Roach, who also produced theLaurel and Hardy films,Our Gang shorts were produced from 1922 to 1944, spanning thesilent film and earlysound film periods ofAmerican cinema.Our Gang is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way; Roach and original directorRobert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children, rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series also broke new ground by portraying black and white children interacting as equals during theJim Crow era ofracial segregation in the United States.[1]
The franchise began in 1922 as a silent short subject series produced by the Roach studio and released byPathé Exchange. Roach changed distributors from Pathé toMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting tosound in 1929. Production continued at Roach until 1938, when theOur Gang production unit was sold to MGM, where production continued until 1944. Across 220 short films and a feature-film spin-off,General Spanky, theOur Gang series featured more than 41child actors as regular members of its cast.
Because MGM retained the rights to theOur Gang trademark after buying the series, the Roach-producedOur Gang sound films were re-released to theaters and syndicated for television under the titleThe Little Rascals.
The Roach-producedLittle Rascals shorts that remain under copyright (1931–1938) are formerly owned byChicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (underHalcyon Studios) which manages the copyrights as well as theatrical and home video and streaming releases until its closure in 2024. Since 2024,Legend Films currently co-owns the rights of the 1931-1938 with Multicom Entertainment Group, using restored titles from theirOfficial Films masters as "Hal Roach's Famous Kids Comedies"; the entries produced between 1922 and 1930, inclusive, are in thepublic domain in the United States.Paramount Global (throughKing World Productions) owns the television distribution rights to the 1931–1938 Roach-era shorts for broadcast and cable. Meanwhile, MGM'sOur Gang series (1938–1944) is currently owned byWarner Bros. throughTurner Entertainment Co.
New productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including the 1994 feature filmThe Little Rascals, released byUniversal Pictures.
Unlike many films featuring children and based in fantasy, producer/creator Hal Roach rootedOur Gang in real life: most of the children were poor, and the gang was often at odds with snobbish or rich children, officious adults, parents, and other such adversaries.[1]
Robert F. McGowan directed most of theOur Gang shorts until 1933, assisted by his nephewAnthony Mack. McGowan worked to develop a style that allowed the children to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written by the Hal Roach comedy-writing staff, which included at various timesLeo McCarey,Frank Capra,Walter Lantz, andFrank Tashlin.[2] The children, some too young to read, rarely saw the scripts; instead, McGowan would explain scenes to each child immediately before they were shot, directing the children using amegaphone and encouragingimprovisation.[2]
With the introduction of sound films in the late 1920s, McGowan slightly modified his approach, but scripts were not closely followed until he left the series. LaterOur Gang directors, such asGus Meins andGordon Douglas, streamlined the approach to McGowan's methods to meet the demands of the increasingly sophisticated film industry of the mid-to-late 1930s.[2] Douglas was forced to streamline his approach after Roach halved the running times of the shorts from two reels (20 minutes) to one reel (10 minutes).[2]
As children aged out of their roles, they were replaced by new children, usually from the Los Angeles area. EventuallyOur Gang talent scouting employed large-scale national contests in which thousands of children auditioned for open roles.Norman Chaney ("Chubby"),Matthew Beard ("Stymie"), andBillie "Buckwheat" Thomas all won contests to become members of the cast: Chaney replacedJoe Cobb, Beard replacedAllen Hoskins ("Farina"), and Thomas replaced Beard.[3][4][5]
The studio was continuously bombarded by requests from parents suggesting their children for roles in the films. These children included future child starsMickey Rooney andShirley Temple, neither of whom advanced past the audition stage.[6]
TheOur Gang series, produced during theJim Crow era, is one of the first in cinema history in whichAfrican Americans andWhite Americans were portrayed as equals. The five black child actors who held main roles in the series wereErnie Morrison,Eugene Jackson,Allen Hoskins,Matthew Beard andBillie Thomas. Morrison was the first black actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history[7] and the first major black star in Hollywood history.[8]
The African-American characters have often been criticized as racial stereotypes.[9][10] The black children spoke (or were indicated as speaking via text titles in the case of the silent entries) in a stereotypical "Negro dialect", and several controversial gags revolved directly around their skin color, such as Stymie sweating jet-black ink[11] and Buckwheat contracting fake "whitemeasles" and supposedly transforming into a monkey.[12][13] In the 1924 shortLodge Night, the kids form a parody club based on theKu Klux Klan (although the black children are allowed to join).[14]
In their adult years, actors Morrison, Beard, and Thomas defended the series, arguing that the white characters were similarly stereotyped: the "freckle-faced kid", the "fat kid", the "neighborhood bully", the "pretty blond girl", and the "mischievous toddler". In an interview onTom Snyder'sThe Tomorrow Show in 1974, Beard said of his time in the series that "I feel it was great. Some of the lines I had to say I didn't like, but I never look at it like that. I just try to look at it as mostly a fun thing. We were just a group of kids who were having fun."[15] In a separate interview, Morrison stated, "When it came to race, Hal Roach wascolor-blind."[16]
Our Gang's integrated cast drew the disdain of some theater owners in the South.[14] Early in film series, these owners complained to Pathé that Morrison and Hoskins were featured with too much screen time and that their prominence in the shorts would offend white audiences.[14] TheOur Gang spinoff filmCurley (1947) was banned by theMemphis, Tennessee censor board for showing black and white children in school together, a characteristic common to even the earlier shorts.[17] Other minorities, includingAsian Americans Sing Joy, Allen Tong (also known as Alan Dong), and Edward Soo Hoo, as well asItalian-American actor Mickey Gubitosi (later known asRobert Blake), were depicted in the series with varying levels of stereotyping.[18]
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According to Roach, he devised the idea forOur Gang in 1921 after auditioning a child actress whom he believed to be overly rehearsed and wearing excessive makeup. Through his window, Roach saw some children arguing over sticks of wood in a lumberyard and thought that a series of film shorts about children being themselves might be a success.[19]
Our Gang also had its roots in a canceled Roach short-subject series revolving around the adventures of a black boy called "Sunshine Sammy", played byErnie Morrison.[20] As some theater owners had been wary of booking shorts focused on a black boy,[20] the series ended after just one entry,The Pickaninny (1921), was produced.[20] The character became a focus of the newOur Gang series.
Under the supervision ofCharley Chase, work began on the first two-reel shorts in the new "kids-and-pets" series, to be calledHal Roach's Rascals, later that year.Fred C. Newmeyer directed the first pilot film, entitledOur Gang, but Roach scrapped Newmeyer's work and commissioned former fireman Robert F. McGowan to reshoot the film. Roach tested it at several theaters around Hollywood to receptive audiences, and some in the press expressed a desire for additional films. The colloquial usage of the termOur Gang caused it to become the series' second official title, with the title cards reading "Our Gang Comedies: Hal Roach presentsHis Rascals in..."[21] The series was officially called bothOur Gang andHal Roach's Rascals until 1932, whenOur Gang became the sole title of the series.
The first cast was recruited primarily of children recommended to Roach by studio employees, with the exception of Morrison, who was already under contract to Roach. The others included Roach photographer Gene Kornman's daughterMary Kornman, their friends' sonMickey Daniels, and family friendsAllen Hoskins,Jack Davis,Jackie Condon, andJoe Cobb. Most early shorts were filmed outdoors and on location and featured a menagerie of animal characters, such as Dinah the Mule. Robert McGowan andTom McNamara served in tandem as the series' directors during this early period.
Roach's distributorPathé releasedOne Terrible Day, the fourth short produced for the series, as the first short on September 10, 1922; the pilot filmOur Gang was not released until November 5. The series performed well at the box office, and by the end of the decade, theOur Gang children were pictured in numerous product endorsements.
The featuredOur Gang stars were Morrison as Sunshine Sammy, Daniels, Kornman, and Hoskins as little Farina, who eventually became the most popular member of the 1920s gang[22] and the most popular black child star of the 1920s.[23] A reviewer wrote of the Farina character, depicted as female although played by a male child,[24] inPhotoplay: "The honors go to a very young lady of color, billed as 'Little Farina.' Scarcely two years old, she goes through each set like a wee, sombre shadow."[25] Daniels and Kornman were very popular and were often paired inOur Gang and a later teen version of the series titledThe Boy Friends, which Roach produced from 1930 to 1932. Other earlyOur Gang children wereEugene Jackson as Pineapple,Scooter Lowry,Andy Samuel,Johnny Downs,Winston and Weston Doty, andJay R. Smith.
After Ernie, Mickey and Mary left the series in the mid-1920s, theOur Gang series entered a transitional period. The stress of directing child actors forced McGowan to take doctor-mandated sabbaticals for exhaustion,[26] leaving his nephewRobert A. McGowan (credited as Anthony Mack) to direct many shorts in this period. The Mack-directed shorts are considered by many as among the lesser entries in the series.[27] New faces includedBobby Hutchins as Wheezer,Harry Spear,Jean Darling andMary Ann Jackson, while Farina served as the series' anchor.
Also at this time, theOur Gang cast acquired an American Pit Bull Terrier with a ring around one eye, originally named Pansy but soon known asPete the Pup, the most famousOur Gang pet. In 1927, Roach ended his distribution arrangement with the Pathé company. He agreed to release future products through the newly formedMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which released its firstOur Gang comedy,Yale vs. Harvard, now alost film, in September 1927. The move to MGM offered Roach larger budgets and the chance for his films to be packaged with MGM features for theLoews Theatres chain.
Some shorts around this time, particularlySpook Spoofing (1928), contained extended scenes of the gang tormenting and teasing Farina, scenes that raised claims of racism that many other shorts did not warrant. These shorts marked the departure ofJackie Condon, who had been with the group from the beginning of the series.
Starting in 1928,Our Gang comedies were distributed withphonographic discs that contained synchronized music and sound-effect tracks. In the spring of 1929, the Roach studios were converted for sound recording, andOur Gang's sound debut occurred in April 1929 with the 25-minute filmSmall Talk. It took a year for McGowan and the cast to fully adjust to sound films, a period in which they lost Joe Cobb, Jean Darling and Harry Spear and addedNorman Chaney,Dorothy DeBorba,Matthew "Stymie" Beard,Donald Haines andJackie Cooper.
Cooper proved to be the personality whom the series had been missing since Daniels left and was featured prominently in three 1930/1931Our Gang films:Teacher's Pet,School's Out, andLove Business. These three shorts explored Cooper's crush on new schoolteacher Miss Crabtree, played byJune Marlowe. Cooper soon won the lead role inParamount's feature filmSkippy, and Roach sold Cooper's contract to MGM in 1931. OtherOur Gang members appearing in the early sound shorts includedBuddy McDonald,Clifton Young, andShirley Jean Rickert. Many also appeared in a groupcameo appearance in the all-star comedy shortThe Stolen Jools (1931).
Beginning with the shortWhen the Wind Blows, in 1930 background music scores were added to the soundtracks of most of theOur Gang films. Initially, the music consisted of orchestral versions of popular tunes.Marvin Hatley had served as the music director of Hal Roach Studios since 1929, andRCA employeeLeroy Shield joined the company as a part-time musical director in mid-1930. Hatley and Shield'sjazz-influenced scores, first featured inPups Is Pups in 1930, became recognizable trademarks ofOur Gang,Laurel and Hardy, and other Roach films.
Another 1930 short,Teacher's Pet, marked the first use of theOur Gangtheme song,"Good Old Days". Originally composed by Shield for use in Laurel and Hardy's first feature,Pardon Us,[28] "Good Old Days," featuring a notablesaxophone solo, served as the series' theme until 1938.[28] Shield and Hatley's scores were included in the films regularly through 1934, when they became less frequent.
In 1930, Roach began production onThe Boy Friends, a short-subject series that was essentially a teenage version ofOur Gang. FeaturingOur Gang alumni Daniels and Kornman among its cast,The Boy Friends was produced for two years, with 15 installments in total.
Cooper leftOur Gang in early 1931 just before another wave of cast changes, as Farina Hoskins, Chubby Chaney, and Mary Ann Jackson all departed several months later.Our Gang entered another transitional period, similar to that of the mid-1920s. Matthew Beard, Wheezer Hutchins, and Dorothy DeBorba carried the series during this period, aided bySherwood Bailey andKendall McComas, who would play Breezy Brisbane. Unlike the mid-1920s period, McGowan sustained the quality of the series with the help of the several regular cast members and the Roach writing staff. Many of these shorts include early appearances ofJerry Tucker andWally Albright, who later became series regulars.
New Roach discoveryGeorge McFarland joined the gang as Spanky late in 1931 at the age of three and remained anOur Gang actor for 11 years, except for a brief break in Summer 1938. At first appearing as the tag-along toddler of the group, and later finding an accomplice inScotty Beckett in 1934, Spanky quickly becameOur Gang's greatest child star. He won parts in a number of outside features, appeared in manyOur Gang product endorsements and spinoff merchandise items, and popularized the expressions "Okey-dokey!" and "Okey-doke!"[29]
Veteran child actorDickie Moore joined in the middle of 1932 and remained with the series for one year. Other members in these years included Mary Ann Jackson's brother Dickie Jackson,John "Uh-huh" Collum, andTommy Bond. Upon Moore's departure in mid 1933, long-termOur Gang members such as Wheezer (who had been withOur Gang since the late Pathé silents period) and Dorothy left the series as well.
McGowan, exhausted from the stress of working with the child actors, had as early as 1931 tried to resign as producer/director ofOur Gang.[26] Lacking a replacement, Roach persuaded him to remain for another year.[26] At the start of the 1933–34 season, theOur Gang series format was significantly altered to accommodate McGowan and persuade him to stay another year.[26] The first two entries of the season in Fall 1933,Bedtime Worries andWild Poses (which featured a cameo by Laurel and Hardy), focused on Spanky and his hapless parents, portrayed byGay Seabrook andEmerson Treacy, in a family-orientedsituation-comedy format similar to the style later popular ontelevision. A smaller cast ofOur Gang kids—Matthew Beard, Tommy Bond, Jerry Tucker, and Georgie Billings—were featured in supporting roles with reduced screen time.
Unsatisfied, McGowan abruptly departed afterWild Poses (1933).Our Gang entered a four-month hiatus, during which the series was revised to a format similar to its original style, and German-bornGus Meins was hired as the new director.[26]
Hi-Neighbor!, released in March 1934, ended the hiatus and was the first series entry directed by Meins, a veteran of the formerly competingBuster Brown short-subject series.Gordon Douglas served as Meins's assistant director, and Fred Newmeyer alternated directorial duties with Meins for a handful of shorts. Meins'sOur Gang shorts were less improvisational than were McGowan's and featured a heavier reliance on dialogue.[30] McGowan returned two years later to direct his finalOur Gang filmDivot Diggers, released in 1936.
Retaining McFarland, Beard, Bond, and Tucker, the revised series addedScotty Beckett,Wally Albright, andBillie Thomas, who soon began playing the character of Stymie's sister "Buckwheat", although Thomas was male. Semiregular actors such asJackie Lynn Taylor,Marianne Edwards, andLeonard Kibrick as the neighborhood bully, joined the series. Bond and Albright left in the middle of 1934; Taylor and Edwards would depart by 1935.
Early in 1935, new cast membersCarl Switzer and his brotherHarold joinedOur Gang after impressing Roach with an impromptu musical performance at the studiocommissary. While Harold would eventually be relegated to the role of a background player, Carl, nicknamed "Alfalfa", eventually replaced Beckett as Spanky's sidekick. Beard as Stymie left the cast soon after, and the Buckwheat character morphed subtly into a male. That same year,Darla Hood, Patsy May, andEugene Lee as Porky joined the gang. Beckett departed for a career in features but returned in 1939 for two shorts,Cousin Wilbur andDog Daze.
Our Gang was very successful during the 1920s and the early 1930s. However, by 1934, many theater owners were increasingly dropping two-reel (20-minute) comedies such asOur Gang and theLaurel & Hardy series and runningdouble-feature programs instead. The Laurel and Hardy series, formerly film shorts, became features exclusively in mid-1935. By 1936, Hal Roach began debating plans to discontinueOur Gang untilLouis B. Mayer, head of Roach's distributor MGM, persuaded Roach to keep the popular series in production.[31] Roach agreed, producing shorter, one-reelOur Gang comedies (10 minutes in length instead of 20). The first one-reelOur Gang short,Bored of Education (1936), marked theOur Gang directorial debut of former assistant director Gordon Douglas and won theAcademy Award for Best Short Subject (One Reel) in 1937.
As part of the arrangement with MGM to continueOur Gang, Roach received clearance to produce anOur Gang feature film,General Spanky, hoping that he might move the series to features as was done with Laurel and Hardy.[31] Directed by Gordon Douglas and Fred Newmeyer,General Spanky featured characters Spanky, Buckwheat, and Alfalfa in a sentimental, Shirley Temple-style story set during theAmerican Civil War. The film focused more on the adult leads (Phillips Holmes andRosina Lawrence) than the children and was a box-office disappointment.[32] No furtherOur Gang features were produced.
After years of gradual cast changes, the troupe standardized in 1936 with the move to one-reel shorts. The 1936–1939 incarnation of the cast is perhaps the best-known of the series, featuring Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, and Porky, with recurring characters such as neighborhood bullies Butch and Woim and the bookworm Waldo. Bond, an intermittent member of the gang since 1932, returned as Butch beginning with the 1937 shortGlove Taps.Sidney Kibrick, the younger brother of Leonard Kibrick, played Butch's crony Woim.
Glove Taps also featured the first appearance ofDarwood Kaye as the bespectacled, foppish Waldo. In later shorts, both Butch and Waldo were portrayed as Alfalfa's rivals in his pursuit of Darla's affections. Other popular elements in these mid-to-late-1930s shorts include the"He-Man Woman Haters Club" fromHearts Are Thumps andMail and Female (both 1937), the Laurel and Hardy-style interaction between Alfalfa and Spanky, and the comic tag-along team of Porky and Buckwheat.
Roach produced the final two-reelOur Gang short, a high-budget musical special entitledOur Gang Follies of 1938, in 1937 as aparody of MGM'sBroadway Melody of 1938. Alfalfa, who aspires to be anopera singer, falls asleep and dreams that his old pal Spanky has become the rich owner of a swankyBroadway nightclub where Darla and Buckwheat perform, making "hundreds and thousands of dollars".
As the profit margins continued to decline because of double features,[33] Roach could no longer afford to continue producingOur Gang. The lack of consistent success with Roach's concurrent program of feature output and an ultimately unsuccessful partnership with producerVittorio Mussolini, son of Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini, caused disagreements with the management at MGM and its parent company,Loews Inc., which elected to end MGM's partnership with Roach.[34] However, MGM did not wantOur Gang discontinued and agreed to assume production.
On May 31, 1938, Roach sold theOur Gang unit to MGM, including the rights to the name and the contracts for the actors and writers, for $25,000 (equal to $558,452 today).[35] After delivering the Laurel and Hardy featureBlock-Heads, Roach signed a new distribution deal withUnited Artists and left the short-subjects business. The final Roach-produced short in theOur Gang series,Hide and Shriek, was his final short-subject production.
The Little Ranger was the firstOur Gang short to be produced at MGM. Gordon Douglas was loaned from Hal Roach Studios to directThe Little Ranger and another early MGM short,Aladdin's Lantern, while MGM assignedGeorge Sidney, a young director from its own shorts department,[36] as the permanent series director.Our Gang would be used by MGM as a training ground for future feature directors: Sidney,Edward Cahn andCy Endfield all worked onOur Gang before advancing to feature films. Herbert Glazer remained asecond-unit director outside of his work on the series.
Nearly all of the 52 MGM-producedOur Gang films were written by former Roach director Hal Law and former junior director Robert A. McGowan, nephew of former seniorOur Gang director Robert F. McGowan, who was credited for these shorts as Robert McGowan (although he is also known as Anthony Mack), causing confusion for audiences and critics.
The last few Roach comedies and the first few MGM comedies featured Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as the lead character, as George "Spanky" McFarland had departed from the series when his contract expired in March 1938.[37] Casting his replacement was delayed until after the move to MGM, which opted to rehire McFarland to continue with the series.[38]
In 1939, Mickey Gubitosi (later known by the stage name ofRobert Blake) replaced Eugene "Porky" Lee, who had matured too quickly.[39] Tommy Bond, Darwood Kaye, and Carl Switzer all left the series in 1940, andBilly "Froggy" Laughlin (with hisPopeye-style trick voice) andJanet Burston were added to the cast. By the end of 1941, Darla Hood had departed from the series, and George McFarland followed her within a year. Billie Thomas remained in the cast as Buckwheat until the end of the series as the sole holdover from the Roach era.
The MGMOur Gang films were not received as favorably as were the Roach-produced shorts, largely because of MGM's inexperience withOur Gang's style ofslapstick comedy and its insistence on retaining Alfalfa, Spanky, and Buckwheat in the series as they became teenagers.[39] The MGM entries are thus considered by many film historians, and theOur Gang children themselves, as lesser films than the Roach entries.[40] The children's performances were criticized as stilted and stiff, their dialogue recited instead of spoken naturally. Adult situations often drove the action, with each film often incorporating a moral, a civics lesson, or, as the United States prepared for and then enteredWorld War II, a patriotic theme.[39] The series was given a new setting in the fictitious town of Greenpoint rather than the gritty Los Angeles neighborhoods where the Hal Roach productions had been filmed and set. The mayhem caused by the kids was significantly muted.
Exhibitors noticed the drop in quality and often complained that the series was slipping. When six of the 13 shorts released between 1942 and 1943 sustained losses rather than turning profits,[41] MGM discontinuedOur Gang.[42] The final threeOur Gang shorts were all directed by Cy Endfield in late 1943 and released the following spring.Tale of a Dog was released as part of theMGM Miniatures series on April 15, 1944. The other two shorts, released to close out the regularOur Gang series, wereRadio Bugs, released on April 1, 1944, and the finalOur Gang comedy,Dancing Romeo, released on April 29, 1944.[43]
Since 1937,Our Gang had been featured as a licensedcomic strip in the BritishcomicThe Dandy, illustrated byDudley D. Watkins. Starting in 1942, MGM licensedOur Gang to American publisherDell Comics for the publication ofOur Gang Comics, featuring the gang alongside MGM cartoon characters such asBarney Bear andTom and Jerry.[44] The strips inThe Dandy ended three years after the demise of theOur Gang shorts in 1947.Our Gang Comics outlasted the series by five years, changing its name toTom and Jerry Comics in 1949. In 2006,Fantagraphics Books issued a series of volumes reprinting theOur Gang stories, most of them written and drawn byPogo creatorWalt Kelly.
When Roach soldOur Gang to MGM, he retained the option to buy the rights to theOur Gang trademark, provided that he produced no more children's comedies in theOur Gang vein. In the late 1940s, he created a new film property in theOur Gang mold and forfeited his right to buy the nameOur Gang in order to obtain permission to produce twoCinecolor featurettes,Curley andWho Killed Doc Robbin. Neither film was critically or financially successful, and Roach turned to rereleasing the originalOur Gang comedies.
In 1949, MGM sold the back catalog of 1927–1938Our Gang silent and talking shorts to Roach while retaining the rights to theOur Gang name, the 52Our Gang films that it produced, and the featureGeneral Spanky. Under the terms of the sale, Roach was required to remove theLeo the Lion studio logo and all instances of the names or logos "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer", "Loew's Incorporated", and "Our Gang" from the reissued film prints. Using a modified version of the series' original name, Roach repackaged 79 of the 80 soundOur Gang shorts asThe Little Rascals.Monogram Pictures and its successor, Allied Artists, reissued the films to theaters beginning in 1950.[45] Allied Artists' television department, Interstate Television, syndicated the films to television in 1954.[46][47][48]
Under its new name,The Little Rascals enjoyed renewed popularity on television, and newLittle Rascals comic books, toys, and other licensed merchandise were produced. As was the custom at the time with theatrical film productions rebroadcast on television, no actors appearing in the films were paidresiduals for the revival.[49][50] MGM prepared to distribute its ownOur Gang shorts to television in 1957,[51] and offers for the shorts to stations were issued beginning in 1958.[52] The two separate packages ofOur Gang films competed with each other insyndication for three decades. Some stations bought both packages and played them alongside each other under theLittle Rascals show banner.
The television rights to the silentPathéOur Gang comedies were sold to National Telepix and other distributors, who distributed the films under titles such asThe Mischief Makers andThose Lovable Scallawags with Their Gangs.
In 1963, Hal Roach Studios, operated by Roach's son Hal Jr., filed for bankruptcy. Struggling novice syndication agent Charles King purchased the television rights toThe Little Rascals in the bankruptcy proceedings and returned the shorts to television. The success ofThe Little Rascals paved the way for King's new company,King World Productions, to become one of the largest television syndicators in the world.Paramount Global, King World's latest successor, currently owns distribution rights.
During the 1950s and 1960s, theNAACP, An Americancivil rights organization working on behalf of African-Americans, protested against the racial humor and the stereotyping of the black characters in theOur Gang films included in theLittle Rascals TV package.[53] After an NAACP campaign to remove the syndication package from the air began gaining traction and finding success with some local television stations, King World permitted the NAACP to supervise edits of the shorts in theLittle Rascals package in 1971.[53] Significant edits were performed, removing content deemed racist, stereotypical, or in generally poor taste.[53] Many series entries were trimmed by two to four minutes, while others such asSpanky,Bargain Day,The Pinch Singer andMush and Milk were cut to nearly half of their original lengths.[54]
At the same time, eightLittle Rascals shorts were removed from the King World television package altogether.Lazy Days,Moan and Groan, Inc.,A Tough Winter (featuringStepin Fetchit),Little Daddy,A Lad an' a Lamp,The Kid From Borneo, andLittle Sinner were deleted from the syndication package because of purportedly racial material and stereotyping (mostly concerning African-Americans, althoughMoan and Groan, Inc. was also deleted because ofMax Davidson'sJewish-American character).[54][55]Big Ears was deleted for its content dealing with divorce and its depiction of children carelessly ingesting drugs from a medicine cabinet. The early talkieRailroadin' was never part of the television package because its soundtrack (recorded onVitaphone phonographic records) was considered lost, although the soundtrack was found in the MGM vault in the late 1970s and restored to the film.[56]
Turner Entertainment Co. acquired the pre-May 1986 MGM library in 1986, and the 1938–1944 MGM-producedOur Gang shorts were shown on Turner'sTBS andTNT cable networks for many years as early-morning programming filler, with a regular slot on Sundays at 6 a.m. ET on TNT.
In the early 2000s, the 71 films in the King World package were reedited, reinstating many, but not all, of the edits performed in 1971 and the originalOur Gang title cards. These new television prints debuted onAMC in 2001 and ran until 2003.
Many producers, includingOur Gang alumnusJackie Cooper, created pilots for newLittle Rascals television series, but none ever went into production.
In 1977,Norman Lear tried to revive the franchise, taping three pilot episodes ofThe Little Rascals. The pilots were not bought, but were notable for includingGary Coleman.
1979 broughtThe Little Rascals Christmas Special, an animated Christmas special produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, written byRomeo Muller and featuring the voice work of Darla Hood (who died suddenly before the special aired) and Matthew "Stymie" Beard.
From 1982 to 1984,Hanna-Barbera Productions produced aSaturday-morning cartoonversion ofThe Little Rascals, which aired on ABC duringThe Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show (laterThe Monchichis/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show).[57] It starred the voices ofPatty Maloney as Darla;Peter Cullen as Petey and Officer Ed;Scott Menville as Spanky;Julie McWhirter Dees as Alfalfa, Porky and The Woim;Shavar Ross as Buckwheat, andB.J. Ward as Butch and Waldo.
In 1994,Amblin Entertainment andUniversal Pictures releasedThe Little Rascals, a feature film based loosely on the series and featuring interpretations of classicOur Gang shorts, includingHearts are Thumps,Rushin' Ballet, andHi'-Neighbor! The film, directed byPenelope Spheeris, stars Travis Tedford as Spanky,Bug Hall as Alfalfa, andRoss Bagley as Buckwheat, with cameos by theOlsen twins,Whoopi Goldberg,Mel Brooks,Reba McEntire,Daryl Hannah,Donald Trump andRaven-Symoné.[58]The Little Rascals was a moderate success for Universal, returning $51,764,950 at thebox office.[58]
In 2014,Universal Pictures released the direct-to-video filmThe Little Rascals Save the Day, a second film loosely based on the series and featuring interpretations of classicOur Gang shorts, includingHelping Grandma,Mike Fright, andBirthday Blues. The film was directed byAlex Zamm and starsJet Jurgensmeyer as Spanky, Drew Justice as Alfalfa,Eden Wood as Darla, andDoris Roberts as the kids' adopted grandmother.
The characters in this series are well-known cultural icons, often identified solely by their first names. The characters of Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Porky, Darla, Froggy, Butch, Woim, and Waldo were especially well known. As with many child actors, theOur Gang children weretypecast and had trouble outgrowing theirOur Gang images.
SeveralOur Gang alumni, includingCarl "Alfalfa" Switzer,Scotty Beckett,Norman "Chubby" Chaney,Billy "Froggy" Laughlin,Donald Haines,Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins,Darla Hood,Matthew "Stymie" Beard,Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, andGeorge "Spanky" McFarland, died before age 65, in some cases well earlier. This led to rumors of anOur Gang/Little Rascals "curse", rumors further popularized by a 2002E! True Hollywood Story documentary entitled "The Curse of the Little Rascals".[59] TheSnopes.com website debunks the rumor of anOur Gang curse, stating that there was no pattern of unusual deaths when taking all of the majorOur Gang stars into account, despite the deaths of a select few.[60]
The children's work in the series was largely unrewarded in later years, although McFarland was awarded a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame posthumously in 1994. NoOur Gang children received anyresiduals orroyalties fromreruns of the shorts or licensed products with their likenesses. Their only pay was their weekly salaries when filming the shorts, ranging from $40 a week for newcomers to $200 or more weekly for stars such as Farina, Spanky, and Alfalfa.[22]
Only a handful ofOur Gang alumni sustained acting careers outside the series.Ernie Morrison appeared in several films as a member theEast Side Kids in the early 1940s.Jackie Cooper had a long and successful career in feature films and television as an adolescent and adult actor, and later as a producer and director while pursuing a parallel career as aU.S. Navy officer. Cooper is especially known today for portrayingPerry White in the 1978–1987Superman movies, and for directing episodes of TV series such asM*A*S*H andSuperboy.Dickie Moore, who had been a child actor before joiningOur Gang, continued to perform child and teenage roles, appearing in over 100 films and television episodes, including co-starring withShirley Temple inMiss Annie Rooney (1942) and as "The Kid" in thefilm noir classicOut of the Past (1947).Scotty Beckett had dozens of film and television roles until the mid-1950s, including playing the youngAl Jolson inThe Jolson Story (1946).Tommy Bond had a number of later film roles, including playingJimmy Olsen in two 1940sSuperman serials. Mickey Gubitosi later becameRobert Blake and found great success in the 1960s and 1970s as an actor, particularly known forIn Cold Blood (1967) and the television seriesBaretta (1975–78), which netted him anEmmy Award.
Mickey Daniels andMary Kornman became two of the leads ofThe Boy Friends, an early sound (1930–32) Hal Roach short-subjects series pitched as a college-age version ofOur Gang; both eventually left acting for other careers.Stymie Beard continued working as an actor in both Hollywood films and independent "race films" for African-American audiences until falling intoheroin addiction in the 1940s as a young adult.[61] He made a comeback in the 1970s as a middle-aged adult character actor on TV shows such asGood Times (1974–79) and films such asTruck Turner (1974) andThe Buddy Holly Story (1978) following several years in rehab.[61] Spanky McFarland had a notable run of supporting parts in outside Hollywood studio features while still inOur Gang, including supporting parts inKentucky Kernels (1934) andThe Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936). However, McFarland left acting as a teenager following World War II. Several of the other former cast members had supporting or bit roles in later film or television productions, including Farina Hoskins (You Said a Mouthful, 1931), Alfalfa Switzer (It's a Wonderful Life, 1946), and Darla Hood (The Bat, 1959), but each eventually moved away from acting as a primary career. Several, includingBillie "Buckwheat" Thomas andEugene "Porky" Lee, did not choose to pursue adult roles.
The 1930Our Gang shortPups is Pups was an inductee of the 2004National Film Registry list.[62]
E. L. Doctorow's 1975 novelRagtime ends with the character of Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, having a vision of the kind of film he wants to make: "A bunch of children who were pals, white black, fat thin, rich poor, all kinds, mischievous little urchins who would have funny adventures in their own neighborhood, a society of ragamuffins, like all of us, a gang, getting into trouble and getting out again." The implication is that Tateh will go on to produce theOur Gang series.[63]
Due to the popularity ofOur Gang, many similar kidcomedyshort film series were created by competing studios. Among the most notable areThe Kiddie Troupers, featuring future comedianEddie Bracken;Baby Burlesks, featuringShirley Temple; theBuster Brown comedies (from whichOur Gang receivedPete the Pup and directorGus Meins); andOur Gang's main competitor, theToonerville Trolley-basedMickey McGuire series starringMickey Rooney. Less notable imitations series includeThe McDougall Alley Gang (Bray Productions, 1927–1928),The Us Bunch andOur Kids. There is evidence[64] thatOur Gang-style productions were filmed in small towns and cities around the country using local children actors in the 1920s and 1930s. These productions did not appear to be affiliated with Hal Roach, but often used storylines from the shorts of the period, and sometimes went so far as to identify themselves as beingOur Gang productions.
In later years, many adults falsely claimed to have been members ofOur Gang. A long list of people, including persons famous in other capacities such asNanette Fabray,Eddie Bracken, and gossip columnist Joyce Haber[65] claimed to be or have been publicly called formerOur Gang children.[66] Bracken's official biography was once altered[66] to state that he appeared inOur Gang instead ofThe Kiddie Troupers, although he himself had no knowledge of the change.[66]
Among notableOur Gang imposters is Jack Bothwell, who claimed to have portrayed a character named "Freckles",[66] going so far as to appear on the game showTo Tell the Truth in the fall of 1957, perpetuating thisfraud.[66] In 2008, a Darla Hood impostor, Mollie Barron, died claiming to have appeared as Darla inOur Gang.[67] Another is Bill English, agrocery store employee who appeared on the October 5, 1990, episode of theABC investigative televisionnewsmagazine20/20 claiming to have been Buckwheat. Following the broadcast, Spanky McFarland informed the media of the truth,[66] and in December, William Thomas, Jr. (son of Billie Thomas, the former child actor who played Buckwheat) filed alawsuit against ABC for negligence.[66]
A number of groups, companies, and entities have been inspired by or named afterOur Gang. Thefolk-rock groupSpanky and Our Gang was named for the troupe because lead singer Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane's last name was similar to that ofGeorge "Spanky" McFarland. The band had no connection with the actualOur Gang series.
Numerous unauthorizedLittle Rascals andOur Gangrestaurants andday care centers also exist throughout the United States.
In the 1950s, home movie distributorOfficial Films released many of the Hal Roach talkies on16 mm film. These were released asFamous Kid Comedies, as Official Films could not useOur Gang. The company's licensing only lasted for a short period. For years afterward,Blackhawk Films released 79 of the 80 Roach talkies on 8mm and16 mm film. The sound discs forRailroadin' had been lost since the 1940s, and a silent print was available for home-movie release until 1982, when the film's sound discs were located in the MGM vault and the short was restored with sound. As with the television prints, Blackhawk'sLittle Rascals reissues featured custom title cards in place of the originalOur Gang logos, per MGM's 1949 arrangement with Hal Roach not to distribute the series under its original title. The films were otherwise offered unedited.
In 1983, with the VHS home video market growing, Blackhawk began distributingLittle Rascals VHS tapes through catalog orders, with three shorts per tape. Blackhawk Films was acquired in 1983 byNational Telefilm Associates, later renamedRepublic Pictures. Republic would releaseLittle Rascals VHS volumes for retail purchase as incomplete collections through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s. By then, all but 11 of the Roach-era sound films were available on home-video formats.
In 1993, Republic Pictures Home Video sold the home-video rights for the 80 sound Roach shorts and some available silent shorts to Cabin Fever Entertainment, which acquired the rights to use the originalOur Gang title cards and MGM logos. For the first time in more than 50 years, the Roach soundOur Gang comedies were available in their original formats. The first 12 volumes of Cabin Fever'sThe Little Rascals VHS set were released on July 6, 1994, followed by nine more on July 11, 1995, coinciding with the theatrical and home-video releases of Universal's 1994 feature.[68][69] Each tape contained four shorts, as well as newly produced introductions by film historianLeonard Maltin.
With these releases, Cabin Fever made all 80 Roach sound shorts, and four silents, available for purchase unedited with digitally restored picture and sound. On August 26, 1997, a limited-edition volume,For Pete's Sake, was released in honor of the series' 75th anniversary with an introduction from original cast member Tommy "Butch" Bond and "Petey", the dog from the 1994 feature. The video contained three previously released shorts and the previously unreleased silent shortDog Heaven, and the VHS tape was also available in a gift set with a Pete plush doll.[70]
Cabin Fever began pressing DVD versions of its first 12Little Rascals VHS volumes, with the contents of two VHS volumes included on each DVD, but the company folded in 1998 before the discs could be released. TheLittle Rascals home video rights were then sold toHallmark Entertainment in 1999, which released the DVDs without an official launch while cleaning its warehouse in early 2000. Hallmark colorized a fewOur Gang shorts and released them across eight VHS tapes. Later that year, the first 10 Cabin Fever volumes were rereleased on VHS with new packaging, and the first two volumes were released on DVD asThe Little Rascals: Volumes 1–2. Two further Hallmark DVD collections featured ten shorts apiece and were released in 2003 and 2005.
From 2006 to 2009,Legend Films produced colorized versions of 24Our Gang comedies (23 Roach entries, and the public-domain MGM filmWaldo's Last Stand), which were released across fiveLittle Rascals DVDs. In 2011, Legend Films released black-and-white versions ofLittle Rascals DVDs.
RHI Entertainment andGenius Products released an eight-disc DVD set,The Little Rascals–The Complete Collection, on October 28, 2008.[71][72] This set includes all 80 Hal Roach-producedOur Gang sound short films. Most of the collection uses the 1994 restorations, while 16 shorts are presented with older Blackhawk Films transfers, as their remastered copies were lost or misplaced during preparations.[73][74]
On June 14, 2011,Vivendi Entertainment rereleased seven of the eight DVDs from RHI/Genius Products'The Little Rascals-The Complete Collection as individual releases, including the 80 shorts (replacing the Blackhawk transfers on the previous set with their respective 1994 restorations) but excluding the disc featuring extra features.
During the 1980s and 1990s, MGM released several VHS tapes of shorts and a VHS of the featureGeneral Spanky. After video rights for the classic MGM library reverted to their new owner,Warner Bros. (throughTurner Entertainment Co.), in the late 1990s, four of the MGMOur Gang shorts appeared as bonus features on Warner Bros. DVD releases.
In 2009,Warner Home Video released all 52 MGMOur Gang shorts in a compilation titledThe Our Gang Collection: 1938–1942 (although it also contains the 1943–44 shorts) for manufacture-on-demand (MOD) DVD and digital download. The set was made available by mail order and digital download as part of the Warner Archive Collection, and via theiTunes Store. A MOD release ofGeneral Spanky was also released by Warner Archive on DVD in 2016.[75]
Many unofficialOur Gang andLittle Rascals home-video collections have been released by distributors, comprising shorts (both silent and sound) that have fallen into thepublic domain.
ClassicFlix, a company specializing in releasing classic films and TV series on home media, licensed the home video rights to Hal Roach'sOur Gang sound shorts from the current owners, Sonar Entertainment.[76]
AnIndiegogo fundraiser campaign was launched to finance extensive restorations of the shorts from original 35mmnitrate film sources.[76] When the campaign did not meet its fundraising goal, other sources of financing were sought for the restorations.[77] The first ClassicFlix release,The Little Rascals: The ClassicFlix Restorations, Volume 1, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 1, 2021, featuring the first eleven "talking" short subjects in the series from 1929 and 1930.[78] Five further volumes followed through June 2022, comprising the rest of the Hal Roach era shorts through 1938 in newly restored versions, as well asThe Little Rascals: The Complete Collection Centennial Edition, containing all six volumes in DVD and Blu-ray formats, released in November 2022.[79][80][81] In 2025, ClassicFlix releasedThe Little Rascals: The Restored Silents-Volume One, which features eight restorations of early silentOur Gang shorts with new music scores, including the longest reconstructed version to date of the original 1922 short,Our Gang.[82]
Currently, the rights to theOur Gang/Little Rascals shorts are divided.
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (formerly known as Sonar Entertainment, RHI Entertainment, Cabin Fever Entertainment and Hallmark Entertainment)[83] (throughHalcyon Studios) owns the copyrights of and holds the theatrical rights to the 191-1938 Roach-producedOur Gang shorts. Halcyon acquired these after absorbingHal Roach Studios in 1988, and both Roach's estate and Cabin Fever Entertainment in the late 1990s.[84] TheCrackle streaming service, a Chicken Soup for the Soul subsidiary, offered the SD Cabin Fever restorations of the sound era (1929-1938)Little Rascals shorts on its service until its closure in 2024 as Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment enteredChapter 7 bankruptcy.[85] Crackle also provided those shorts to YouTube for streaming with advertisements, where they remain as of 2026.[86]
In 2021, ClassicFlix acquired the rights to the entire Hal Roach-eraOur Gang catalog (silent and sound) for home video and streaming release, and completed extensive 2K restorations of all 89 of the sound era (1929-1938) short subjects, by re-scanning from 35mm archival sources, and completing further restoration,image stabilization, and overall digital picture cleanup. In 2023, they began restorations of the silent-era (1922-1929)Our Gang catalog, with any available elements (some from this era are consideredlost films).[87]
Paramount Global subsidiaryCBS Media Ventures (throughKing World) owns the rights to theLittle Rascals trademark and has all other media rights to the 1931–1938 Roach shorts, which constituteThe Little Rascals broadcast and cable television package, with certain territory exclusions controlled byCinematographische Commerz-Anstalt. CBS offers original black-and-white andcolorized prints for syndication. The King World/CBSLittle Rascals package was featured as exclusive programming (in the United States) forAMC from August 2001 to December 2003, with child actorFrankie Muniz hosting. As part of a month-long tribute to Hal Roach Studios, Turner Classic Movies televised a 24-hour marathon of RoachOur Gang shorts – both sound films and silents – on January 4–5, 2011.[88] Some of the silentOur Gangs (such asMary, Queen of Tots andThundering Fleas) resurfaced on TCM at this time with new music scores instereo sound. As of 2026[update], the soundLittle Rascals shorts in the CBS package air on theMeTV network's spinoff channelMeTV+ as part of itsComedy Classics block alongsideLaurel and Hardy andThe Three Stooges.[89]
The MGM-producedOur Gang shorts and the rights to theOur Gang trademark, as well as the 1936 spin-off filmGeneral Spanky, are owned byWarner Bros. Discovery throughTurner Entertainment Co. The assets were acquired by Turner Entertainment Co. in 1986 when its founder,Ted Turner, purchased the pre-May 1986 MGM library; Turner merged with the formerTime Warner in 1996.[90] The television rights for the MGMOur Gang shorts belong toWarner Bros. Television Distribution, and the video rights toWarner Home Video. The MGMOur Gang shorts today appear periodically onTurner Classic Movies. Until its closure in 2018, the MGMOur Gang shorts were available for streaming via the subscription-basedWarner Archive Instant streaming video service.[91]
Any short released in 1930 or before is public domain, owing to thecopyright law of the United States.
The following is a listing of the primary child actors in theOur Gang comedies. They are grouped by the era during which they joined the series. Those not given nicknames, such as Jackie Cooper and Darla Hood, were usually addressed in the films by their own names.
The following is a listing of selectedOur Gang comedies, considered byLeonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann (in their bookThe Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang) to be among the best and most important in the series.
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