Matinee Classics - Our Gang Biography & Filmography

Our Gang ACTOR

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OUR GANG / LITTLE RASCALS BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:

A series of American comedy short films, Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals and Hal Roach's Rascals) was about a group of poor neighborhood children and the various adventures they experienced. The producer was Hal Roach and the shorts were filmed at his studio starting in 1922.

According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921 when a young girl came in to audition for one of his films. It was clear she had been prepped and over-rehearsed. After she left the audition he noticed some children across the street in a lumber yard having an argument. He observed them for a bit and came up with the idea of a series that just showed children being regular children.

The Our Gang series was a success from the start. The shorts did well at the box office, and towards the end of the decade the Our Gang children were pictured on numerous product endorsements.

They started out as silent shorts until, in 1927, the series changed distributers to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and in 1929 they progressed to sound. 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. Up until 1938 Hal Roach had control over the series and then he sold the full rights to MGM, who continued producing the series until 1944. A total of 220 shorts and one film, General Spanky, were produced.

The series was known for portraying children behaving in a normal way and it was one of the first times a producer put boys, girls, whites and blacks together in a group as equals. Such a thing had never been done before in cinema but was commonplace after the success of Our Gang. The four black child actors who held main-character roles in the series were Ernest 'Sunshine Sammy' Morrison, Allen 'Farina' Hoskins, Matthew 'Stymie' Beard and Billie 'Buckwheat' Thomas. Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first black actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history, and was the first major black star in Hollywood history as well.

Senior director Robert F. McGowan worked very hard to develop a style where the children could be portrayed as naturally as possible. The children often improvised their lines, and scenes were explained to them prior to performing as many were too young to read the scripts.

Around this period, the Our Gang children acquired an American Pit Bull Terrier with a ring around his eye. His original name was Pansy but he soon became known as Pete the Pup, the most famous Our Gang pet.

The title of these shorts changed various times from Our Gang Comedies to Little Rascals to Hal Roach ’s Rascals. 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.

New Roach discovery George 'Spanky' McFarland joined the gang in 1931 at the age of three and besides a brief hiatus during the summer of 1938, remained an Our Gang actor for the next eleven years. Spanky quickly became one of the biggest child stars of the Our Gang series. He won parts in a number of outside features. He also appeared in many of the product endorsements and spin-off merchandise items, and popularized the expression Okey-dokey!

As the children began to get older, they were replaced by new actors. Norman 'Chubby' Chaney replaced Joe Cobb, Matthew 'Stymie' Beard replaced Allen 'Farina' Hoskins and Billie 'Buckwheat' Thomas replaced Stymie. They all won major contests to become members of the gang. Roach Studio Productions was overwhelmed by the amount of requests they received from parents who assured Roach their child was perfect for this series. Some kids who became quite famous and were never chosen past the audition stage for Our Gang were Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney.

In late 1933 Robert F. McGowan, worn out from the stress of working on the children's comedies, left the series and the Roach studio, going over to direct features at Paramount. German-born Gus Meins took over directing duties starting with Hi Neighbor! (1934) and Gordon Douglas served as Meins’ assistant director. Meins' Our Gang shorts were less improvisational than McGowan's, and featured a heavier reliance on dialogue. Scotty Beckett and Wally Albright joined the gang at the start of Meins' tenure as director.

In 1935, Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer and his brother Harold joined the gang after impressing Roach with an impromptu performance at the studio Cafe, which was open to the public. Carl, nicknamed 'Alfalfa', eventually became Scotty Beckett's replacement as Spanky's sidekick.

After years of gradual cast changes the troupe standardized in 1936 with the move to one-reel shorts. Most casual fans of Our Gang are particularly familiar with the 1936–1939 incarnation of the cast: Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, and Porky, with recurring characters such as neighborhood bullies Butch and Woim and bookworm Waldo. In later shorts, both Butch and Waldo would become Alfalfa's main rivals in his pursuit of Darla's affections. Other familiar situations in these mid-to-late 1930's shorts include the He-Man Woman Haters Club from Hearts Are Thumps and Mail and Female (1937), the Laurel and Hardy-ish interaction between Alfalfa and Spanky, and the comic tag-along team of Porky and Buckwheat.

Roach produced one last two-reel Our Gang short, a musical special entitled Our Gang Follies of 1938, in 1937, where 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.

As the profit margins continued to decline due to double features gaining popularity in theaters, Roach could no longer afford to continue producing Our Gang, and MGM, not wanting the series discontinued, agreed to take over production. On May 31, 1938, Roach sold to MGM the rights to the name and the contracts for the actors and writers for $25,000. After delivering the Laurel & Hardy feature Block-Heads, Roach ended his distribution contract with MGM as well, moving to United Artists.

MGM-produced Our Gang shorts which 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 in their early teens

The children's performances were affected with the fully scripted dialogue now being recited ungracefully instead of spoken naturally. The stories were more heavy-handed, with adult situations driving the action, and the films usually incorporated a moral lesson.

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, MGM discontinued Our Gang, releasing the final short, Dancing Romeo, on April 29, 1944.

In 1951 Our Gang was re-released as The Little Rascals by Monogram Pictures and its successor, Allied Artists, who syndicated the films to TV in 1955. Under the new name The Little Rascals enjoyed renewed popularity on television, and new Little Rascals comic books, toys, and other licensed merchandise were made available for purchase.

In 1960 a then-new distributor named King World Entertainment (now CBS Television Distribution) returned the films to television, and the success of The Little Rascals paved the way for King World to become one of the biggest television syndicators in the world.

In 1971, due to some of the racial humor in the shorts, as well as other content deemed to be negative, King World made significant edits to its Little Rascals TV prints. Some of the serie’s entries were decreased to only 2 to 4 minutes, while several others were cut down to barely half of their original length.

At the same time eight Little Rascals shorts were removed from the King World television package altogether, including Lazy Days, Little Daddy, A Lad an' a Lamp, The Kid from Borneo and Little Sinner, because of perceived racism.

In 1977 Norman Lear tried to revive the Rascals franchise, taping three pilot episodes of The Little Rascals. The pilots were not bought but they were notable for giving an early start to Gary Coleman. The Little Rascals Christmas Special (1979) brought the animated gang back from 1982 to 1984 in a series of television cartoons.

In 1994 Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures released The Little Rascals, a feature film based upon the series. The Little Rascals was a moderate success for Universal, bringing in $51,764,950 at the box office.

None of the Our Gang children ever got any residuals or royalties from reruns of the shorts or licensed products with their likenesses. The only remittances they received were their weekly salaries during their time in the gang, which ranged from $40 a week for newcomers to $200 or more a week for stars like Farina, Spanky, and Alfalfa.

A number of other groups, companies, and entities have been inspired by or named after Our Gang. The folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang was named in honor of the troupe, but had no other connection with it. Ren and Stimpy, the animated stars of Nickelodeon's The Ren and Stimpy Show, were first created as supporting characters on a proposed cartoon show called Your Gang about a group of children.

In 1993 Republic sold the home video rights to the 80 sound Roach shorts and some of the available silent shorts to Cabin Fever Entertainment. Cabin Fever acquired the rights to use the original Our Gang title cards and MGM logos and, for the first time in over 50 years, the Roach sound Our Gang comedies were commercially exhibited in their original format. Between 1994 and 1995 21 volumes were released, with four shorts per tape. Cabin Fever made all 80 Roach sound shorts, and four silents, available for purchase.

On September 1, 2009, Warner Home Video released all 52 MGM Our Gang shorts titled Our Gang Comedies 1938–1942 for DVD and digital download.

Currently the rights to the Our Gang / Little Rascals shorts are scattered. The series was one of the best-known and most successful in cinema history. It will always be noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way. While child actors are often groomed to imitate adult acting styles, steal scenes, or deliver cute performances, Hal Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular kids. According to film historian Leonard Maltin, such a thing had never been done before in cinema, but was commonplace after the success of Our Gang.

The following is a listing of the main child actors in the Our Gang comedies. They are grouped by the era during which they joined the series:

Hal Roach silent era:

Ernest 'Sunshine Sammy' Morrison (1922–1924)
Mickey Daniels (1922–1926)
Mary Kornman (1922–1926)
Jackie Condon (1922–1928)
Allen 'Farina' Hoskins (1922–1931)
Joe Cobb (1922–1929)
Eugene 'Pineapple' Jackson (1924–1925)
Jay R. Smith (1926–1929)
Jean Darling (1926–1929)
Bobby 'Wheezer' Hutchins (1926–1933)
Mary Ann Jackson (1927–1931)
Pete the Pup (1930–1938)

Hal Roach talkie era:

Norman 'Chubby' Chaney (1929–1931)
Jackie Cooper (1929–1931)
Donald Haines (1929–1933)
Dorothy DeBorba (1930–1933)
Matthew 'Stymie' Beard (1930–1935)
Jerry Tucker (1931–1938)
Kendall McComas (1932)
George 'Spanky' McFarland (1932–1942)
Dickie Moore (1932–1933)
Tommy 'Butch' Bond (1932–1934 as Tommy, 1937–1940 as Butch)
Scotty Beckett (1934–1935)
Billie 'Buckwheat' Thomas (1934–1944)
Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer (1935–1940)
Darla Hood (1935–1941)
Eugene Gordon 'Porky' Lee (1935–1939)
Darwood 'Waldo' Kaye (1937–1940)

MGM era:

Mickey Gubitosi (aka Robert Blake) (1939–1944)
Billy 'Froggy' Laughlin (1940–1944)
Janet Burston (1940–1944)

Filmography:

1944 Radio Bugs

1944 Tale of a Dog

1944 Dancing Romeo

1943 Benjamin Franklin, Jr.

1943 Family Troubles

1943 Election Daze

1943 Calling All Kids

1943 Farm Hands

1943 Little Miss Pinkerton

1943 Three Smart Guys

1942 Melodies Old and New

1942 Going to Press

1942 Don't Lie

1942 Surprised Parties

1942 Doin' Their Bit

1942 Rover's Big Chance

1942 Mighty Lak a Goat

1942 Unexpected Riches

1941 Fightin' Fools

1941 Baby Blues

1941 Ye Olde Minstrels

1941 Come Back, Miss Pipps

1941 1-2-3 Go

1941 Robot Wrecks

1941 Helping Hands

1941 Wedding Worries

1940 Waldo's Last Stand

1940 Alfalfa's Double

1940 The Big Premiere

1940 All About Hash

1940 The New Pupil

1940 Bubbling Troubles

1940 Good Bad Boys

1940 Goin' Fishin'

1940 Kiddie Kure

1939 Alfalfa's Aunt

1939 Tiny Troubles

1939 Duel Personalities

1939 Clown Princes

1939 Cousin Wilbur

1939 Joy Scouts

1939 Dog Daze

1939 Auto Antics

1939 Captain Spanky's Show Boat

1939 Dad for a Day

1939 Time Out for Lessons

1938 The Little Ranger

1938 Party Fever

1938 Aladdin's Lantern

1938 Men in Fright

1938 Football Romeo

1938 Practical Jokers

1938 Canned Fishing

1938 Bear Facts

1938 Three Men in a Tub

1938 Came the Brawn

1938 Feed 'em and Weep

1938 The Awful Tooth

1938 Hide and Shriek

1937 Our Gang Follies of 1938

1937 Reunion in Rhythm

1937 Glove Taps

1937 Hearts Are Thumps

1937 Three Smart Boys

1937 Rushin' Ballet

1937 Roamin' Holiday

1937 Night 'n' Gales

1937 Fishy Tales

1937 Framing Youth

1937 The Pigskin Palooka

1937 Mail and Female

1936 Arbor Day

1936 Divot Diggers

1936 The Pinch Singer

1936 Second Childhood

1936 Bored of Education

1936 Two Too Young

1936 Pay As You Exit

1936 General Spanky

1936 Spooky Hooky

1935 Beginner's Luck

1935 Our Gang Follies of 1936

1935 Sprucin' Up

1935 Little Papa

1935 Anniversary Trouble

1935 Teacher's Beau

1935 The Lucky Corner

1935 Little Sinner

1934 Hi-Neighbor!

1934 Kid Millions

1934 The Cracked Iceman

1934 For Pete's Sake!

1934 The First Round-Up

1934 Honky Donkey

1934 Mike Fright

1934 Washee Ironee

1934 Mama's Little Pirate

1934 Shrimps for a Day

1933 Fish Hooky

1933 Forgotten Babies

1933 The Kid From Borneo

1933 Mush and Milk

1933 Bedtime Worries

1933 Wild Poses

1932 The Pooch

1932 Readin' and Writin'

1932 Free Eats

1932 Spanky

1932 Choo-Choo!

1932 Hook and Ladder

1932 Free Wheeling

1932 Birthday Blues

1932 A Lad an' a Lamp

1931 Fly My Kite

1931 Dogs is Dogs

1931 The Stolen Jools

1931 Helping Grandma

1931 Love Business

1931 Little Daddy

1931 Bargain Day

1931 Big Ears

1931 Shiver My Timbers

1930 Bear Shooters

1930 School's Out

1930 Shivering Shakespeare

1930 The First Seven Years

1930 When the Wind Blows

1930 A Tough Winter

1930 Pups is Pups

1930 Teacher's Pet

1929 Lazy Days

1929 Small Talk

1929 Railroadin'

1929 Boxing Gloves

1929 Bouncing Babies

1929 Moan and Groan Inc.

1929 Election Day

1929 Noisy Noises

1929 The Holy Terror

1929 Wiggle Your Ears

1929 Fast Freight

1929 Little Mother

1929 Cat, Dog & Co.

1929 Saturday Lesson

1928 Spook Spoofing