The Cowlick Chronicles

Classic image of Alfalfa's
cowlick from "Two Too Young".

Alfalfa was the proud owner of the the most famous cowlick in the history of American pop culture (followed closely by, perhaps, Dennis the Menace).

Alfalfa's cowlick is his primary visual iconography, and it took on a surprisingly varied series of shapes and forms throughout his Little Rascals career.

We first got a glimpse of Alfalfa's cowlick (or, as he would later refer to it, his "personality") in his second Little Rascals episode, "Teacher's Beau".


Above left: Alfalfa did not have a
cowlick in his very first Little Rascals
episode, "Beginner's Luck"; at right,
we get our first look at our hero's
"personality" in his second episode,
"Teacher's Beau".

It would be his third episode, "Sprucin' Up", where the cowlick first figured prominently in the story line: a cute little girl (Maryann Edwards) moves in across the street and Spanky and Alfalfa soon engage in a mano-a-mano struggle to win her attention. To impress Maryann, Alfalfa decides to revise his previous laissez-faire approach to grooming.

Above: Alfalfa's pre-Maryann "eggbeater" approach to grooming in "Sprucin' Up".
Click any image to see enlarged versions of all four.

Alfalfa's cowlick took center stage in two other episodes. In "Roamin' Holiday", Alfalfa and Spanky take refuge in a large wicker basket. Our hero's cowlick sticks out through the top of the basket and is soon plucked out by an ornery chicken. In "Two Too Young", Spanky slices off the cowlick with a scythe; his plan is to use it as a mustache in order to complete his disguise as a G-Man, employed in order to take possession of Buckwheat and Porky's firecrackers.


Above, from left: Alfalfa's cowlick is ripe for the plucking by a
grouchy rooster in "Roamin' Holiday"; our hero reacts to being
shorn of his "personality" in "Roamin' Holiday" and "Two Too
Young".

Many Little Rascals fan have thought that Alfalfa's cowlick was artificial. Indeed, on a couple occasions it does seem as if the cowlick is positioned in a somewhat odd position in relation to where we would expect it to be (see examples). However, all indications are that Alfalfa's cowlick was always his own hair, enhanced only by the heavy application of Vaseline. One reporter who was on the set during the filming of 1937's "Reunion In Rhythm" wrote that between shots, a production assistant would repeatedly re-define the shape of the cowlick with Vaseline, as it tended to wilt under the hot studio lights.

Alfalfa's cowlick in 1937's
"Reunion In Rhythm"

There seems to be four primary forms that Alfalfa's cowlick takes.

The first is the classic curly-cue or "candy-cane" shape, obviously helped along by a generous supply of Vaseline. This shape is the one most often associated with the Alfalfa iconography, although it actually does not appear that frequently. The candy-cane cowlick is seen in, among other episodes, "Roamin' Holiday" , "Our Gang Follies of 1938", and "Three Smart Boys".


Above: Alfalfa's cowlick in "Our Gang Follies of 1938". Center two
images enlarge. Below: Standard and detail images from "Roamin'
Holiday"; "Three Smart Boys".

The second shape is simply an up-and-down "straight-pin", of varying lengths and degrees of sharpness and stiffness. This shape is seen in many episodes; in "Sprucin' Up", after Alfalfa decides to actually comb his hair (with the help of huge clumps of lard), his cowlick achieves a length and sharpness that would not be matched for the rest of his Little Rascals career.


Above: Alfalfa's "straight-pin" cowlick appears in, among other
episodes (from left to right) "Sprucin' Up", "Feed 'Em and Weep",
"Pigskin Palooka", and "Two Too Young". Click on any image to
see enlarged versions of all four.

The third cowlick form we will call the "broken stalk". Examples of this type of cowlick can be seen in "Second Childhood", "The Lucky Corner", "Divot Diggers", "Sprucin' Up", and "The Pinch Singer". In fact, "Sprucin' Up" is probably the quintessential episode for Alfalfa cowlick aficionados: three out of the four major cowlick forms can be clearly discerned at various points in this early episode.

Above: The "broken stalk" cowlick is seen prominently in, from
left to right, "Second Childhood", "The Lucky Corner", "Divot Diggers",
"Sprucin' Up", and "The Pinch Singer". Click on any image to see
enlarged versions of all five.

The fourth type of cowlick, and probably the most interesting, is technically not a cowlick at all, but a thatched jumble of hair that spreads over much of the back of Alfalfa's head. This format is most prominent in his early episodes, most notably "Sprucin' Up" (see above) , "The Pinch Singer", and "Our Gang Follies of 1936", as well as a later episode, "Three Men In a Tub".

Above, clockwise from upper left: Alfalfa's cowlick
is a complete disaster in such episodes as "The Pinch
Singer", "Our Gang Follies of 1936", and "Three Men
In a Tub". Click on any image to see enlarged versions
of all six.

Alfalfa's cowlick appeared mainly as an on-screen appendage; in most candid, publicity, and studio photos of the era, the cowlick does not appear (the most notable exception is the famous image of a suspender-clad Alfalfa posing as a tough guy, below, ca. 1937). Interestingly, after he left the Little Rascals in 1940 and began appearing in feature-length films and television shows (over fifty-five such appearances), Alfalfa's cowlick never again made an appearance.

One of the most famous publicity
photos of Alfalfa is also one of the
relatively few such images showing
him with a distinct cowlick.

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