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| Alfalfa Nation |
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Article on Little Rascals from April 1973 issue of Film in Review magazine David Zinman provides us with a generally satisfactory overview of the Our Gang phenomenon in this early 70's essay. As readers will no doubt notice, the article is very much of its time (note the use of the term "Negroes" to describe the series' African-American actors). Zinman also sees fit to refer to our hero Alfalfa as a "country bumpkin". And he propagates perhaps one of the most outrageous Little Rascals "urban legend" of all time in his reporting of the fate of William "Buckwheat" Thomas.
Our
Gang Their life was every kid's dream. They had a gang and a clubhouse and a pooch. They got the best of dog catchers, school teachers and cops. They went fishing, hunted for buried treasure, prowled in haunted houses. The Our Gang kids were typical, fun-loving American youngsters, just being their mischievous selves. Perhaps that's why the comedies clicked and still retain a universal appeal today - more than 50 years since they first appeared on the American scene. "They (the shorts) were something for the kids that everybody ended up enjoying," said producer Hal Roach, their creator. "People loved them and loved to laugh at them." The gang had a natural humor because the little guys never thought there was anything unusual about acting before a camera. "I was eight or nine years old before I realized all kids weren't in the movies," said George (Spanky) McFarland, the fat boy in the beanie who became perhaps the best known of all the gang regulars. And so they gave us a child's view of a child's world. They held up a mirror to the salad days of life. They made us laugh at a simpler world where a chuckle could be fashioned from any situation. When Stymie, the gently stereotyped Negro boy with the derby, tries to con a breakfast out of a rich boy he goes about it with artless ingenuity.
"Did you know ham and eggs can talk?" Stymie asks. "I don't believe it," the rich boy says. "Cook it up," Stymie says, challenging him. The rich boy puts eggs and ham in a pan and starts heating them on the stove. When they're done, he listens hard but doesn't hear a thing. The rich boy looks up sceptically. The only sound comes from the sizzling food. Stymie licks his chops. "They're saying 'Hello' to my stomach right now!" And he chomps down his breakfast. When Spanky tries to become a caddy, a golfer asks him for his credentials. "I shot a 74," Spanky says proudly. "Was that for 18 holes?" the golfer exclaims. "No. That was just for the first hole," says Spanky. "But I could do 64 on the second hole." With these less than subtle jokes, a parade of Our Gang kids quipped, mugged and roughhoused their way through hundreds of one- and two-reelers and one full-length feature. Age was everyone's occupational hazard. They stayed in no longer than their 11th or 12th birthday. As they grew older, they had to step aside and be replaced by smaller fry. According to Roach, 176 youngsters played in the comedies during their 23-year production run from '22 to '44. They included Jackie Cooper, Dickie Moore and Johnny Downs. Nanette Fabray and Eddie Bracken had bit parts [Note from 4alfalfa.com: Actually, Fabray and Bracken never appeared in any Our Gang films]. Ironically, the most famous child actor of them all, Shirley Temple, turned out for the series but didn't make it.
There is a difference of opinion as to who was in the original group. But Kalton Lahue in his book World of Laughter, identified the pioneer players as freckle-faced Mickey Daniels, tousle-haired Jackie Condon, cute Peggy Cartwright and Negro Ernie (Sunshine Sammy) Morrison. They were soon joined by fat Joe Cobb, golden-haired Mary Kornman, tough guy Jackie Davis, Allen Clayton (Farina) Hoskins (the Negro toddler boy whose sex was a puzzle to movie audiences) and Pete, the canine with the black ring around his eye. Today, kids enjoy the shorts on television without having any inkling that they were made generations ago. Some adults criticize the way Negroes were portrayed. However, it should be remembered the gang was an integrated group in a day when black and white friendships were rarely depicted on the screen. The youngsters, whose average age was 7, were supposed to be a cross-section of main-stream America. But Roach and his scouts didn't have to go far to find them. Mary Kornman, for example, was the daughter of photographer on the Roach lot where filming of the Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy, and Harold Lloyd comedies were done. Studio scouts discovered most of the others around Hollywood. When gang units turned over-which was about every five years-hundreds of mothers flocked to volunteer their darlings for the openings. Most of them went away disappointed. Someone once computed the odds of making the troupe at 1,000 to one. Of the many interviews the studio gave, only 41 children got contracts for major roles.
Pay started at $40 a week. But it went up fast. Spanky reportedly ended up with $1,250 a week. And he became just as independent as any grown-up actor. "Interviewers never got anywhere with Spanky," newspaperman Paul Harrison wrote. "He'll shake hands politely enough. But after that, he is about as garrulous as Garbo. It doesn't seem to be shyness. He's just bored." When a director called him before the cameras, he often said, "Aw, nuts." When he was sure of his lines and ready for a take, he said, "Okay, toots." Instead of memorizing his lines from a script, Spanky usually learned them from the director who explained each scene. Spanky often failed to deliver the sought-after expression. But he rarely blew his lines. Spanky, part of a '30 generation of Our Gang players, was in a unit with Carl (Alfalfa) Switzer, Billy (Buckwheat) Thomas, Scotty Beckett, Darla Hood, Baby Patsy May and Eugene (Porky) Lee. They usually had little time for play. Most of them got up before 8 a.m., got home at 5 p.m., and went to bed at 8 p.m. Youngsters under six were allowed to be at the lot only six hours a day, with half of the time set aside for playing. But after six, the :grown-up" actors put in a full, eight-hour work stint.
Ironically, most of the kids faded into oblivion after they left Our Gang (there were notable exceptions, previously mentioned. In addition, Robert Blake-who used his real name, Mickey Gubitosi, during his Our Gang days-portrayed one of the killers in In Cold Blood (1967) and starred in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969). And Jackie Davis became John H. Davis, M.D. of Beverly Hills). McFarland bounced from job to job: hotdog vendor, gas station operator, oil promoter. In '72, he was a sales training supervisor for a television manufacturer in Texas. Joe Cobb worked as an assembler for an aircraft manufacturing plant in Inglewood, California. Darla Hood Granson was still in Hollywood doing TV commercials, mostly dubbing or voice-over work. She sang the mermaid ditty in the Chicken-of-the-Sea commercial. Mary Kornman was also married and living on a ranch near Hollywood. She and her husband rent horses to motion picture and TV studios for use in westerns. Shirley Jean Rickert became a featured stripper who peeled under the name "Gilda". Johnny Downs emceed a daily kids' program over KFSD, San Diego, after a $1,500 a week career in pictures. Tommy Bond, who was "Butch", became head of properties at KTTV in Hollywood. And Allen (Farina) Hoskins worked with young people with drug problems.
Some met untimely or tragic deaths. Switzer, the country bumpkin famous for his cowlick and squeaky voice, was shot to death in '59 in an argument over $50. He was 33, working as a Los Angeles bartender and hunting guide in between bit parts. Buckwheat, who made the army his career for a while, was killed while flying food to Biafra in '68. Beckett, a tyke with big brown eyes, died the same year at the age of 38, the victim of a possible overdose of alcohol or drugs. Roach felt these were the exceptions. "Naturally, some got into trouble or had bad luck," he said. "They're the ones who got in the headlines. But if you took 176 other kids and follow them through their lives, I believe you would find the same percentage of them having trouble in later life." Roach got the idea for a kids series in '21 in the days when child actors were unusually Little Lord Fauntleroy types. One day, according to one story, he looked out his window and saw a bunch of children arguing over wood they had snatched from a lumber yard. "Of course, they would throw the wood away when they had gone two clocks," Roach said. "But the argument seemed terribly important to them then. I watched for 15 minutes. And I got the idea of doing a series from the angle of kids' mentality." And so Our Gang was born. The first short, One Terrible Day, was released in September '22. It was well received from the start. Roach, at first, called the group The Little Rascals. But he liked the title of the third short, Our Gang, and it stuck. The studio produced a dozen or more films every year. Writer-director Robert McGowan headed up the production staff until '33 and thereafter did screenplays until '39. The series had no trouble making the transition to talkies and many adult comedians appeared in them. They included Franklin Panbgborn, Billy Gilbert, and Edgar Kennedy.
In '36, Roach did a full-length film, General Spanky, but it failed to draw enthusiastic reviews and no other feature picture was ever made. As for the shorts, their quality covered the spectrum. They ranged from deadly dull to mildly funny to hilarious. One of the best ones, Bored of Education, won an Oscar in '36 for best short subject. In '38, when double features started making shorts unprofitable, Roach sold Our Gang to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including the rights to the name. That's why it was changed to The Little Rascals when they began appearing on television. MGM ground out shorts from '38 to '44. But few of them had the quality of the Roach pictures. "For one thing," said Miss Hood, "at Hal Roach, all the big shows and production numbers were staged as dreams. That way, all the elaborate sets and costumes were easily explained. At MGM, the kids always gave the shows. And as they were almost Busby Berkeley productions, it seemed too unbelievable that a bunch of kids without money could have produced them. And then, instead of the kids talking like kids, the script writers made them sound too glib and worldly."
Some shorts added morals and that made them even more stilted. When World War II came, MGM lost interest and so the series ended. There were attempts to revive them. But all were unsuccessful. In '56, Roach and Allied Artists disclosed plans to film a new series. But nothing came of it. Another producer's scheme to make a television series also fizzled. Still, the old flicks survived. One entrepreneur, Charles King, bought 79 of them and reissued them for TV. For years, the comedies have been shown over and over again in cities throughout the country, serving to bridge the generation gap. They entertain not only children of today but their parents as well. For them, it's a kind of nostalgic trip back in a time machine.
"Weren't they something," Roach said in the 60's after he had sold all the rights to his films and then saw his $6.5 million movie empire vanish. (It was a matter of bankruptcy petition that came after Roach's son had taken over the studio and enmeshed it in the failing financial affairs of a stock manipulator named Alexander Guterma.) "I've
seen Cary Grant sit and watch those kids for half an hour at a time
and marvel at their ability to convey an idea," the older Roach
went on wistfully. "They were natural little actors. Farina
could cry great big tears in 20 seconds. You'd think his heart was
breaking. And one moment later, he'd be back playing again…They
were a special kind of child. Today you'd have to have a contest
to find one like them. They talked and acted exactly like children
really do. And that's what made Our Gang so popular."
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