Bored of Education

Released: August 20, 1936
Director: Gordon Douglas
Episode length: 9:32 (32/34)
Alfalfa's screen time: 6:14 (27/34) 44% (24/34)
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: 20 (26/34)
Song: "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Hearts"
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Skip episode synopsis and go directly to commentary

It is the first day back at school after summer vacation, and the only returning student who doesn't seem either despondent or disinterested is Darla. To make matters worse, the kids are scheduled to have a new teacher, someone named Miss Lawrence. They assume she is an old crone (Spanky even draws an effigy of what he thinks she will look like: an owl.)

Spanky hatches a scheme that will enable he and Alfalfa to leave school early. He inflates a balloon inside Alfalfa's mouth, wraps a towel around the circumference of his head, and asks Alfalfa to pretend he has a toothache. Then Spanky will offer to escort him home, and they'll be all set.

The new teacher overhears this plan, and decides to hold an ice cream party to both get on her students' good side and to teach the two schemers a lesson. When class begins, Miss Lawrence is revealed to be a beautiful blonde, to the kids' jaw-dropping surprise. Still, Spanky and Alfalfa go through with their toothache plan, and Miss Lawrence lets them leave, just in time to see the ice cream man drive up. Immediately they realize they have made a mistake, especially after spying their classmates enjoying their frozen treats from through an open window (Buckwheat and Porky in particular are having a grand old time. In addition to the ice cream all over their faces, they actually manage to get some into their mouths too!)

Spanky quickly deflates the balloon inside Alfalfa's jaw, but Alfalfa swallows the stopper, resulting in a wheezing sound every time he inhales. They both ask Miss Lawrence to return to class, and she replies by saying that if Alfalfa sings, she will let them come back and have their ice cream (is she mad?) Alfalfa dutifully sings the old Irish ballad "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" (see Alfalfa's Greatest Hits, or visit later) and despite the accordian-like sound that is heard every time he takes a deep breath between lines, he finishes the song. He and Spanky are rewarded with a pair of ice cream bars.

Commentary
The second of three "periods" of Alfalfa's Hal Roach Little Rascals career is kicked off with this film. Choosing "Bored of Education" as the beginning of this second period of episodes seems to make sense on several levels:

•It was the first one-reeler Little Rascals film (read a brief discussion of the one-reeler vs. two-reeler issue).

•It is the film in which Alfalfa begins the gradual but unmistakable process of stepping out from behind Spanky's shadow.

•It marks the Little Rascals directorial debut of Gordon Douglas

•It begins a string of episodes that are centered around school in some way (seven out of the next eleven episodes would take place, partly or completely, in some sort of school building).

•It introduces in full the character of Miss Lawrence, the beautiful teacher who would give the legendary Miss Crabtree a run for her money any day of the week (Rosina Lawrence had appeared briefly in "Arbor Day", but this was the first episode in which she was featured prominently.) A word about the character that Rosina Lawrence played: For some reason, she was officially credited in some of her seven episodes as "Miss Lawrence", and in some as "Miss Jones". To avoid confusion, we'll refer to her as "Miss Lawrence" in all her appearances regardless of how she was billed in official Hal Roach credits, especially since an actress named Arletta Duncan played another teacher named "Miss Jones" in "Teacher's Beau", Alfalfa's second Rascals appearance.

•It is the first film whose theme is "Alfalfa as victim" (unless you consider Alfalfa to have been victimized by the drooping microphone in "Pinch Singer". ) "Alfalfa as victim" would be employed more frequently from now on. In this "middle period" (beginning with this episode and continuing on to "Night 'N Gales"), Alfalfa swallows a balloon, has firecrackers go off in his back pocket, falls through a stage curtain from a teetering ladder, gets dumped by his "bride to be", gets knocked out in the boxing ring by Buckwheat, eats a soap sandwich and soap cream puff on Valentines Day, has bottles thrown at his head by a monkey, is tossed bodily into the stage wings while dressed in a ballet tutu, and has his cowlick plucked off by a rooster.


Posed publicity still of
the Little Rascals cast.
Click to enlarge.

"Bored of Education" won the subsequent Academy Award™ for best short subject. As Maltin and Bann point out (The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang, Three Rivers press, page 170), it is puzzling why this subject, above all other Little Rascals films from 1922 to 1938, was nominated and then came out victorious. It is an amusing and well-made episode, but it doesn't rank up there with the truly elite Alfalfa/Rascals efforts. There was speculation later that the Academy voters were eager to bestow some sort of honor (perhaps overdue) on the Little Rascals series since there had been word that the Rascals may soon be discontinued because of the emerging popularity of feature-length films.


Director Gordon Douglas made his Little Rascals directorial
debut in "Bored of Education". Here he poses with his young
cast in posed publicity shot between takes. Click to enlarge.

Among the highlights of "Bored of Education" is Darla's spritely greeting to her classmates upon entering the courtyard; Porky's impish consumption of the apple that Darla planned on giving her new teacher, and Darla's subsequent expression of disbelief; Buckwheat's frustration when Spanky tells him that he can't be "sick" too (Buckwheat angrily kicks the ground as he trudges into school). And notice how Miss Lawrence, twice, refers to Alfalfa as "the little sick boy" when he claims to have a toothache so severe that he needs to be excused from class.

Also effective is the technique used to reveal Miss Lawrence for the first time to the students. We see a shot from behind her as she opens the door into the classroom, almost as if from her vantage point, and over her shoulder come into focus the students, who sit in open-mouthed shock at how beautiful their new teacher is (they had all assumed she would be old and ugly). The ice cream scene is very funny as well, especially when Alfalfa and Spanky look in through the classroom window to see Porky and then Buckwheat, the lower half of their faces covered with ice cream, gleefully gesture to and with their ice cream bars, as if to say "See what you're both missing?"

And of course Alfalfa brings the proceedings to a close with his rendition of the oddly-named old Irish ballad "Believe Me, If All Those Enduring Young Hearts", complete with a shrill wheezing sound from the swallowed balloon every time
he takes a deep breath.

"Bored of Education" has a lot of cute moments and images, and a lot of "firsts", but it is an otherwise unremarkable entry (despite its Academy Award™) to which 4alfalfa.com a

3 cowlicks (out of a possible 5)

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