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Came the Brawn Released:
April 16, 1938 Skip
episode synopsis and go directly to commentary "The Little Rascals" and Little Rascals characters © and TM King World Productions, Inc. This website based in part upon a television series distributed by King World Productions and Turner Entertainment Company / MGM. Alfalfa (a.k.a."The Oklahoma Wildcat") is scheduled to wrestle the Masked Marvel later in the day. One problem: He and Spanky haven't yet decided who the Masked Marvel will be. After Alfalfa rejects several puny candidates on various technicalities, he suggests that poor Porky audition for the role. But in a dry run, even Porky is able to pin the hapless Alfalfa. Just then, Waldo traipses by, and Alfalfa and Spanky, convinced that even Alfalfa can beat the neighborhood milquetoast, convince Waldo to be the Masked Marvel. Later,
Alfalfa hangs out at Darla's house and brags about how well he expects
to do against the Masked Marvel. Butch shows up, gets aggravated
by Alfalfa, and decides to take his revenge. In the subsequent scene,
Butch and Woim sneak backstage just before the big match, and Butch
makes a compliant Waldo surrender his Masked marvel outfit. At
the end of the episode, Alfalfa swears off girls forever (ha!) and
even breaks the fourth wall by looking directly at the camera and
bidding the viewer goodnight.
Commentary He
is at his saccharine best during his entrance into the ring, flirting
with and waving at Darla. And there is a delightful sequence when,
while being tickled by the Masked Marvel, Alfalfa giggles for a
couple of seconds (could Butch have really been tickling him in
"real life"?) He then recovers quickly to (he thinks)
turn the tables on the Masked Marvel, while all the time really
wrestling himself as Butch calmly stands by watching Alfalfa's grimacing
contortions. The absurdity of Alfalfa not realizing it is himself
he is wrestling makes the sequence even more enjoyable. With another
character, another actor, such a scene might have been implausible
and a "reach". But Alfalfa is so unafraid to portray himself
acting absurdly, that the sequence works perfectly. Another high point of "Came the Brawn" is the customarily excellent performance of Tommy Bond as Butch, Alfalfa's perennial rival. One of the most underrated and versatile Little Rascals performers, Tommy Bond really had two distinctly different Little Rascals careers. Fist, he appeared from 1932 to 1934 as a "good guy", named (appropriately) Tommy. His two most memorable moments in this first tour of duty were probably his immortal rendition of "Just Friends (Lovers no More)" in "Mush and Milk", and his performance as the conductor of the beloved International Silver String Submarine Band in "Mike Fright". He then left the series for a period, returning in 1937 for as Butch in "Glove Taps" ("Came The Brawn's" "sister" episode) appearing in the MGM films through 1940, by which time he was virtually towering over Spanky and most of the other cast. Although Butch was the neighborhood Bully, and regularly tormented Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and Porky, Tommy Bond's performance was such that most latter-day Little Rascals fans actually regard Butch with affection. One gets the impression that even though he was a tough guy, he would never really go over the line; with the exception of a few tomato-squishings and a couple of pushes and shoves, Butch's bark was usually worse than his bite, and in the end, Butch and his sidekick Woim seemed to wind up on the short end of the stick more often than not, invariably due to an assist from Buckwheat and Porky. One example of Butch's lighter side in "Came the Brawn" is when Alfalfa, pinned by Butch, begs Spanky to hurry up and count him out so he can be put out of his misery. Butch wants it to go on for as long as possible, however. "Take your time, this is fun!" he excitedly tells Spanky. As mentioned above, "Came the Brawn" was the last Hal Roach Little Rascals episode featuring Spanky McFarland. Even though Alfalfa and Spanky would be teamed up for twenty-four more Our Gang comedies during the "Froggy" years —almost as many as the thirty-one episodes they made together under Hal Roach—it is still sad to consider that this is the last time they would pair up in the "Golden Years" (Spanky did not appear in the three remaining Hal Roach Our Gang films.) The predominantly low quality of the MGM films, and Spanky's increasing tendency to overact the pedantic dialogue he (and the rest of his castmates) were given in these post-Roach films, makes "Came the Brawn" truly the end of an era. Happily, it ended on a high note. 4alfalfa.com
gives "Came the Brawn"... 4 cowlicks (out of a possible 5) |
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"The Little Rascals" and Little Rascals characters © and TM King World Productions, Inc. This website based in part upon a television series distributed by King World Productions and Turner Entertainment Co./ MGM. Episode commentary © 4alfalfa.com |
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