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| Episode Commentary |
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The Lucky Corner Released:
March 14, 1936 (approximately one year after it was filmed) 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. Scottie and Old Gus are inside a sidewalk lemonade stand. Scotty is shouting out to passersby, "Lemonade, lemonade, ice-cold lemonade!..." 
Across the way, bratty Leonard and his equally disagreeable father own a newer, more well-apportioned lemonade located directly across from Gus. Leonard's father tracks down a policeman (James C. "Mike Fright" Morton) and demands that the cop tell Gus to pack up and move elsewhere. The policeman, put off by the father's mean-spiritedness, especially when contrasted to Gus's more gentle demeanor, reluctantly tells Gus he has to move. Buckwheat's father, a bootblack who does business on the same street, offers Gus the chance to occupy some of his own space on the sidewalk. Although Gus is appreciative of the gesture, the new location is out-of-the-way, and business suffers as a result. In response, Spanky plans to provide some live entertainment to help Gus draw more customers. Alfalfa is one of the acts Spanky lines up. Alfalfa takes his spot on the platform, and to his brother Harold's banjo accompaniment, sings a faltering but hilarious version of "Little Brown Jug" (read more about Alfalfa's performance and the history of this song at Alfalfa's Greatest Hits, or stop by later). After he completes his song, Spanky tells him to keep singing so they can draw an even bigger crowd. Before resuming, Alfalfa gulps down a glass of the lemonade which, unbeknownst to anyone, has been made from starch instead of sugar thanks to an earlier mistake by Buckwheat. Alfalfa tries to sing an encore, but can barely squeak out the first couple words, despite numerous attempts. Meanwhile, the crowd is enjoying this performance as is, even without the actual singing, and eagerly line up at Gus's stand to buy some of his lemonade. Spanky's plan has worked, although not in the exact way he planned. But sneaky Leonard, during the ruckus, has stolen all of Gus's lemonade and poured it into his own urn. When Gus realizes he has no more lemonade, the customers switch to Leonard's stand. But Leonard doesn't know what was in Gus's lemonade, and his customers are soon doing spit-takes after they get a gulp.
Leonard and Scotty start bickering about the
lemonade shenanigans. A nearby barber comes out of his establishment
to see what the commotion is about. The barber is holding some kind
of electric shear device that Spanky asks to borrow. He then sneaks
up behind Leonard and drops the shears down the back of his pants.
Spanky reconnects the plug and gives Leonard the shock of his young
and obnoxious life. Spanky continues plugging and unplugging the
shears, sending Leonard into spastic gyrations on the shoe shine
platform, sending the bystanders into laughter. To accompany Leonard's
"dancing", Spanky leads his performers into more music,
including Alfalfa on harmonica. The episode ends with Leonard's
father rushing to rescue his son and getting a dose
of the electrical shock himself. During
the balance of "The Lucky Corner", we also see plenty
of our favorite little cowboy scurrying about, usually with a devilish
grin on his face. A particularly interesting facet of Alfalfa's
performance is to see him react to Leonard's threatening countenance,
first when Alfalfa and Spanky accidentally knock over Leonard's
fruit stand, and later, when Leonard catches him dropping the barber
shears down the back of his pants. Both times, Alfalfa reacts to
Leonard's anger with a look that indicates the young actor wasn't
quite sure how to respond to the older boy's bluster. After knocking
down the fruit stand early in the episode, Alfalfa even cowers a
bit after being confronted by the angry Leonard; while the script
obviously called for this reaction, it appears that part of Alfalfa's
fright might really have been genuine. "The Lucky Corner"
was probably the first time in his young acting career that his
role called for him to be subjected to a physical threat. Coincidentally,
it was at the hands of Leonard Kibrick (the older brother of Sid
"Woim" Kibrick, who would with Butch torment an older
Alfalfa in several late-thirties Little Rascals films.) As mentioned above, "The Lucky Corner" was released about one year after it was originally filmed. Scotty Beckett, who had left the series by the time this episode was finally released, makes a "return" appearance of sorts as Gus's sidekick. 4alfalfa.com
gives this enjoyable and unpretentious effort 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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