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| Episode Commentary |
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Spooky Hooky Released:
December 5, 1936 "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, Spanky, and company trudge out of school at the end of another long day. Our heroes decide they want the next day off, so they draft a fake doctor's note about the two of them being sick (they might even have "new-monia"). They send Buckwheat and Porky back inside to drop the note on Miss Lawrence's desk while she is not looking, so that she will see it the following morning. Shortly after Buckwheat and Porky return to the schoolroom, Miss Lawrence leaves for the day (and, we might add, she looks mighty spiffy as usual). Noticing that their teacher is approaching, Spanky whispers to Alfalfa to make believe they have a cold. They both start sneezing. Miss Lawrence asks what's wrong, and the kids say that since they both have colds, they probably won't be in the next day. Miss Lawrence says that's too bad, because she has tickets for the whole class to go to the circus the next day. She leaves. Alfalfa and Spanky sprint towards the school but not in time to prevent Buckwheat from closing the door behind him as he and Porky return from their successful mission. Spanky tries to open the door. No luck. Then the boys go around the side of the building and knock on the basement window to see if Sam, the school's African-American janitor, will let them back in. Sam refuses, saying "when this school am locked, she's official locked". Spanky tells Alfalfa that they'll come back later that night to get the note. New scene—a "dark and stormy night". The four musketeers, clad in slickers and rain hats, return to school and proceed slowly up to the front entrance. Alfalfa and Spanky climb up to the window, looking in and seeing the note on their teacher's desk, just where Buckwheat and Porky had left it earlier. They open the window and the wind, rushing in from outside, blows all the papers onto the floor. They climb in, landing on their heads. Alfalfa gets up with his head stuck inside a wastebasket. Spanky tells Alfalfa to cut the nonsense and hit the lights. He lifts Porky through the window. Alfalfa goes into the hall and turns on the lights. The next section of the episode is spent fending off spooks (Porky disguised in a white sheet), hoot-owls (Buckwheat, while standing guard outside), and eerie noises (Porky's noisemaker). Finally they find the note and begin to leave. But Porky decides to smash some light bulbs to the ground, and the sound wakes up Sam the janitor. Sam slowly opens the door leading from the basement. Sam is in shadow, and Spanky thinks it is Porky. But we see Porky emerging from behind his three buddies. Porky puts his hands on Buckwheat's shoulders. Buckwheat slowly looks up to see it's Porky, and elbows Alfalfa and Spanky to do the same. If that's Porky, who's coming up the stairs? They all look at each other and, frightened, scatter in different directions to hide. Sam tiptoes into the hallway to try the lights. Buckwheat has hidden behind a set of drapes and has somehow unknowingly become attached to a full-size laboratory skeleton. The skeleton's hands are resting on Buckwheat's shoulders. Buckwheat turns around to see it is a skeleton, then runs off in terror, the skeleton trailing behind. Sam sees Buckwheat and the skeleton, whoops in terror, and crashes through the front door into the stormy night. As Sam struggles to get to his feet, Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, and Porky all flee from the school, running over the janitor in their attempts to escape. The scene then dissolves and we see a closing shot of the four schemers in their sick beds, each occupying a quadrant of a four-way split screen. As their mothers each administer cough syrup, they say to their sons, in unison "For the last time, you can't go to school today!" as the episode fades to black.
Commentary "Spooky
Hooky" is also interesting from the standpoint of the development
of Alfalfa and Spanky's characters. Here, Spanky is unquestionably
still the leader of the group. When he and Alfalfa first climb through
the classroom window, and Alfalfa gets his head stuck in the wastebasket,
Spanky tells him sharply to take the wastebasket off his head and
turn on the lights, to which Alfalfa replies obediently, "Yes,
Spanky". It would be another six months or so—probably
"Glove Taps"—until Alfalfa really starts to emerge
as the featured character, the nominal centerpiece, of the Little
Rascals series. There are countless worse ways to spend ten minutes than watching "Spooky Hooky", but it is probably not an episode one would be eager to see over and over again. 4alfalfa.com's
rating for this outing is 3 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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