Sprucin' Up

Released: June 1, 1935
Director: Gus Meins
Episode length: 16:11 (10/34)
Alfalfa's screen time: 7:32 (5/34) 47% (23/34)
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: 38 (10-t)
Song: "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain"
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Skip episode synopsis and go directly to commentary

The scene dissolves to a shot of Scotty's mom ordering him to clean his muddy shoes, despite Scotty's protestations that it's Saturday. Next we see Alfalfa. He is dressed in the cowboy outfit typical of Alfalfa's early Little Rascals career. Alfalfa walks into the room where his mother is working and does a Tarzan-like yell, beating his chest. His mother asks him if he brushed his teeth, and Alfalfa says he did: both of 'em! Then he is told to comb his hair, an idea he is not fond of. He says, "Well, Tarzan don't never comb his hair!"

Alfalfa trudges into the next room, hops on a chair and looks into a mirror hanging on the wall. In a high-pitched, girlish voice, he says to himself, "Now listen...Al-falfa— your mother wants to make a sissy outta you!

Alfalfa then casually exits the house. He has his cowboy hat on. His mother looks at him suspiciously, but says nothing. As Alfalfa makes it to the back stoop, he takes off his hat to reveal he hasn't really combed his hair. Alfalfa then joins the rest of his pals sitting on a curb. Among them are Spanky, Scotty, and Buckwheat. Alfalfa's brother Harold Switzer is seated at the edge of the group. Scotty and his curbmate commiserate back and forth about their mothers' insistence on cleanliness. Alfalfa comments that he'll be glad when he's "bald-headed".

Spanky then grumbles that this face-washing business is getting him down. He looks at Buckwheat, sitting next to him, and says "You're lucky". Buckwheat gives Spanky a sort of double-take and looks disbelievingly at him (this line is frequently Censored!! from television showings).

We then see a very handsome car pull up to the curb across the street. Emerging from the car is Mr. and Mrs. Jones, preparing to enter their new home. Spanky stops a policeman wandering by to see who it is. The policeman tells the boys that Mr. Jones is the new truant officer.

Just then, a cute-looking girl (played by Marianne Edwards, a sort of poor man's Shirley Temple) hops out of the car. The kids on the curb look surprised. Marianne asks the real estate agent on the scene if there are any nice children in the neighborhood to play with. The agent replies that there are indeed, and that they're all "perfect ladies and gentlemen". Spanky and Alfalfa agree that they're going to go out of their way to impress their new neighbor, because if she likes them, her daddy will like them. Suddenly, Marianne looks across the street at the boys and says hello.

Stunned, they all bolt up and scatter in different directions back to their houses. The next shot is Alfalfa, singing "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" [check out Alfalfa's Greatest Hits now, or stop by later] as he strides into his kitchen. He tosses his hat aside and grabs a large can of lard, which he scoops out and smears on his hair in big clumps. He hops on the same chair as before and looks into the mirror to start grooming his hair as he does a little shimmy.

We then see a similar shot of Spanky cleaning his ears, then back to Alfalfa who is just finishing combing his hair and singing the last couple notes to "Coming Round the Mountain". His mother asks Alfalfa what happened to Tarzan, and he answers, "He's gone Holly-wood!"

After again shifting back briefly to Spanky and Scotty cleaning his ears and shoes, respectively, the scene shifts to the boys—with the exclusion of Alfalfa and Spanky—all spiffed up and standing in front of the Jones home, holding flowers, candy, etc. Spanky shows up, and instead of joining the line of waiting boys, he has a better idea. He hops into the Jones's car and honks the horn loudly. Mr. Jones comes out of the house, thinks the boys are responsible for the disruption, and chases them away. Spanky walks towards the Jones home and disapprovingly yells at the fleeing boys. He then introduces himself to Mr. Jones (who responds to the youngster as "Mr. Spanky") Spanky obtains entry to the house after plying Mr. Jones with flowers (for "Mrs. Jones") and a cigar. Once inside, Spanky sees Marianne sitting on the sofa. Spanky shyly walks over to the sofa and says hello. He is answered by Alfalfa, concealed until now in a large wing-back chair.

After, we are treated to a set piece comprised of Spanky and Alfalfa trying to one-up each other to impress Marianne. Although the kids' performances are a little raw, their interplay is hilarious at times. At one point, Spanky spots a goofy-looking photograph of Alfalfa on the endtable. Spanky picks up the photo and asks Marianne who the funny-looking monkey is. Alfalfa, angry at the insult, snatches the photo away from Spanky and says, "That happens to be me, pardner!" He then sweetly hands the photo back to Marianne and, grinning ear-to-ear, asks her, "I'm a pretty good-lookin' fall—ain't I?"

Finally they engage in a chin-up contest. While doing so, Jerry Tucker comes in and takes Marianne to a circus. Marianne thinks that the boys will be invited to come along. But Jerry asks her to wait outside, and then takes a cactus plant and switches it with the chair that the boys have used to hop up to the drapery rod they are using as their chin-up bar. As Alfalfa and Spanky see Jerry escorting Marianne away from through the window, they decide to get down but realize that the cactus will make their landing a little sticky. To make matters worse, a spider swings along while spinning its web and lands on Alfalfa's nose.

Eventually, Mr. Jones returns into the living room and tells the boys to get down. The drapery rod falls down, crashing the boys onto Mr. Jones. They flee from the living room, escaping an apoplectic Mr. Jones. After reaching the sidewalk, they both swear off girls forever.

As they shake hands on this new pledge, another girl, dressed in a frilly coat and holding a parasol (we do not see her face), strolls by on the sidewalk. Alfalfa immediately forgets the vow he made just seconds earlier and gets up, slicking down his hair as if preparing to introduce himself. Spanky shoves Alfalfa into a nearby hedge. Out comes Alfalfa on the other side, the force of Spanky's shove having stripping him of all but his undershorts as the episode fades to black.

Marianne Edwards and
Spanky.

Commentary
In "Sprucin' Up", Alfalfa is at his most devilishly precocious. The entire episode —especially its set piece with Alfalfa and Spanky jockeying for Marianne's approval in the little girl's living room—is a showcase for the talent of this remarkable young comedy team.

"Sprucin' Up" was Spanky's twenty-fifth Little Rascals film; it was Alfalfa's third. But this disparity in film experience is scarcely noticeable thanks to Alfalfa's natural exuberance, and, well, personality. He has several scene-stealing moments throughout, beginning with his introductory Tarzan yell during the montage of shots showing Alfalfa, Spanky, and Scotty carelessly getting ready for their Saturday adventures. The list of notable dialogue and action highlighting Alfalfa's impishness to great effect is too long to enumerate here, but among the highlights during the episode's early sequences are his protestations to his mother that "Tarzan don't never comb his hair!!", as well as his gleeful application of clumps of lard to his hair while singing "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" after he has gotten a glimpse of his cute new neighbor and decided that he should re-evaluate his grooming habits.

Before we continue, we would be remiss if we didn't also mention the delightful scene which opens the episode. Spanky wakes up and immediately starts whining to his mother that he feels too ill to go to school. But his mother reminds him that his "illness" is unnecessary since it's Saturday. This prompts a joyous reaction from Spanky. He rolls around on the floor with Pete the Pup (in one of the last episodes in which the Rascals' lovable dog would figure prominently), then, while getting dressed, does a little jig while singing "Oh, it's Saturday, it's Saturday..."


Hal Roach Studios publicity still from "Sprucin' Up".
Two of the most beloved Little Rascals of all time.

Once both Alfalfa and Spanky have gained access to Marianne's living room— Alfalfa by means of his "personality", Spanky due to his "brains"—the fun really begins. Both suitors try desperately to one-up each other. Spanky employs more subtle techniques which are invariably upstaged by his rival's more flamboyant gambits. For example, when Spanky remembers that he has brought some sweets for the sweet, he asks Marianne if she likes candy, to which "Mr. Alfalfa" (As Marianne has referred to him during introductions) replies, "I should sayyy we do!", before grabbing the box from Spanky, offering some to Marianne, and then stuffing his own cheeks with candy.

Spanky gets in his share of barbs too. Marianne gets a kick out of Spanky's inquiry to Alfalfa of how much the cowlicked one charges to haunt a house. Alfalfa is not as impressed with Spanky's Don Rickles act, and shows his displeasure by glaring back at Spanky.

"Sprucin' Up" also establishes a theme which will become central to the Alfalfa/Spanky relationship in subsequent years: their individual approaches to the subject of girls. Typically, Alfalfa wants to court Marianne mainly because she's "purty", but Spanky's chief stated objective is to curry favor with the girl to get on the good side of her truant-officer father. Their respective explanations for their means of entry into the girl's living room also speaks volumes: Alfalfa's "personality" and Spanky's "brains" (the only notable exception to Spanky's ability to resist the intoxicating effects of the fairer sex is in "Mail and Female", when he goes temporarily ga-ga over Darla's "Cousin Amelia", which is, of course really Alfalfa in drag—you amateur psychotherapists out there should keep your comments to yourself, please...)


Contemporary lobby poster from "Sprucin' Up". Inexplicably,
Buckwheat is portrayed as a flirtatious young miss with
lacy dress and parasol.

The episode also makes effective use of some vintage Leroy Shield background music usually heard more regularly in the Little Rascals episodes of the early thirties. The inclusion of Little Rascals musical favorites like "Beautiful Lady", "In My Canoe", "Dash and Dot", "Little Dancing Girl", and "The One I Love Best" , give the episode a pleasantly nostalgic feel.

Despite its obvious charm, there are some problems with "Sprucin' Up", that keeps it out of the "elite" category of Alfalfa episodes. It suffers from uneven editing and lethargic pacing during the living room scene. Another issue is the wooden performance by Marianne. She is a sweet little girl, and her overall performance is generally appealing, but, as Maltin and Bann point out in "Life and Times", she has a tendency to be too conscious of the off-screen presence of the camera; especially when she tells her "real" suitor (dapper Jerry Tucker) that Alfalfa and Spanky are just "two boys from across the street" (The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang, Three Rivers Press, page 157).

These negatives are relatively inconsequential, however, when compared to the irresistible performances of Alfalfa and his less flamboyant but no less talented straight man, Spanky. What a treat it is to see these two perform in the early stages of their Little Rascals partnership.

4alfalfa.com gives "Sprucin' Up"

4 cowlicks (out of a possible 5)

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