"Alfalfa abused a lot of people during the filming of the Our Gang / Little Rascals comedies at the Hal Roach Studios and later at the MGM Studios. Before they died, Spanky McFarland and Darla Hood told me of the cruel pranks that Alfalfa played on them.

"For instance, Alfie put sharp fish hooks in Spanky's back pant's pockets and the poor guy had to have stitches on his tush.

"Alfie also placed an open switchblade knife in his pocket and tricked Darl into putting her hand into his pocket on the pretense that he had a ring for her from a Crackerjack box. She almost lost her fingers.

"According to a story on E Entertainment TV series Mysteries and Scandals, some of the surviving LR kids - Rev. Waldo Kaye, Jerry Tucker, Tommy (Butch) Bond and Sidney (Woim) Kibrick - stated that Alfie would not pay attention to his school lessons in Mrs. Fern Carter's class. He'd be held after school often and kept everyone waiting for him on the set of the films.

 

 

"Spanky told me of Alfie's worst and most stupidly dangerous stunt. When the gang was filming a scene for the short film comedy 'The Big Premiere' at MGM, the scene was to be the kids showing their own movie on a process screen. The rear projection system and the lights (a thousand watts per bulb) were taking a long time to set up. Alfie sneaked behind the screen and peed on the bulbs. This was highly dangerous, for even spitting on those bulbs is tantamount to setting off series of bombs. The lights exploded and filled the studio with a hideous stench. Everyone was taken off the set, as the crew and the director had to fixed the bulbs and clean up the expensive mess that Alfalfa had created that day.

"Could it be that, because of his obnoxious behavior, the authorities and the press decided not to tell the truth about Alfalfa's death as a form of revenge for this former movie kid actor's cruel and stupid pranks that he played on everyone? Even if he may have died tragically?

"In a sense, I don't feel too sorry for Alfalfa because of the way he abused people. Who could have become his friend during his lifetime?"

Teresa Bain writes: "My mother, who now lives in Brandon, FL., was Alfalfa's cousin. She told me how Alfalfa died. This is the story, according to the family... Someone OWED money to Alfalfa and he went to get it. Alfalfa was drunk at the time. Alfalfa confronted the guy and the guy pulled out a gun. Alfalfa only had a knife. According to the family, Alfalfa was shot over a debt of only $50.00. My mother told me she hated Alfalfa because he was so mean to her."

 

WHO REALLY SAW WHAT 

HAPPENED THAT NIGHT?

Tom Corrigan, son of cowboy star Ray "Crash" Corrigan, was only 14 years old on January 21, 1959 when the deadly confrontation between his step-father and Carl Switzer broke out. Tom was friends with Carl Switzer, they had known each other for years. He spoke to the press about the case in 2000.

Corrigan's story differs greatly from Stiltz' self-serving alibi. In his story to the press, Corrigan says it looked like murder to him, "He didn't have to kill him."

True, Alfalfa was drunk when his mother Rita Corrigan opened the door, but Stiltz was waving a .38-caliber revolver when entered the living room - during a struggle, the gun went off and Tom was grazed by a plaster fragment or bullet. The fighting stopped when everyone realized the kid was hurt.

Young Tom Corrigan stepped outside as things got quiet. He didn't see the exact moment of impact but heard the unexpected shot, turning in time to witness Alfie with a shocked look, his face sliding down the wall. It was then that Corrigan saw the small penknife, which apparently fell closed from Switzer's pocket.

Only by begging for his life was Alfie's companion, 37 year old bit player Jack Piott not killed also (he had cracked a glass dome over Stiltz's head in the initial struggle).

A statement detailing these events was taken from the teenager, though fearful of his abusive stepfather, the youngster agreed to testify but he was never called. Stiltz was exonerated.

The kicker to Tom's story: every Christmas (until his 1984 death) Bud Stiltz received a holiday card signed "Alfie".

 

LAscandals gets the last word:

alfalfa murder caseThere are a few reason's why I believe that Carl Switzer was into the drug scene.

First, the drive by shooting the year before. Second, his physical deterioration is evident between 1957-1958. Carl actually looks like a strung out junkie in some scenes from his final movie "The Defiant Ones". Third, I'm clairvoyant and I've had psychic contact with Carl Switzer's spirit (I'm not bullshitting you).

Did you know that Alfie's father swore at the coroner's inquest that Stiltz had threatened Alfie with death before he went over to collect the money?

This is from another article that I came across: 

"Police said Switzer went to the home of a friend, M.S. Stiltz, 38, Wednesday night in an effort to collect a $50 LOAN.

Dets. Louis Bell and Ernest Johnson said Stiltz told them an argument DEVELOPED and Switzer hit him on the head with a clock: Stiltz got a gun and it fired harmlessly while they struggled: Switzer drew a knife and Stiltz shot him in the abdomen." 

- COURIER POST, Camden, N.J. / Thursday, Jan. 22, 1959

Notice how I capped on LOAN and DEVELOPED. This article also has a valuable contradiction in it - this would mean that money may have been loaned out to Bud from Carl and Carl wanted it back. No mention about a lost hunting dog either.

The real question may be, how much methamphetimines could $50 buy someone back in 1959?

Crime

1959

Switzer of Our Gang murdered

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Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played “Alfalfa” in the Our Gang comedy film series, dies at age 31 in a fight, allegedly about money, in a Mission Hills, California, home. Alfalfa, the freckle-faced boy with a warbling singing voice and a cowlick protruding from the top of his head, was Switzer’s best-known role.

As a child, Switzer, who was born August 7, 1927, entertained people in his hometown of Paris, Illinois, with his singing. On a trip to California to visit relatives, Switzer’s mother took Carl and his brother to the Hal Roach Studios, a film and television production company that launched the careers of comedy legends like Laurel and Hardy. The Switzer brothers were signed by Hal Roach and Carl was cast as Alfalfa in the Our Gang series, which Roach began producing as silent films in the early 1920s.

Our Gang revolved around a group of ragtag children and their adventures. Along with Alfalfa, other popular characters included Spanky, Buckwheat and Darla. Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally. Switzer played Alfalfa from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s. In 1955, the Our Gang films were turned into a hugely popular TV series called The Little Rascals; however, Switzer never received any royalties from the show.

After Our Gang, Switzer found small roles in movies and on television, but his most successful days in Hollywood were behind him. He made money working odd jobs, including stints as a hunting guide and bartender, and had several run-ins with the police.

On January 21, 1959, Switzer and a friend went to the Mission Hills home of Moses “Bud” Stiltz, to collect a debt Switzer believed he was owed. A fight broke out, during which Stiltz shot and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer was the most famous and popular member of the Little Rascals comedy shorts series. Several generations grew up watching these funny, talented kids in dozens of short subjects in the 1930s. (Note; the series was originally called Our Gang and was later changed to The Little Rascals, which is how most fans refer to it today.) These black-and-white films enjoyed a whole new life in television in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and even now the classic shorts are seen by countless new generations on video and DVD.

Producer Hal Roach (who also produced the classic Laurel and Hardy films) produced dozens of Little Rascals and Our Gang comedy shorts throughout the depression years of the 1930s. They starred very talented kids with names like Spanky, Buckwheat, Froggy, and girl heroine and sometimes love interest for the boys, Darla Hood. 

Like Curly of the Three Stooges, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer quickly rose above his young co-stars in terms of popularity. Alfalfa received fan mail from kids all over the world. According to one "Hollywood legend," Alfalfa was once mobbed by a big group of fans, while nearby, Clark Gable stood by unnoticed.

With his too-tight suit, freckles, and slicked-down haircut (complete with high cowlick), Alfalfa became a true Hollywood icon. Although he played an immensely likable character in the comedy shorts, in real life Alfalfa Switzer was no angel. According to co-star Darla Hood, "Alfie once put fish hooks in Spanky's back pockets and poor Spanky had to have stitches placed on his tush."

Another time, "Alfie put an open switchblade in his pocket and tricked Darla into into putting her hand in his pocket on the pretense that he had a ring for her from a Crackerjack box. She almost lost her fingers." On one occasion, to get back at a rude cameraman, Alfalfa had the kids all chew big wads of gum. then he took the combined wads and put them inside the man's camera.

According to other kids in the Our Gang cast: "Alfie would not pay attention to his school lessons in Mrs. Fern carter's class. He'd be kept after school often and kept everyone waiting on the set of the films."

Spanky told of Alfalfa's most dangerous prank: "We were filming one day and the scene called for the kids to show their own movie on a process screen. The rear projection system and the lights (with a thousand watts per bulb) were taking a long time to set up, so Alfie decided to use his time by going behind the screen and peeing on the bulbs. This is extremely hazardous, for even spitting on those bulbs is tantamount to setting off a series of bombs. The lights exploded and filled the studio with a tremendous stench. Everyone had to be taken off the set as the crew and director fixed the bulbs and cleaned up the mess Alfalfa created that day."

The success of The Little Rascals was great, but short-lived. By 1940, the series ended. Like most actors, Alfalfa found work hard to come by, in his case because of his instant recognition and type-casting as the world-famous "Alfalfa of the Little Rascals." Still, he was a talented actor and comedian, and he did get small roles in several films.

If you watch closely, you'll spot him doing a cameo in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and White Christmas (1954), both classics. He did a bit in a John Wayne film called Island in the Sky (1940) and others, too. 

Interestingly, Alfalfa's famous schtick in The Little Rascal comedies had him singing off-key. He would belt out painful renditions of famous songs. Ironically, Alfalfa thought he actually had a great voice. He never understood why audiences laughed when he sang his off-key tunes. At auditions, according to Darla, "They used to say to him, 'Hey Alfie, sing off-key for us.' It used to drive him crazy."

By the 1950s, although still acting part-time, Alfalfa had moved to Kansas and found work as a dog breeder and trainer on a farm. It was there that he met and married Diane Collingwood, who gave birth to their son. The marriage was short-lived, lasting only four months. A life of alcohol abuse and brushes with the law followed. Alfalfa was convicted of stealing trees from the Sequoia National Forest and selling them for Christmas trees in 1958.

The death of Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer is still a very murky chapter in Hollywood history. The story usually goes that on the night of January 21, 1959, Alfalfa and a friend named Jack Piott came to the ranch-style Los Angeles home of Bud Stiltz and angrily started pounding on his door. Stiltz opened the door and Alfalfa said, "I want my fifty bucks and I want it now!" Apparently, Alfalfa had loaned out a hunting dog to Stiltz and Stiltz had not paid him the agreed-upon fee of $50.

Stiltz was in the house with his wife and three stepchildren, and at this point, she and all three children ran to a neighbor's house. Stilltz then grabbed a gun from the dresser. When Alfalfa went for it, the gun went off. Alfalfa briefly gained possession of the gun, but Stiltz wrestled it back. At that point, Alfalfa drew a knife and threatened Stiltz by saying, "I'm going to kill you!" and throwing the knife at him. Stiltz had no choice but to shoot and kill Alfalfa. The coroner's jury ruled the death as a justifiable homicide. 

But in 2000, a new witness, Tom Corrigan, came forward. He was the son of actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Bud Stiltz's stepson, and was only 14 years old at the time of the incident. Although for years it was assumed that the death of Alfalfa was his own fault, Tom disagrees. "He didn't have to kill him," he said of his stepfather. 

Tom claimed Alfalfa was drunk when he came to see his stepfather. But he said he remembers Stiltz getting the gun immediately after Alfalfa entered. He says that during the struggle between his stepfather and Alfalfa, he himself was grazed by a bullet or a plaster fragment. At this point, because a kid was hurt, the struggle stopped. Tom then left with his mother and the other children and heard the fatal shot go off. 

Tom came back into the house just in time to see the shocked look on Alfalfa's face and watch him slide down the wall -dead. Only by begging for his life was Alfalfa's friend, Jack Piott, spared. But according to Piott, Alfalfa never had a knife. However, a jackknife was found underneath Alfalfa's body, closed, and looking very conveniently-placed with no blade exposed. 

The facts are conflicting. And why didn't Tom come forward sooner? A statement was taken from him in 1959, detailing the chain of events as he saw it. He had agreed to testify truthfully, but was never called. 

One theory is that because Alfalfa was known to be such a nasty, unpleasant person, the police just decided to close the case with no further investigation. Bud Stiltz was easily exonerated. 

Oddly, Alfalfa's death received hardly any coverage in the news on TV or in the newspapers. Why? Famed producer Cecil B. DeMille had died the same day and he got the lion's share of news coverage. 

Ironically, too, Alfalfa's final movie role had been in the Tony Curtis-Sidney Poitier film The Defiant Ones (1958). In the movie he plays a guy in a posse tracking Curtis and Poitier -with a hunting dog. 

One last oddity: Every Christmas after Alfalfa's death, Bud Stiltz would receive a Christmas card signed "Alfie." To the day he died in 1984, he never found out who sent him the annual cards.

Carl Dean Switzer (August 8, 1927[1] – January 21, 1959) was an American singer, child actor, breeder and guide.

Switzer began his career as a child actor in the mid-1930s appearing in the Our Gang short subjects series as Alfalfa, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters. After leaving the series in 1940, Switzer struggled to find substantial roles owing to typecasting. As an adult, he appeared mainly in bit parts and B-movies. He later became a dog breeder and hunting guide.

Switzer married in 1954 and had one son before divorcing in 1957. In January 1959, he was fatally shot by an acquaintance in a dispute over money.

Contents 

1 Early life and family

2 Career

2.1 Our Gang

2.2 Adult years

3 Personal life

4 Death

4.1 Controversy

4.2 Burial

5 Selected filmography

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Early life and family

Switzer was born in Paris, Illinois, the third son and last of the four children of Gladys C. Shanks and George Frederick Switzer. The oldest brother died in 1922. A sister Janice was born in 1923 and a brother Harold was born in 1925. Of Scottish and German ancestry[2] he was named Carl after a member of the Switzer family and Dean after many relatives on his grandmother's side. He and his brother Harold became famous in their hometown for their musical talent and performances. Both sang and could play a number of instruments.

Career

Our Gang

Switzer (right) as "Alfalfa” in Our Gang Follies of 1938, with fellow Our Gang cast members George "Spanky" McFarland and Darla Hood.

In 1934, the Switzers traveled to California to visit family. While sightseeing, they went to Hal Roach Studios. Following a public tour, 8-year-old Harold and 6-year-old Carl entered the Hal Roach Studio's open-to-the-public cafeteria, the Our Gang Café, and began an impromptu performance. Producer Hal Roach was present and was impressed. He signed both brothers to appear in Our Gang. Harold was given two nicknames, "Slim" and "Deadpan," while Carl was dubbed "Alfalfa."[3]

The brothers first appeared in the 1935 Our Gang short Beginner's Luck. By the end of the year, Alfalfa was one of the main characters, while Harold had been relegated to the background. Although Carl was an experienced singer and musician, his character Alfalfa was often called upon to sing off-key renditions of popular songs, most often those of Bing Crosby.[3] Alfalfa also sported a cowlick.

By the end of 1937, Alfalfa had surpassed George "Spanky" McFarland, the series' nominal star, in popularity. While the boys got along, their fathers argued constantly over their sons' screen time and salaries.[4] Switzer's best friend among the Our Gang actors was Tommy Bond, who played his on-screen nemesis "Butch." In Bond's words, he and Switzer became good friends because "neither of us could replace the other since we played opposites." However, Switzer was known for being abrasive and difficult on the set. He would often play cruel jokes on the other actors and hold up filming with his antics.[3]

Adult years

Brothers Harold Switzer and Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer

Switzer's tenure on Our Gang ended in 1940, when he was twelve. His first role after leaving the series was as co-star in the 1941 comedy Reg'lar Fellers. The next year, he had a supporting role in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Switzer continued to appear in films in various supporting roles, including in Johnny Doughboy (1942), Going My Way (1944), and The Great Mike (1944). Switzer had an uncredited role as Auggie in the 1943 film The Human Comedy. Switzer's last starring roles were in a brief series of imitation Bowery Boys movies. He reprised his "Alfalfa" character, complete with comically sour vocals, in PRC's Gas House Kids comedies in 1946 and 1947. By this time Switzer was downplaying his earlier Our Gang work. In his 1946 resume, he referred to the films generically as "M-G-M short product."[3]

Switzer had small parts in both the 1946 Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life as Mary Hatch's (Donna Reed) date at a high school dance in the film's beginning and again in the 1948 film On Our Merry Way as the mayor's son, a trumpet player in a fixed musical talent contest. In the 1954 musical film White Christmas, his photo was used to depict "Freckle-Faced Haynes," an army buddy of lead characters Wallace and Davis (played by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) who was also the brother of the female leads the Haynes Sisters (played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen).

In the 1950s, Switzer turned to television. Between 1952 and 1955, he made six appearances on The Roy Rogers Show. He also guest-starred in an episode of the American science fiction anthology series Science Fiction Theatre and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. In 1953 and 1954, Switzer co-starred in three William A. Wellman-directed films: Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty, both starring John Wayne, and Track of the Cat, starring Robert Mitchum. In 1956, he co-starred in The Bowery Boys film Dig That Uranium followed by a bit part as a Hebrew slave in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Switzer's final film role was in the 1958 drama The Defiant Ones.

Besides acting, Switzer bred and trained hunting dogs and guided hunting expeditions. Among his notable clients were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (Switzer's son's godparents), James Stewart, and Henry Fonda.[3]

Personal life

In early 1954, Switzer went on a blind date with Diantha (Dian) Collingwood, heiress of grain elevator empire Collingwood Grain. Collingwood had moved with her mother and sister to California in 1953 because her sister wanted to become an actress. Switzer and Collingwood got along well and married in Las Vegas three months later. In 1956, with his money running out and Diantha pregnant, his mother-in-law offered them a farm near Pretty Prairie, Kansas, west of Wichita. Their son, Justin Lance Collingwood Switzer[5] (now Eldridge),[6] was born that year.[5] They divorced in 1957.[3]

In 1987, former Our Gang co-star George "Spanky" McFarland recalled a meeting with Switzer when they spoke about the farm:[3]

The last time I saw Carl was 1957. It was a tough time for me—and him. I was starting a tour of theme parks and county fairs in the Midwest. Carl had married this girl whose father owned a pretty good size farm near Wichita. When I came through town, he heard about it and called. He told me he was helping to run the farm, but he finally had to put a radio on the tractor while he was out there plowing. Knowing Carl, I knew that wasn't going to last. He may have come from Paris, Illinois, but he wasn't a farmer! We hadn't seen each other since we left the 'Gang.' So we had lunch. We talked about all the things you'd expect. And then I never saw him again. He looked pretty much the same. He was just Carl Switzer—kind of cocky, a little antsy—and I thought to myself he hadn't changed that much. He still talked big. He just grew up.

In January 1958 Switzer was getting into his car in front of a bar in Studio City, when a bullet smashed through the window and struck him in the upper right arm.[7] The gunman was never caught. That December he was arrested in Sequoia National Forest for cutting down 15 pine trees; he was sentenced to a year's probation and ordered to pay a $225 fine ($1,900 today).

Death

Grave of Carl Switzer on August 7, 2012, the 85th anniversary of his birth.

Switzer had agreed to train a hunting dog for Moses Samuel Stiltz. The dog was lost, having run after a bear, and Switzer offered a $35 reward for its return. A few days later, a man found the dog and brought it to the Studio City bar where Switzer then worked. Switzer paid the man $35 and bought him $15 worth of drinks. Several days later, Switzer and his friend Jack Piott, a 37-year-old unit still photographer, decided that Moses Stiltz should repay Switzer the reward money for the dog. Shortly before 7:00 that evening, January 21, 1959, Switzer and Piott went to Rita Corrigan's home in Mission Hills, where Stiltz was staying, to collect the $50 ($400 today) they felt Stiltz owed Switzer.

Stiltz later testified before the coroner's jury that Switzer had banged on the front door, saying, "Let me in, or I'll kick in the door." Once inside, he and Stiltz began to argue. Switzer said, "I want that 50 bucks you owe me now, and I mean now." When Stiltz refused to give it to him, the men began to fight. Switzer allegedly struck Stiltz with a glass-domed clock, which caused him to bleed from his left eye. Stiltz retreated to his bedroom and returned with a .38-caliber revolver. Switzer grabbed the gun, resulting in a shot being fired that struck the ceiling. Switzer forced Stiltz into a closet, although Stiltz had regained his revolver. Switzer allegedly pulled a knife and screamed, "I'm going to kill you!" Fearing Switzer was about to attack, Stiltz shot him in the groin. Switzer suffered massive internal bleeding and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.[8]

Controversy

The shooting was judged to be self-defense.[9] During the inquest regarding Switzer's death, it was revealed that what was reported as a "hunting knife" was in fact a penknife. It had been found by crime scene investigators under his body.

Over 42 years later, on January 25, 2001, a third witness came forward and gave his version. Tom Corrigan, son of Western movie star Ray "Crash" Corrigan and stepson of Moses Stiltz, was a child who was present the night Switzer was killed. "It was more like murder," Corrigan told reporters. He said he heard the knock on the front door, and Switzer said "Western  for Bud Stiltz." Corrigan's mother, Rita Corrigan, opened the door to find a drunk Switzer, complaining about a perceived month-old debt and demanding repayment. Switzer entered the house followed by Jack Piott and stated he was going to beat up Stiltz. Stiltz confronted Switzer with a .38-caliber revolver in his hand. Corrigan said that Switzer grabbed the revolver and Stiltz and Switzer struggled over it. Piott broke a glass-domed clock over Stiltz's head, causing Stiltz's eye to swell shut. During the struggle, a shot was fired into the ceiling and Corrigan was struck in the leg by a fragment. Corrigan's two younger sisters ran to a neighbor's house to call for help. "Well, we shot Tommy, enough of this," he remembers Switzer saying, just before Switzer and Piott started to leave the house.

Corrigan had just stepped out the front door when he heard, but did not witness, a second shot behind him. He turned and saw Switzer sliding down the wall with a surprised look on his face. Stiltz had shot him. Corrigan said he saw a closed penknife at Switzer's side, which he presumed fell out of his pocket or his hand. He then saw his stepfather shove Piott against the kitchen counter and threaten to kill him too. As Piott begged for his life, they heard emergency sirens. Corrigan thought this was the only reason Stiltz did not kill Piott. Corrigan said his stepfather lied in his account of the event before the coroner's jury.[10]

Corrigan says a Los Angeles Police Department detective interviewed him and asked if he would testify before the judge. Corrigan agreed to, but he was never called before the court. "He didn't have to kill him," Corrigan stated decades later.[11]

Moses Stiltz died in 1983 at the age of 62.[12]

Burial

Carl Switzer was interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. He died on the same day as Cecil B. DeMille died; his death received only minor notice in most newspapers since DeMille's obituary dominated the columns.

Selected filmography

Main article: Our Gang filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes

1930 Little Rascals: Best of Our Gang

1935 Beginner's Luck Tom Short film

1935 Teacher's Beau Alfalfa Short film

1935 Sprucin' Up Alfalfa Short film

1935 Our Gang Follies of 1936 Alfalfa Short film

1936 The Lucky Corner Alfalfa Short film

1936 Too Many Parents Kid Singer

1936 Arbor Day Alfalfa Short film

1936 Kelly the Second Boy with Stomach Ache Uncredited

1936 Spooky Hooky Alfalfa Short film

1937 Reunion in Rhythm Alfalfa Short film

1937 Rushin' Ballet Alfalfa Short film

1937 Mail and Female Alfalfa / Cousin Amiela Short film

1937 Our Gang Follies of 1938 Alfalfa Short film

1938 Canned Fishing Alfalfa Short film

1938 Came the Brawn Alfalfa Short film

1938 Hide and Shriek Alfalfa, alias X-10 Short film

1938 Football Romeo Alfalfa Short film

1939 Duel Personalities Alfalfa Short film

1939 Clown Princes The Great Alfalfa Short film

1939 Captain Spanky's Show Boat Alfalfa Short film

1939 Time Out for Lessons Alfalfa Short film

1940 Alfalfa's Double Alfalfa / Cornelius Short film

1940 Good Bad Boys Alfalfa Short film

1940 Goin' Fishin' Alfalfa Short film

1940 I Love You Again Leonard Harkspur Jr.

1940 Kiddie Kure Alfalfa Short film

1940 Barnyard Follies Alfalfa Credited as "Alphalfa" Switzer

1941 Reg'lar Fellers Bump Hudson

1942 My Favorite Blonde Frederick Uncredited

1942 Henry and Dizzy Billy Weeks

1942 There's One Born Every Minute Junior Twine Credited as Alfalfa Switser

1942 The War Against Mrs. Hadley Messenger Boy

1943 The Human Comedy Auggie Uncredited

1943 Dixie Boy in Street Uncredited

1944 Rosie the Riveter Buzz Prouty

1944 Going My Way Herman Langerhanke Uncredited

1944 The Great Mike Speck

1944 Together Again Elevator Boy Uncredited

1946 It's a Wonderful Life Freddie Othello Uncredited

1946 Gas House Kids Sammy Levine

1946 Courage of Lassie First Youth, a hunter

1947 Gas House Kids Go West Alfalfa

1948 On Our Merry Way Leopold "Zoot" Wirtz Alternative title: A Miracle Can Happen

1948 State of the Union Bellboy

1948 Big Town Scandal Frankie Snead Alternative title: Underworld Scandal

1949 A Letter to Three Wives Leo, Second Messenger Uncredited

1950 House by the River Walter Herbert Uncredited

1951 Two Dollar Bettor Chuck Nordlinger

1951 Here Comes the Groom Messenger Uncredited

1952 Pat and Mike Messenger

1952 I Dream of Jeanie Freddie Credited as Carl Dean Switzer

1953 Island in the Sky Sonny Hopper

1954 The High and the Mighty Ensign Keim

1954 Track of the Cat Joe Sam

1955 Not as a Stranger Unexpected Father Uncredited

1955 Francis in the Navy Timekeeper Uncredited

1956 Dig That Uranium Shifty Robertson Uncredited

1956 The Ten Commandments Slave Uncredited

1956 Between Heaven and Hell Savage Uncredited

1958 The Defiant Ones Angus

Television

Year Title Role Notes

1952-1955 The Roy Rogers Show Various roles 6 episodes

1954 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show Victor the Delivery Boy Episode: "George Gets Call from Unknown Victor"

1955 Lux Video Theatre Mailer Episode: "Eight Iron Men"

1955 Science Fiction Theatre Pete Episode: "The Negative Man"

Our Gang (later known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals) are a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series was produced from 1922 to 1944 and is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way, as Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series broke new ground by portraying white and black boys and girls interacting as equals.[1]

The franchise began in 1922 as a series of silent short subjects produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting to sound in 1929. Production continued at the Roach studio until 1938, when the series was sold to MGM, which produced the comedies until 1944. In total, the Our Gang series includes 220 shorts and one feature film, General Spanky, and featured over 41 child actors.

As MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark following their purchase of the production rights, the 80 Roach-produced "talkies" were syndicated for television under the title The Little Rascals beginning in 1955. Roach's The Little Rascals package (now owned by CBS Television Distribution) and MGM's Our Gang package (now owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Television) have since remained in syndication. New productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including a 1994 feature film, Little Rascals, released by Universal Pictures.

Contents 

1 Series overview

1.1 Directorial approach

1.2 Finding and replacing the cast

1.3 African-American cast members

2 History

2.1 1922–1925: Early years

2.2 1926–1929: New faces and new distributors

2.3 1929–1931: Entering the sound era

2.4 1931–1933: Transition

2.5 1933–1936: New directions

2.6 The final Roach years

2.7 The MGM era

3 Later years and The Little Rascals revival

3.1 The Little Rascals television package

3.2 King World's acquisition and edits

3.3 New Little Rascals productions

4 Legacy and influence

4.1 Imitators, followers, and frauds

4.2 Persons and entities named after Our Gang

5 Home video releases and rights to the films

5.1 16 mm, VHS, and DVD releases

5.2 Cabin Fever/Hallmark releases

5.3 MGM/Warner Bros. releases

6 Status of ownership

7 Our Gang cast and personnel

7.1 Roach silent period

7.2 Roach sound period

7.3 MGM period

8 Notable Our Gang comedies

9 References

10 External links

Series overview

Unlike many motion pictures featuring children and based in fantasy, producer/creator Hal Roach rooted Our Gang in real life: most of the children were poor, and the gang was often at odds with snobbish "rich kids," officious adults, parents, and other such adversaries.[1]

Directorial approach

Senior director Robert F. McGowan helmed most of the Our Gang shorts until 1933, assisted by his nephew Anthony Mack. McGowan worked to develop a style that allowed the children to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written for the shorts by the Hal Roach comedy writing staff, which included at various times Leo McCarey, Frank Capra, Walter Lantz and Frank Tashlin, among others.[2] The children, some too young to read, rarely saw the scripts; instead McGowan would explain the scene to be filmed to each child immediately before it was shot, directing the children using a megaphone and encouraging improvisation.[2] When sound came in at the end of the 1920s, McGowan modified his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Later Our Gang directors, such as Gus Meins and Gordon Douglas, streamlined the approach to McGowan's methods to meet the demands of the increasingly sophisticated movie industry of the mid-to-late 1930s.[2] Douglas in particular had to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach halved the running times of the shorts from two reels (20 minutes) to one reel (10 minutes).[2]

Finding and replacing the cast

As children became too old for the series, they were replaced by new children, usually from the Los Angeles area. Eventually Our Gang talent scouting employed large-scale national contests in which thousands of children tried out for an open role. Norman "Chubby" Chaney (who replaced Joe Cobb), Matthew "Stymie" Beard (who replaced Allen "Farina" Hoskins) and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas (who replaced Stymie) all won contests to become members of the gang.[3][4][5] Even when there was no talent search, the studio was bombarded by requests from parents who were sure their children were perfect for the series. Among them were the future child stars Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple, neither of whom made it past the audition.[6]

African-American cast members

Original theatrical poster for the Our Gang comedy Baby Brother, in which Allen "Farina" Hoskins (center) paints a black baby with white shoe polish so that he can sell him to a lonely rich boy, Joe Cobb (right), as a baby brother

The Our Gang series is notable for being one of the first in cinema history in which blacks and whites were portrayed as equals. The four African-American child actors who held main roles in the series were Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Matthew "Stymie" Beard and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas. Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first African-American actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history[7] and the first major African-American star in Hollywood history.[8]

In their adult years, Morrison, Beard and Thomas became some of Our Gang's staunchest defenders, maintaining that its integrated cast and innocent story lines were far from racist. They explained that the white children's characters in the series were similarly stereotyped: the "freckle-faced kid", the "fat kid", the "neighborhood bully", the "pretty blond girl", and the "mischievous toddler". "We were just a group of kids who were having fun", Stymie Beard recalled.[9] Ernie Morrison stated, "When it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind."[10] Other minorities, including the Asian Americans (Sing Joy George “Sonny Boy” Warde, Allen Tong (also known as Alan Dong), and Edward Soo Hoo) and the Italian American actor (Mickey Gubitosi), were depicted in the series with varying levels of stereotyping.

History

Left to right: Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, Andy Samuel, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Mickey Daniels and Joe Cobb in a 1923 still from one of the earliest Our Gang comedies

1922–1925: Early years

According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, when he was auditioning a child actress to appear in a film. The girl was, in his opinion, overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her mother left the office, Roach looked out of his window to a lumberyard across the street, where he saw some children having an argument. The children had all taken sticks from the lumberyard to play with, but the smallest child had the biggest stick, and the others were trying to force him to give it to the biggest child. After realizing that he had been watching the children bicker for 15 minutes, Roach thought a short film series about children just being themselves might be a success.[11]

Our Gang also had its roots in an aborted Roach short-subject series revolving around the adventures of a black boy called "Sunshine Sammy", played by Ernie Morrison.[12] Theater owners then were wary of booking shorts focused on a black boy,[12] and the series ended after just one entry, The Pickaninny, was produced.[12] Morrison's "Sunshine Sammy" instead became one of the foci of the new Our Gang series.

Under the supervision of Charley Chase, work began on the first two-reel shorts in the new "kids-and-pets" series, to be called Hal Roach's Rascals, later that year. Director Fred C. Newmeyer helmed the first pilot film, entitled Our Gang, but Roach scrapped Newmeyer's work and had former fireman Robert F. McGowan reshoot the short. Roach tested it at several theaters around Hollywood. The attendees were very receptive, and the press clamored for "lots more of those 'Our Gang' comedies." The colloquial usage of the term Our Gang led to its becoming the series' second (yet more popular) official title, with the title cards reading "Our Gang Comedies: Hal Roach presents His Rascals in..."[13] The series was officially called both Our Gang and Hal Roach's Rascals until 1932, when Our Gang became the sole title of the series.

The first cast of Our Gang was recruited primarily of children recommended to Roach by studio employees, with the exception of Ernie Morrison, under contract to Roach. The other Our Gang recruits included Roach photographer Gene Kornman's daughter Mary Kornman, their friends' son Mickey Daniels, and family friends Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Jack Davis, Jackie Condon, and Joe Cobb. Most early shorts were filmed outdoors and on location and featured a menagerie of animal characters, such as Dinah the Mule.

Roach's distributor Pathé released One Terrible Day, the fourth short produced for the series, as the first Our Gang short on September 10, 1922; the pilot Our Gang was not released until November 5. The Our Gang series was a success from the start, with the children's naturalism, the funny animal actors, and McGowan's direction making a successful combination. The shorts did well at the box office, and by the end of the decade the Our Gang children were pictured on numerous product endorsements.

The biggest Our Gang stars then were Sunshine Sammy, Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, and little Farina, who eventually became the most popular member of the 1920s gang[14] and the most popular black child star of the 1920s.[15] A reviewer wrote of her character in Photoplay: "The honors go to a very young lady of color, billed as 'Little Farina.' Scarcely two years old, she goes through each set like a wee, sombre shadow."[16] Daniels and Kornman were very popular and were often paired in Our Gang and a later teen version of the series called The Boy Friends, which Roach produced from 1930 to 1932. Other early Our Gang children were Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson, Scooter Lowry, Andy Samuel, Johnny Downs, Winston and Weston Doty, and Jay R. Smith.

1926–1929: New faces and new distributors

After Sammy, Mickey and Mary left the series in the mid 1920s, the Our Gang series entered a transitional period. The stress of directing child actors forced Robert McGowan to take doctor-mandated sabbaticals for exhaustion,[17] leaving his nephew Robert A. McGowan (credited as Anthony Mack) to direct many shorts in this period. The Mack-directed shorts are considered to be among the lesser entries in the series.[18] New faces included Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Harry Spear, Jean Darling and Mary Ann Jackson, while stalwart Farina served as the series' anchor.

Also at this time, the Our Gang cast acquired an American pit bull terrier with a ring around one eye, originally named Pansy but soon known as Pete the Pup, the most famous Our Gang pet. In 1927, Roach ended his distribution arrangement with the Pathé company. He signed on to release future products through the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which released its first Our Gang comedy in September 1927. The move to MGM offered Roach larger budgets and the chance to have his films packaged with MGM features to the Loews Theatres chain.

Some shorts around this time, particularly Spook Spoofing (1928, one of only two three-reelers in the Our Gang canon), contained extended scenes of the gang tormenting and teasing Farina, scenes which helped spur the claims of racism, which many other shorts did not warrant. These shorts marked the departure of Jackie Condon, who had been with the group from the beginning of the series.

Jackie Cooper in the 1930 short School's Out

1929–1931: Entering the sound era

Starting in 1928, Our Gang comedies were distributed with phonographic discs that contained synchronized music-and-sound-effect tracks for the shorts. In spring 1929, the Roach sound stages were converted for sound recording, and Our Gang made its "all-talking" debut in April 1929 with the 25-minute Small Talk. It took a year for McGowan and the gang to fully adjust to talking pictures, during which time they lost Joe Cobb, Jean Darling and Harry Spear and added Norman "Chubby" Chaney, Dorothy DeBorba, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Donald Haines and Jackie Cooper. Cooper proved to be the personality the series had been missing since Mickey Daniels left and was featured prominently in three 1930/1931 Our Gang films: Teacher's Pet, School's Out, and Love Business. These three shorts explored Jackie Cooper's crush on the new schoolteacher Miss Crabtree, played by June Marlowe. Cooper soon won the lead role in Paramount's feature film Skippy, and Roach sold his contract to MGM in 1931. Other Our Gang members appearing in the early sound shorts included Buddy McDonald, Bobby "Bonedust" Young, and Shirley Jean Rickert. Many also appeared in a group cameo appearance in the all-star comedy short The Stolen Jools (1931).

Beginning with When the Wind Blows, background music scores were added to the soundtracks of most of the Our Gang films. Initially, the music consisted of orchestral versions of then popular tunes. Marvin Hatley had served as the music director of Hal Roach Studios since 1929, and RCA employee Leroy Shield joined the company as a part-time musical director in mid 1930. Hatley and Shield's jazz-influenced scores, first featured in Our Gang with 1930s Pups is Pups, became recognizable trademarks of Our Gang, Laurel and Hardy, and the other Roach series and films. Another 1930 short, Teacher's Pet, marked the first use of the Our Gang theme song, "Good Old Days", composed by Leroy Shield and featuring a notable saxophone solo. Shield and Hatley's scores would support Our Gang's on-screen action regularly through 1934, after which series entries with background scores became less frequent.

In 1930, Roach began production on The Boy Friends, a short-subject series which was essentially a teenaged version of Our Gang. Featuring Our Gang alumni Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman among its cast, The Boy Friends was produced for two years, with fifteen installments in total.

The gang races rich-kid Jerry Tucker in their makeshift fire engine in the 1934 short Hi'-Neighbor!

1931–1933: Transition

Jackie Cooper left Our Gang in early 1931 at the cusp of another major shift in the lineup, as Farina Hoskins, Chubby Chaney, and Mary Ann Jackson all departed a few months afterward. Our Gang entered another transitional period, similar to that of the mid 1920s. Stymie Beard, Wheezer Hutchins, and Dorothy DeBorba carried the series during this period, aided by Sherwood Bailey and Kendall "Breezy Brisbane" McComas. Unlike the mid-1920s period, McGowan sustained the quality of the series with the help of the several regular cast members and the Roach writing staff. Many of these shorts include early appearances of Jerry Tucker and Wally Albright, who later became series regulars.

New Roach discovery George "Spanky" McFarland joined the gang late in 1931 at the age of three and, excepting a brief hiatus during the summer of 1938, remained an Our Gang actor for eleven years. At first appearing as the tag-along toddler of the group, and later finding an accomplice in Scotty Beckett in 1934, Spanky quickly became Our Gang's biggest child star. He won parts in a number of outside features, appeared in many of the now-numerous Our Gang product endorsements and spin-off merchandise items, and popularized the expressions "Okey-dokey!" and "Okey-doke!"[19]

Dickie Moore, a veteran child actor, joined in the middle of 1932 and remained with the series for one year. Other members in these years included Mary Ann Jackson's brother Dickie Jackson, John "Uh-huh" Collum, and Tommy Bond. Upon Dickie Moore's departure in mid 1933, long-term Our Gang members such as Wheezer (who had been with Our Gang since the late Pathé silents period) and Dorothy left the series as well.

1933–1936: New directions

Robert McGowan, burned out from the stress of working with the child actors, had as early as 1931 attempted to resign from his position as Our Gang producer/director.[17] Lacking a replacement, Hal Roach persuaded him to stay on for another year.[17] At the start of the 1933–34 season, the Our Gang series format was significantly altered to accommodate McGowan and persuade him to stay another year.[17] The first two entries of the season in fall 1933, Bedtime Worries and Wild Poses (which featured a cameo by Laurel and Hardy), focused on Spanky McFarland and his hapless parents, portrayed by Gay Seabrook and Emerson Treacy, in a family-oriented situation comedy format similar to the style later popular on television. A smaller cast of Our Gang kids—Stymie Beard, Tommy Bond, Jerry Tucker, and Georgie Billings—were featured in supporting roles with reduced screen time.

An unsatisfied McGowan abruptly left after Wild Poses. Coupled with a brief suspension in Spanky McFarland's work permit,[20] Our Gang went into a four-month hiatus, during which the series was revised to a format similar to its original style and German-born Gus Meins was hired as the new series director.[17]

Hi-Neighbor!, released in March 1934, ended the hiatus and was the first series entry directed by Meins, a veteran of the once-competing Buster Brown short subject series. Gordon Douglas served as Meins's assistant director, and Fred Newmeyer alternated directorial duties with Meins for a handful of shorts. Meins's Our Gang shorts were less improvisational than McGowan's and featured a heavier reliance on dialogue.[21] McGowan returned two years later to direct his Our Gang swan song, Divot Diggers, released in 1936.

Retaining Spanky McFarland, Stymie Beard, Tommy Bond, and Jerry Tucker, the revised series added Scotty Beckett, Wally Albright, and Billie Thomas, who soon began playing the character of Stymie's sister "Buckwheat," though Thomas was a male. Semi-regular actors, such as Jackie Lynn Taylor, Marianne Edwards, and Leonard Kibrick as the neighborhood bully, joined the series at this time. Tommy Bond and Wally Albright left in the middle of 1934; Jackie Lynn Taylor and Marianne Edwards would depart by 1935.

Early in 1935, Carl Switzer and his brother Harold joined the gang after impressing Roach with an impromptu performance at the studio commissary. While Harold would eventually be relegated to the role of a background player, Carl, nicknamed "Alfalfa," eventually replaced Scotty Beckett as Spanky's sidekick. Stymie Beard left the cast soon after, and the Buckwheat character morphed subtly into a male. That same year, Darla Hood, Patsy May, and Eugene "Porky" Lee joined the gang, as Scotty Beckett departed for a career in features.

The final Roach years

Our Gang was very successful during the 1920s and the early 1930s. However, by 1934, many movie theater owners were increasingly dropping two-reel (20-minute) comedies like Our Gang and the Laurel & Hardy series from their bills and running double feature programs instead. The Laurel & Hardy series went from film shorts to features exclusively in mid 1935. By 1936, Hal Roach began debating plans to discontinue Our Gang until Louis B. Mayer, head of Roach's distributor MGM, persuaded Roach to keep the popular series in production.[22] Roach agreed, producing shorter, one-reel Our Gang comedies (ten minutes in length instead of twenty). The first one-reel Our Gang short, Bored of Education (1936), marked the Our Gang directorial debut of former assistant director Gordon Douglas and won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (One Reel) in 1937.

As part of the arrangement with MGM to continue Our Gang, Roach received the clearance to produce an Our Gang feature film, General Spanky, hoping that he might move the series to features as was done with Laurel & Hardy.[22] Directed by Gordon Douglas and Fred Newmeyer, General Spanky featured Spanky, Buckwheat, and Alfalfa in a sentimental, Shirley Temple-esque story set during the Civil War. The film focused more on the adult leads (Phillips Holmes and Rosina Lawrence) than the children and was a box office disappointment.[23] No further Our Gang features were made.

George "Spanky" McFarland, Darla Hood, and Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer in the "Club Spanky" dream sequence from the 1937 short Our Gang Follies of 1938.

After years of gradual cast changes, the troupe standardized in 1936 with the move to one-reel shorts. Most casual fans of Our Gang are particularly familiar with the 1936–1939 incarnation of the cast: Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, and Porky, with recurring characters such as neighborhood bullies Butch and Woim and the bookworm Waldo. Tommy Bond, an off-and-on member of the gang since 1932, returned to the series as Butch beginning with the 1937 short Glove Taps. Sidney Kibrick, the younger brother of Leonard Kibrick, played Butch's crony, Woim. Glove Taps also featured the first appearance of Darwood Kaye as the bespectacled, foppish Waldo. In later shorts, both Butch and Waldo were portrayed as Alfalfa's rivals in his pursuit of Darla's affections. Other popular elements in these mid-to-late-1930s shorts include the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" from Hearts Are Thumps and Mail and Female (both 1937), the Laurel and Hardy-ish interaction between Alfalfa and Spanky, and the comic tag-along team of Porky and Buckwheat.

Roach produced the final two-reel Our Gang short, a high-budget musical special entitled Our Gang Follies of 1938, in 1937 as a parody of MGM's Broadway Melody of 1938. In Follies of 1938, Alfalfa, who aspires to be an opera singer, falls asleep and dreams that his old pal Spanky has become the rich owner of a swanky Broadway nightclub where Darla and Buckwheat perform, making "hundreds and thousands of dollars."

As the profit margins continued to decline owing to double features,[24] Roach could no longer afford to continue producing Our Gang. However, MGM did not want the series discontinued and agreed to take over production. On May 31, 1938, Roach sold MGM the Our Gang unit, including the rights to the name and the contracts for the actors and writers, for $25,000 (equal to $434,634 today).[25] After delivering the Laurel and Hardy feature Block-Heads, Roach also ended his distribution contract with MGM, moving to United Artists and leaving the short-subjects business. The final Roach-produced short in the Our Gang series, Hide and Shriek, was his final short-subject production.

The MGM era

The Little Ranger was the first Our Gang short to be produced in-house at MGM. Gordon Douglas was loaned out from Hal Roach Studios to direct The Little Ranger and another early MGM short, Aladdin's Lantern, while MGM hired newcomer George Sidney as the permanent series director. Our Gang would be used by MGM as a training ground for future feature directors: Sidney, Edward Cahn and Cy Endfield all worked on Our Gang before moving on to features. Another director, Herbert Glazer, remained a second-unit director outside of his work on the series.

Nearly all of the 52 MGM-produced Our Gangs were written by former Roach director Hal Law and former junior director Robert A. McGowan (also known as Anthony Mack, nephew of former senior Our Gang director Robert F. McGowan). Robert A. McGowan was credited for these shorts as "Robert McGowan"; as a result, moviegoers have been confused for decades about whether this Robert McGowan and the senior director of the same name at Roach were two separate people or not.

By 1938, Alfalfa had surpassed Spanky as Our Gang's lead character; Spanky McFarland had departed from the series just before its sale to MGM.[26] Casting his replacement was delayed until after the move to MGM, at which point it was arranged to re-hire McFarland.[27]

Porky was replaced in 1939 by Mickey Gubitosi, later known by the stage name of Robert Blake. Tommy Bond, Darwood Kaye, and Carl Switzer all left the series in 1940, and Billy "Froggy" Laughlin (with his Popeye-esque trick voice) and Janet Burston were added to the cast. By the end of 1941, Darla Hood had departed from the series, and Spanky McFarland followed her within a year. Buckwheat remained in the cast until the end of the series as the sole holdover from the Roach era.

Overall, the Our Gang films produced by MGM were not as well-received as the Roach-produced shorts had been, largely due to MGM's inexperience with the brand of slapstick comedy that Our Gang was famous for and to MGM's insistence on keeping Alfalfa, Spanky and Buckwheat in the series as they became teens.[28] The MGM entries are considered by many film historians, and the Our Gang children themselves, to be lesser films than the Roach entries.[29] The children's performances were criticized as stilted and stiff, and adult situations often drove the action, with each film often incorporating a moral, a civics lesson, or a patriotic theme.[28] The series was given a permanent setting in the fictitious town of Greenpoint, and the mayhem caused by the Our Gang kids was toned down significantly.

Exhibitors noticed the drop in quality, and often complained that the series was slipping. When six of the 13 shorts released between 1942 and 1943 sustained losses rather than turning profits,[30] MGM discontinued Our Gang, releasing the final short, Dancing Romeo, on April 29, 1944.

Since 1937, Our Gang had been featured as a licensed comic strip in the UK comic The Dandy, drawn by Dudley D. Watkins. Starting in 1942, MGM licensed Our Gang to Dell Comics for the publication of Our Gang Comics, featuring the gang, Barney Bear, and Tom and Jerry. The strips in The Dandy ended three years after the demise of the Our Gang shorts, in 1947. Our Gang Comics outlasted the series by five years, changing its name to Tom and Jerry Comics in 1949. In 2006, Fantagraphics Books began issuing a series of volumes reprinting the Our Gang stories, mostly written and drawn by Pogo creator Walt Kelly.

Later years and The Little Rascals revival

The Little Rascals television package

When Roach sold Our Gang to MGM, he retained the option to buy the rights to the Our Gang trademark, provided he produced no more children's comedies in the Our Gang vein. In the late 1940s, he created a new film property in the Our Gang mold and forfeited his right to buy back the name Our Gang to obtain permission to produce two Cinecolor featurettes, Curley and Who Killed Doc Robbin. Neither film was critically or financially successful, and Roach turned to re-releasing the original Our Gang comedies.

In 1949, MGM sold Roach the back catalog of 1927–1938 Our Gang silent and talking shorts, while retaining the rights to the Our Gang name, the 52 Our Gang films it produced, and the feature General Spanky. Under the terms of the sale, Roach was required to remove the MGM Lion studio logo and all instances of the names or logos "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer", "Loew's Incorporated", and Our Gang from the reissued film prints. Using a modified version of the series' original name, Roach repackaged 79 of the 80 sound Our Gang shorts as The Little Rascals. Monogram Pictures and its successor, Allied Artists, reissued the films to theaters beginning in 1951. Allied Artists' television department, Interstate Television, syndicated the films to TV in 1955.

Under its new name, The Little Rascals enjoyed renewed popularity on television, and new Little Rascals comic books, toys, and other licensed merchandise were produced. Seeing the potential of the property, MGM began distributing its own Our Gang shorts to television in September 1958, and the two separate packages of Our Gang films competed with each other in syndication for three decades. Some stations bought both packages and played them alongside each other under the Little Rascals show banner.

The television rights to the silent Pathé Our Gang comedies were sold to National Telepix and other distributors, who distributed the films under titles such as The Mischief Makers and Those Lovable Scallawags with Their Gangs.

King World's acquisition and edits

In 1963, Hal Roach Studios, by then run by Roach's son Hal Jr, filed for bankruptcy. A struggling novice syndication agent named Charles King purchased the television rights to The Little Rascals in the bankruptcy proceedings and returned the shorts to television. The success of The Little Rascals paved the way for King's new company, King World Productions, to grow into one of the largest television syndicators in the world. Currently, CBS Television Distribution handles distribution rights.

In 1971, because of controversy over some racial humor in the shorts and other content deemed to be in bad taste, King World made significant edits to Little Rascals TV prints. Many series entries were trimmed by two to four minutes, while others (among them Spanky, Bargain Day, The Pinch Singer and Mush and Milk) were cut to nearly half of their original length.

At the same time, eight Little Rascals shorts were pulled from the King World television package altogether. Lazy Days, Moan and Groan, Inc., the Stepin Fetchit-guest-starred A Tough Winter, Little Daddy, A Lad an' a Lamp, The Kid From Borneo, and Little Sinner were deleted from the syndication package because of perceived racism, while Big Ears was deleted for dealing with the subject of divorce. The early talkie Railroadin' was never part of the television package because its soundtrack (recorded on phonographic records) was considered lost, although it was later found and restored to the film.

Turner Entertainment acquired the classic MGM library in 1986, and the 1938–44 MGM-produced Our Gang shorts were shown on Turner's TBS and TNT cable networks for many years as early-morning programming filler, with a regular slot on Sundays at 6 AM ET on TNT.

In the early 2000s, the 71 films in the King World package were re-edited, reinstating many (though not all) edits made in 1971 and the original Our Gang title cards. These new television prints made their debut on the American Movie Classics cable network in 2001 and ran until 2003.

New Little Rascals productions

Many producers, including Our Gang alumnus Jackie Cooper, made pilots for new Little Rascals television series, but none ever went into production.

In 1977, Norman Lear tried to revive the Rascals franchise, taping three pilot episodes of The Little Rascals. The pilots were not bought, but were notable for including Gary Coleman.

1979 brought The Little Rascals Christmas Special, an animated holiday special produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, written by Romeo Muller and featuring the voice work of Darla Hood (who died before the special aired) and Matthew "Stymie" Beard.

From 1982 to 1984, Hanna-Barbera Productions produced a Saturday morning cartoon version of The Little Rascals, which aired on ABC during The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show (later The Monchichis/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show).[31] It starred the voices of Patty Maloney as Darla; Peter Cullen as Petey and Officer Ed; Scott Menville as Spanky; Julie McWhirter Dees as Alfalfa, Porky and The Woim; Shavar Ross as Buckwheat, and B.J. Ward as Butch and Waldo.

In 1994, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures released The Little Rascals, a feature film based loosely on the series and featuring interpretations of classic Our Gang shorts, including Hearts are Thumps, Rushin' Ballet, and Hi'-Neighbor! The film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, starred Travis Tedford as Spanky, Bug Hall as Alfalfa, and Ross Bagley as Buckwheat; with cameos by the Olsen twins, Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, Reba McEntire, Daryl Hannah, Donald Trump and Raven-Symoné.[32] The Little Rascals was a moderate success for Universal, bringing in $51,764,950 at the box office.[33]

In 2014, Universal Pictures released a direct-to-video film, The Little Rascals Save the Day. This was a second film loosely based on the series and featuring interpretations of classic Our Gang shorts, including Helping Grandma, Mike Fright, and Birthday Blues. The film was directed by Alex Zamm, and starred Jet Jurgensmeyer as Spanky, Drew Justice as Alfalfa, Eden Wood as Darla, and Doris Roberts as the kids' adopted Grandma.

Legacy and influence

The characters in this series are well-known cultural icons, and identified solely by their first names. The characters of Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Darla, and Froggy were especially well known. Like many child actors, the Our Gang children were typecast and had trouble outgrowing their Our Gang images.

Several Our Gang alumni, among them Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Scotty Beckett, Norman "Chubby" Chaney, Billy "Froggy" Laughlin, Donald Haines, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Darla Hood, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, and George "Spanky" McFarland, died before age 65, in most cases well earlier. This led to rumors of an Our Gang/Little Rascals "curse", rumors further popularized by a 2002 E! True Hollywood Story documentary entitled "The Curse of the Little Rascals".[34] The Snopes.com website debunks the rumor of an Our Gang curse, stating that there was no pattern of unusual deaths when taking all of the major Our Gang stars into account, despite the deaths of a select few.[35]

The children's work in the series was largely unrewarded in later years, although Spanky McFarland got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posthumously in 1994. Neither he nor any other Our Gang children received any residuals or royalties from reruns of the shorts or licensed products with their likenesses. The only remittances were their weekly salaries during their time in the gang, ranging from $40 a week for newcomers to $200 or more weekly for stars like Farina, Spanky, and Alfalfa.[14]

One notable exception was Jackie Cooper, who was later nominated for an Academy Award and had a career as an adult actor. Cooper is known today for portraying Perry White in the 1978–1987 Superman movies, and for directing episodes of TV series such as M*A*S*H and Superboy. Another was Robert Blake, who found great success in the 1960s and 1970s as an actor, with films like In Cold Blood and television shows like Baretta (which netted him an Emmy Award).

The 1930 Our Gang short Pups is Pups was an inductee of the 2004 National Film Registry list.[36]

Imitators, followers, and frauds

Due to the popularity of Our Gang, many similar kid comedy short film series were created by competing studios. Among the most notable are The Kiddie Troupers, featuring future comedian Eddie Bracken; Baby Burlesks, featuring Shirley Temple; the Buster Brown comedies (from which Our Gang received Pete the Pup and director Gus Meins); and Our Gang's main competitor, the Toonerville Trolley-based Mickey McGuire series starring Mickey Rooney. Less notable imitations series include The McDougall Alley Gang (Bray Productions, 1927–1928), The Us Bunch and Our Kids. There is evidence[37] that Our Gang-style productions were filmed in small towns and cities around the country using local children actors in the 1920s and 1930s. These productions did not appear to be affiliated with Hal Roach, but often used storylines from the shorts of the period, and sometimes went so far as to identify themselves as being Our Gang productions.

In later years, many adults falsely claimed to have been members of Our Gang. A long list of people, including persons famous in other capacities such as Nanette Fabray, Eddie Bracken, and gossip columnist Joyce Haber[38] claimed to be or have been publicly called former Our Gang children.[39] Bracken's official biography was once altered[39] to state that he appeared in Our Gang instead of The Kiddie Troupers, although he himself had no knowledge of the change.[39]

Among notable Our Gang impostors is Jack Bothwell, who claimed to have portrayed a character named "Freckles",[39] going so far as to appear on the game show To Tell The Truth in the fall of 1957, perpetuating this fraud.[39] In 2008, a Darla Hood impostor, Mollie Barron, died claiming to have appeared as Darla in Our Gang.[40] Another is Bill English, a grocery store employee who appeared on the October 5, 1990, episode of the ABC investigative television newsmagazine 20/20 claiming to have been Buckwheat. Following the broadcast, Spanky McFarland informed the media of the truth,[39] and in December, William Thomas, Jr. (son of Billie Thomas, the person who played Buckwheat) filed a lawsuit against ABC for negligence.[39]

Persons and entities named after Our Gang

A number of groups, companies, and entities have been inspired by or named after Our Gang. The folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang was named for the troupe because lead singer Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane's last name was similar to that of George "Spanky" McFarland. The band had no connection with the actual Our Gang series.

Numerous unauthorized Little Rascals and Our Gang restaurants and day care centers also exist throughout the United States.

Home video releases and rights to the films

Further information: Our Gang filmography

16 mm, VHS, and DVD releases

In the 1950s, home movie distributor Official Films released many of the Hal Roach talkies on 16 mm film. These were released as "Famous Kid Comedies". as Official could not use "Our Gang". The company's licensing only lasted for a short period. For years afterward, Blackhawk Films released 79 of the 80 Roach talkies on 16 mm film. The sound discs for Railroading' had been lost since the 1940s, and a silent print was available for home movie release until 1982, when the film's sound discs were located in the MGM vault and the short was restored with sound. Like the television prints, Blackhawk's Little Rascals reissues featured custom title cards in place of the original Our Gang logos, per MGM's 1949 arrangement with Hal Roach not to distribute the series under its original title. Edits to the films were the replacements of the original Our Gang title cards with Little Rascals titles.

In 1983, with the VHS home video market growing, Blackhawk began distributing Little Rascals VHS tapes through catalogue, with three shorts per tape. Blackhawk Films was acquired in 1983 by National Telefilm Associates, later being renamed Republic Pictures. Republic would release Little Rascals VHS volumes for retail purchase in non-comprehensive collections through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s. By then, all but 11 of the Roach-era sound films were available on home video.

Cabin Fever/Hallmark releases

In 1993, Republic Pictures Home Video sold the home video rights to the 80 sound Roach shorts and some available silent shorts to Cabin Fever Entertainment. Cabin Fever acquired the rights to use the original Our Gang title cards and MGM logos, and for the first time in over 50 years, the Roach sound Our Gang comedies could be commercially exhibited in the original format. The first twelve volumes of The Little Rascals were released on July 6, 1994, followed by nine more on July 11, 1995, coinciding with the theatrical and home video releases of Universal's 1994 feature.[41] [42] Each tape contains four shorts, as well as specially-produced introductions by Leonard Maltin. With these releases, Cabin Fever made all 80 Roach sound shorts, and four silents, available for purchase, uncut, uncensored, unedited and with digitally restored picture and sound. On August 26, 1997, a limited edition volume, For Pete's Sake, was released in honor of the Rascals' 75th anniversary, and contained an introduction from original cast member Tommy "Butch" Bond and Petey from the 1994 feature. The video contained three previously-released shorts, plus the never-before-available silent short Dog Heaven; it was also available in a gift set with a Pete plush doll.[43]

Cabin Fever began pressing DVD versions of their first 12 Little Rascals VHS volumes (with the contents of two VHS volumes included on each DVD), but went out of business in 1998 before their release. The Little Rascals home video rights were then sold to Hallmark Entertainment in 1999, who released the DVDs without an official launch while cleaning out their warehouse in early 2000. Hallmark colorized a few Our Gang shorts and released them across 8 VHS tapes. Later that year, the first 10 Cabin Fever volumes were re-released on VHS with new packaging, and the first two volumes were released on DVD as The Little Rascals: Volumes 1–2. Two further Hallmark DVD collections featured ten shorts apiece, and were released in 2003 and 2005, respectively.

From 2006 to 2009, Legend Films produced colorized versions of twenty four Our Gang comedies (23 Roach entries, and the public domain MGM entry Waldo's Last Stand), which were released across five Little Rascals DVDs. In 2011, Legend Films released black and white versions of Little Rascals DVDs.

RHI Entertainment and Genius Products released an eight-disc DVD set, The Little Rascals – the Complete Collection, on October 28, 2008.[44][45] This set includes all 80 Hal Roach-produced Our Gang sound short films. Most of the collection uses the 1994 restorations, while 16 shorts are presented with older Blackhawk Films transfers as their remastered copies were lost or misplaced during preparations.[46][47]

On June 14, 2011, Vivendi Entertainment re-released seven of the eight DVD's from RHI/Genius Products' The Little Rascals – The Complete Collection as individual releases. This includes the 80 shorts – replacing the Blackhawk transfers on the previous set with their respective 1994 restorations – but excludes the disc featuring the extras.

MGM/Warner Bros. releases

During the 1980s and 1990s, MGM released several non-comprehensive VHS tapes of its shorts, and a VHS of the feature General Spanky. After video rights for the classic MGM library reverted to their new owners, Turner Entertainment/Warner Bros., in the late 1990s, four of the MGM Our Gang shorts appeared as bonus features on Warner Bros.-issued classic film DVD releases.

On September 1, 2009, Warner Home Video released all 52 MGM Our Gang shorts in a compilation titled The Our Gang Collection: 1938–1942 (though it contains the 1943–44 shorts as well) for manufacture-on-demand (MOD) DVD and digital download. The set is available by mail order and digital download as part of the Warner Archive Collection, and is available for purchase via the iTunes Store.

There are many unofficial Our Gang and Little Rascals home video collections available from several other distributors, comprising shorts (both silent and sound) which have fallen into the public domain.

Status of ownership

Currently, the rights to the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts are scattered.

Sonar Entertainment (formerly known as RHI Entertainment, Cabin Fever Entertainment and Hallmark Entertainment)[48] owns the copyrights of and holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Our Gang shorts. Sonar acquired these after absorbing Hal Roach Studios in 1988, and both Roach's estate and Cabin Fever Entertainment in the late 1990s.[49]

CBS Television Distribution, formed by the merger of King World Entertainment with CBS Paramount Domestic Television, owns the rights to the Little Rascals trademark and has all media rights to the 1929-1938 Roach shorts, which constitute The Little Rascals television package, with certain territory exclusions controlled by Cinematografische Commers Anatalt. CBS offers original black-and-white and colorized prints for syndication. The King World/CBS Little Rascals package was featured as exclusive programming (in the United States) for the American Movie Classics network from August 2001 to December 2003, with Frankie Muniz hosting. As part of a month-long tribute to Hal Roach Studios, Turner Classic Movies televised a 24-hour marathon of Roach Our Gang shorts - both sound films and silents – on January 4–5, 2011.[50] Some of the silent Our Gangs (such as Mary, Queen of Tots and Thundering Fleas) resurfaced on TCM at this time with new music scores in stereo sound; these silent Pathé Our Gangs are now being syndicated by Mackinaw Media.

The MGM-produced Our Gang shorts, General Spanky, and the rights to the Our Gang name are owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment as part of the Turner Entertainment library. Turner Entertainment acquired these assets in 1986 when its founder, Ted Turner, purchased the pre-May 1986 MGM library; Turner merged with Time Warner in 1996.[51] The television rights for the MGM Our Gang shorts belong to Warner Bros. Television Distribution, and the video rights to Warner Home Video. The MGM Our Gangs today appear periodically on the Turner Classic Movies cable network, and are available for streaming via the subscription-based Warner Archive Instant streaming video service.[52]

Our Gang cast and personnel

For a detailed listing of the Our Gang child actors, recurring adult actors, directors, and writers, see Our Gang personnel.

The following is a listing of the primary child actors in the Our Gang comedies. They are grouped by the era during which they joined the series.

Roach silent period

Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison (1922–1924)

Mickey Daniels (1922–1926)

Jackie Condon (1922–1929)

Peggy Cartwright (1922)

Allen "Farina" Hoskins (1922–1931)

Jack Davis (1922–1923)

Lassie Lou Ahern (1923–1924)

Mary Kornman (1923–1926)

Peggy Ahern (1923–1927)

Joe Cobb (1923–1929)

Andy Samuel (1923–1924)

Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson (1924–1925)

Johnny Downs (1925–1927)

Jay R. Smith (1925–1929)

Bobby "Bonedust" Young (1925–1931)

Elmer "Scooter" Lowry (1926–1927)

Jean Darling (1927–1929)

Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins (1927–1933)

Harry Spear (1927–1929)

Mary Ann Jackson (1928–1931)

Pete the Pup (1929–1938)

Roach sound period

Norman "Chubby" Chaney (1929–1931)

Jackie Cooper (1929–1931)

Donald Haines (1929–1933)

Dorothy DeBorba (1930–1933)

Matthew "Stymie" Beard (1930–1935)

Jerry Tucker (1931–1938)

Kendall McComas (1932)

Dickie Moore (1932–1933)

George "Spanky" McFarland (1932–1942)

Tommy Bond (1932–1934 as "Tommy," 1937–1940 as "Butch")

Jackie Lynn Taylor (1934 as "Jane")

Scotty Beckett (1934–1935)

Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas (1934–1944)

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (1935–1940)

Darla Hood (1935–1941)

Eugene "Porky" Lee (1935–1939)

Darwood "Waldo" Kaye (1937–1940)

MGM period

Mickey Gubitosi (Robert Blake) (1939–1944)

Janet Burston (1940–1944)

Billy "Froggy" Laughlin (1940–1944)

As of April 2018, living Our Gang actors included Betty Jane Beard, Laura June Williams, Paul Hilton, Mildred Kornman, Margaret Kerry, Robert Blake and Sidney Kibrick.

Notable Our Gang comedies

For a complete filmography, see Our Gang filmography.

The following is a listing of selected Our Gang comedies, considered by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann (in their book The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang) to be among the best and most important in the series.

1923: The Champeen, Derby Day

1924: High Society

1925: Your Own Back Yard, One Wild Ride

1929: Small Talk, Lazy Days, Boxing Gloves, Cat, Dog & Co.

1930: The First Seven Years, Pups Is Pups, Bear Shooters, Teacher's Pet, School's Out

1931: Helping Grandma, Love Business, Little Daddy, Fly My Kite, Big Ears, Dogs Is Dogs

1932: Readin' and Writin', The Pooch, Hook And Ladder, Free Wheeling, Birthday Blues

1933: Fish Hooky,Forgotten Babies, The Kid From Borneo, Mush and Milk, Bedtime Worries

1934: Hi'-Neighbor!, For Pete's Sake!, The First Round-Up, Honky Donkey, Mama's Little Pirate

1935: Anniversary Trouble, Shrimps for a Day, Beginner's Luck, Little Papa, Our Gang Follies of 1936

1936: Divot Diggers, Bored of Education, General Spanky

1937: Reunion in Rhythm, Glove Taps, Hearts Are Thumps, Rushin' Ballet, Night 'n' Gales, Mail and Female, Our Gang Follies of 1938

1938: Three Men in a Tub, Hide and Shriek

1939: Alfalfa's Aunt, Cousin Wilbur

1940: Goin' Fishin', Waldo's Last Stand, Kiddie Kure

1942: Going to Press