Our Gang Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals, was a long-lived series of comedy movie shorts starring a troupe of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Unlike many other motion pictures featuring children that are basred in fantasy, producer / creator Hal Roach rooted Our Gang in real life: the majority of the kids were poor, and the gang was often put at odds with snobish rich kids, officious adults and parents, and other such adversaries. The series was notable in that the gang included both African-Americans and females in leading parts at a time when discrimination against both groups was commonplace.From 1922 to 1944, two hundred twenty shorts (and one feature film, General Spanky), featuring over forty-one child actors were produced. From 1922 to 1938, Our Gang was produced by the Hal Roach Studios of Hal Roach in Culver City, California, and from 1938 to 1944, the series was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The shorts were released to movie theatres by Pathé (1922-1928) and MGM (1928]]-1944). Although the early Our Gang shorts were silent films; the series made a successful transition to sound in 1929. In the mid-1950s, the Roach produced shorts were syndicated for television by King World under the title The Little Rascals (in order to avoid confusion between the Roach-produced and MGM-produced shorts) and have frequently been shown on television since then.
Directors on the series included Robert F. McGowan, his nephew Robert A. McGowan (usually credited as Anthony Mack), Gus Meins, Gordon Douglas, James Parrott, James W. Horne, Nate Watt, and, at MGM, George Sidney, Edward L. Cahn, Herbert Glazer, and Cyril Enderfield.
The characters in this series became well-known cultural icons, and could often be identified solely by their first names. The characters of Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Darla, and Froggy were especially well-known, though like many child actors they were subsequently typecast and had trouble outgrowing their Our Gang images.
One notable exception is Jackie Cooper, who was later nominated for an Oscar and had a full career as an adult actor; among other roles his best known character is probably Perry White in the Superman movies. Robert Blake (Mickey Gubitosi) also went on to success as an adult in cinema (In Cold Blood) and television (Baretta). Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple both tried out for the gang but failed their screen tests.
The Our Gang series is notable for being one of the first times in movie history that African-Americans and Caucasians were protrayed as equals, though some historians do not look favorably upon the characters of the African-American children today. The most important African-American child actors in the series were Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Matther "Stymie" Beard (whose trademark oversized derby hat was a gift from fellow comedian Stan Laurel), and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas.
The Black children in Our Gang often epitomized the Stepin Fetchit stereotype of a "Negro" who provided comedy relief by talking in a mangled version of English and frequently being so frightened, his hair stood on end or he would briefly turn white with fear (a special effect created with negative film exposure techniques).. Comedian Eddie Murphy controversially parodied the character of Buckwheat in a series of skits for Saturday Night Live. It should be noted that these actors in their adult years became some of Our Gang's staunchest defenders, maintaining that its integrated cast and generally innocent storylines were far from racist.
Our Gang was hugely successful during the 1920s and the early 1930s. However, by 1934, movie theatre owners were increasingly dropping two-reel (twenty minute) comedies like Our Gang and the Laurel and Hardy series from their bills, and running double feature programs instead. Although the Laurel and Hardy series was discontinued in mid-1935 (and Laurel and Hardy moved into feature films full-time), Roach's distributor MGM had Roach continue making the Our Gang shorts as one-reelers (ten-minutes shorts). The first one-reel Our Gang short, Bored of Education, won the Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film in 1936. Also in 1936, the first (and only) full-length feature film starring the Our Gang kids was released, entitled General Spanky. However, as the profit margins got smaller and smaller thanks to the double feature, Roach found couldn't afford to continue to produce the series, and sold the entire Our Gang unit (including the contracts for the actors, writers, and director Gordon Douglas; as well as the rights to the name Our Gang) to MGM in May 1938.
The MGM- produced Our Gang shorts were not as very well recieved as the Roach-produced shorts had been, due to both MGM's inexperience with the brand of slapstick comedy Our Gang was famous for and MGM's insistence on keeping Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, George "Spanky" McFarland, and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas in the series until they were teenagers. Robert Blake appeared in these later shorts, using his given name of Mickey Gubitosi. MGM released the last Our Gang short, Dancing Romeo on April 29, 1944.
Due to its popularity, a number of imitation kid comedy short film series were created by competing studios. Our Gang also spawned a large number of adults in later years who falsely claimed to have been a member of the popular group. Most notable is Jack Bothwell, who claimed to have portrayed a non-existent character named "Freckles" and went so far as to appear on the game show To Tell The Truth perpetuating this fraud.
Currently, the rights to the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts are scattered. Hallmark Entertainment holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Little Rascals shorts (while King World holds the television rights). The MGM-produced Our Gang shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment (via Warner Bros).
Quotations
Note: The folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang was named in honor of the troupe, but had no other connection with it.
External link:
The "Little Rascals/Our Gang" Webring is the fourth most active webring at webring.com.
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