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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 9, 2015 18:03:12 GMT -5
Mr. Pete (1932) - Stymie has a nightmare that Pete the Pup is able to talk. Stymie spends a good chunk of the film trying to convince the other kids, but they naturally don't believe him. A frustrating short with a one-joke premise.
Captain Spanky (1937) - A feature taking place during the American Revolutionary War. The Gang tries to gain independence from their serious British parents. Buckwheat plays the kids' maid, complete with his very own dress.
Our Gang Follies of 1939 (1938) - A two-reel MGM musical in which Spanky and Alfalfa have creative differences over their next show and ultimately become rivals. Each tries his best to top the other's show, going to such lengths as dressing up like Carmen Miranda and singing samba, telling jokes in a rabbit costume, and performing an Esther Willimas-esque water ballet. Incidentally, poor Bill Thomas nearly drowned during the ballet sequence. An obvious stunt double (in blackface) is used for most of the long shots.
Taxes, Mister? (1943) - A follow-up of sorts to "Benjamin Franklin, Jr." The Gang teaches movie goers how to properly file their taxes.
Now, Where Did I Leave That Key? (1943) - A follow-up to "Little Miss Pinkerton" in which the doctor pumps Froggy's stomach a second time. Features sequences inside of Froggy's stomach, animated by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
The First Eight Years (1943) - Froggy and Mickey both fall in love with Janet. The two boys grow jealous of each other. Each has a dream in which the other is dueling with him for Janet's affections. In Froggy's dream, Mickey is made up to look like Adolf Hitler. In Mickey's dream, Froggy is made up to look like Tojo. Banned from most theaters.
Bugsy Malone (1943) - The original film Alan Parker based his classic off of. But while Parker's version parodies the gangster genre, the Rascal version tries to take it seriously. Kids are brutally murdered by Tommy Guns, rather than balls of pastry. The acting is more over-the-top than usual. Janet's big crying scene involves a lot of lip-quivering and head-banging. And the kids drive real cars here. Little Bobby Blake accidentally destroyed part of the set while doing his driving scenes, which ultimately came out of his paycheck. Director Herbert Glazer was apparently drinking heavily to cope with a nasty divorce during this period. The bottle's influence on Glazer is all to noticable in the finished product.
Go Heil Yourself! (1944) - The Gang gets kidnapped by Nazis for reasons that are never quite explained. Janet manages to escape, and tries to get help, but no one believes her story. Everyone soon learns that Janet was telling the truth, but it's too late. The other kids have disappeared. The short ends with Janet lecturing a room full of adults on listening to what their children have to say, or something.
Commander Spanky (1957) - Hal Roach's second attempt at reviving Our Gang. It's more or less a remake of "General Spanky," though placed in a sci-fi setting.
The New Adventures of the Little Rascals (2000) - A feature film satirizing Our Gang. The Gang somehow time travels several decades into the future. They meet up with a 21st century-era rich kid who is bored with the world of video games and reality shows. The kid invites the '30s era Rascals to spend the day at his mansion. Hilarity ensues. The film's only joke is that the Our Gang kids are in the wrong decade (though I'll admit I did get a kick out of Froggy confusing random people with his talk about the War).
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Post by buckwheatisawesome on Feb 9, 2015 20:17:55 GMT -5
Mr. Pete (1932) - Stymie has a nightmare that Pete the Pup is able to talk. Stymie spends a good chunk of the film trying to convince the other kids, but they naturally don't believe him. A frustrating short with a one-joke premise. Captain Spanky (1937) - A feature taking place during the American Revolutionary War. The Gang tries to gain independence from their serious British parents. Buckwheat plays the kids' maid, complete with his very own dress. Our Gang Follies of 1939 (1938) - A two-reel MGM musical in which Spanky and Alfalfa have creative differences over their next show and ultimately become rivals. Each tries his best to top the other's show, going to such lengths as dressing up like Carmen Miranda and singing samba, telling jokes in a rabbit costume, and performing an Esther Willimas-esque water ballet. Incidentally, poor Bill Thomas nearly drowned during the ballet sequence. An obvious stunt double (in blackface) is used for most of the long shots. Taxes, Mister? (1943) - A follow-up of sorts to "Benjamin Franklin, Jr." The Gang teaches movie goers how to properly file their taxes. Now, Where Did I Leave That Key? (1943) - A follow-up to "Little Miss Pinkerton" in which the doctor pumps Froggy's stomach a second time. Features sequences inside of Froggy's stomach, animated by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The First Eight Years (1943) - Froggy and Mickey both fall in love with Janet. The two boys grow jealous of each other. Each has a dream in which the other is dueling with him for Janet's affections. In Froggy's dream, Mickey is made up to look like Adolf Hitler. In Mickey's dream, Froggy is made up to look like Tojo. Banned from most theaters. Bugsy Malone (1943) - The original film Alan Parker based his classic off of. But while Parker's version parodies the gangster genre, the Rascal version tries to take it seriously. Kids are brutally murdered by Tommy Guns, rather than balls of pastry. The acting is more over-the-top than usual. Janet's big crying scene involves a lot of lip-quivering and head-banging. And the kids drive real cars here. Little Bobby Blake accidentally destroyed part of the set while doing his driving scenes, which ultimately came out of his paycheck. Director Herbert Glazer was apparently drinking heavily to cope with a nasty divorce during this period. The bottle's influence on Glazer is all to noticable in the finished product. Go Heil Yourself! (1944) - The Gang gets kidnapped by Nazis for reasons that are never quite explained. Janet manages to escape, and tries to get help, but no one believes her story. Everyone soon learns that Janet was telling the truth, but it's too late. The other kids have disappeared. The short ends with Janet lecturing a room full of adults on listening to what their children have to say, or something. Commander Spanky (1957) - Hal Roach's second attempt at reviving Our Gang. It's more or less a remake of "General Spanky," though placed in a sci-fi setting. The New Adventures of the Little Rascals (2000) - A feature film satirizing Our Gang. The Gang somehow time travels several decades into the future. They meet up with a 21st century-era rich kid who is bored with the world of video games and reality shows. The kid invites the '30s era Rascals to spend the day at his mansion. Hilarity ensues. The film's only joke is that the Our Gang kids are in the wrong decade (though I'll admit I did get a kick out of Froggy confusing random people with his talk about the War).bfff That made me think up an idea for Our Gang Follies of 1940 (1939) - Buckwheat plans on making a talent show, with Alfalfa singing beautifully and Darla instantly starts falling in love with Alfalfa and ditches Waldo. However, Waldo wants his revenge, and thinks up plans to get rid of Alfalfa. Butch helps him. Spanky immediately realizes the potential in Alfalfa and books him at the Metropolitan theater. However, Waldo gets some pies.. which end up in the audience. Froggy then realizes the potential in Alfalfa, and also wants to book him. Thus, begins a battle between Spanky and Froggy right at the Metropolitan theater.
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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 15, 2015 15:31:22 GMT -5
Three Strikes, You're Out! (1927) - The entire film is spent on the Gang's baseball game. Filmed in real time, with all nine innings featured.
A Tougher Winter (1930) - The sequel to "A Tough Winter," though without any of the Our Gang kids. Instead, the film focuses on Stepin Fetchit's long journey home through a massive blizzard.
Puppy Purgatory (1936) - An experimental film that uses 'different' editing techniques.
In this remake of "Dog Heaven," a depressed Pete the Pup decides to commit suicide after Spanky ditches him for Darla. After his death, Pete finds himself in a strange fantasy area supposedly showing what the world would be like without him.
After losing his dog, Spanky becomes depressed and begins eating more frequently, eventually looking more like his 1940s self. The camera continuously cuts between closeups of Spanky crying and closeups of his stomach getting bigger.
Without Pete around, Alfalfa loses his motivation to sing. He's seen ripping musical notes up.
Buckwheat and Porky join the French Foreign Legion in order to forget about the loss of Pete. They are seen being abused a Brigadier general, mostly seen through stock footage from Laurel and Hardy's "Beau Hunks."
Finally, Darla is seen preparing to jump from a high diving board and into a lake. Pete goes in after her. Just as he hits the water, we cut to Pete in his dog bed. Turns out it was all just a bad dream. The water came from a bucket Buckwheat accidentally spilled on the pooch.
Janet, Live! (1944) - In this two-reel special, Janet stars in her own variety show, complete with over-the-top musical numbers and 'comedy' acts. Viewers may want a bottle handy when watching this one.
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Post by myhomeo on Feb 16, 2015 18:23:00 GMT -5
The RasKids - A proposed cartoon series featuring the young children of the original Rascal characters, it would have featured Spanky's son and daughter Sparky and Sassy, Alfalfa and Darla's kids Hayseed and Darlene, and Buckwheat's twins Cinnamon and Sugar in frequent opposition to Butch's brats Knuckles and Scrapper. With extremely bad Japanese animation, the proposal failed to find any buyers, probably just as well since the scripts were quite uninspired.
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Post by buckwheatisawesome on Feb 18, 2015 12:05:14 GMT -5
Froggy's Musical Revue ( 1943)- Froggy is hosting a musical show, and hardly anyone shows up. Waldo makes a cameo appearance saying, " Maybe, you should try serving lemonade!" So, Froggy makes some horrible, horrible lemonade that nobody will drink. Customers ( their only 2 customers) start leaving, and the extremely limited Gang says, " Oh, I Know why no one came! Because, we have an extremely limited cast now!" They all have a laugh about it, and it's over. This movie really breaks the fourth-wall ( which somebody should really think of fixing).
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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 18, 2015 19:40:28 GMT -5
The RasKids - A proposed cartoon series featuring the young children of the original Rascal characters, it would have featured Spanky's son and daughter Sparky and Sassy, Alfalfa and Darla's kids Hayseed and Darlene, and Buckwheat's twins Cinnamon and Sugar in frequent opposition to Butch's brats Knuckles and Scrapper. With extremely bad Japanese animation, the proposal failed to find any buyers, probably just as well since the scripts were quite uninspired. Would the series' theme song be a fun '80s rap sure to stay relevant with the kiddies?
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Post by myhomeo on Feb 19, 2015 17:59:53 GMT -5
Either that or a badly translated Japanese pop song...
Which reminds me...
The Little Rascals Variety Hour - A proposed series in the Seventies in which young kids playing the roles of Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, et all are presented as putting on a weekly hour-long comedy-variety show, sort of a fusion of THE MUPPET SHOW, THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR, and the Our Gang Follies shorts. The show stalled when producers Sid and Marty Kroft, frustrated by the challenge of funding singing, dancing kids who could also convincingly play the Gang, proposed using either puppets or people in full-body costumes, perhaps with a kid celebrity like Jimmy Osmond or Rodney Allen Rippey serving as host. Ultimately, the entire project was scuttled when Fred Silverman was removed from NBC.
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Post by buckwheatisawesome on Feb 19, 2015 18:31:01 GMT -5
Which also gives me an idea for... Lame Un-titled Our Gang Commercials ( 1987-1988) The living Little Rascals look towards the camera say, " Whoa! We were really cute as kids!" then look back at each other and say, " Yeah, except Alfalfa, Scotty, Stymie, and Breezy Brisbane made bad choices with their life, choosing violence and drugs!" then some message about how you should never do drugs that is a voice-over by one of those celebrities that thought they were famous.
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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 19, 2015 20:06:13 GMT -5
It's too bad that Little Rascals Variety Hour never took off. I was hoping to see Geri Reischl as Miss Crabtree.
Gradual Graduates (1932) - This is actually the last entry is Roach's "Boy Friends" series, a spin-off of Our Gang. After director George Stevens left the series, Roach desperately needed to find some way to give it a boost. He decided to bring back several ex-Our Gang members to join Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, and Grady Sutton in the cast, in hopes of continuing the "Our Gang as teenagers" concept.
Mickey, "Alabam," and Eddie (Gordon Douglas) start a fraternity and haze freshmen Farina, Joe, and Jackie (Condon). The pranks pulled on the newcomers include walking around campus in drag (in a rare broken fourth wall moment, Farina mentions that he's "used to doing this"), replacing Dean Harry Bernard's pie with a plate of shaving cream, and performing a ridiculous dance for the other college students.
Mary and the other girls aren't the least bit happy at the practical joke that their boyfriends pull and ultimately break up with them. The Boy Friends spend a good two minutes bawling about being single before deciding to be nice to the freshmen in order to get their girls back. But they try a little too hard at being kind and ultimately make fools of themselves.
Hoo boy. Firstly, the Boy Friends are incredibly unlikable in this film. Secondly, Farina, Joe, and Jackie are way too young to pass for college freshmen. Thirdly, Joe and Jackie are terrible at delivering dialogue. The film tested poorly at preview showings, leading Roach to cancel the series.
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Post by RJH on Feb 19, 2015 23:35:27 GMT -5
Three Strikes, You're Out! (1927) - The entire film is spent on the Gang's baseball game. Filmed in real time, with all nine innings featured. 1927 was when the Mickey McGuire series started. I'd be happy to pay five bucks for a tape or DVD to see a full baseball game between the Gang and Mickey's Nine. Now for how I feel about the story line in General Spanky. Corporal Buckwheat (1866) - Beginning three years earlier, follows "General Spanky" to a point, although the scene where Spanky and Buckwheat meet and the latter has to show the former how to be a slaveowner is too awful to describe here. A while later, Yankees attack the gang's fort, not realizing it's just a kids' game. An officer grabs the leader, Spanky, to take him away for interrogation when Buckwheat hits the officer with a rock. Spanky escapes, and the Yankees call in for reinforcements. They soon learn to their disgust that it was just kids playing. However, the diverting of troops causes the North to be shorthanded where they are really needed: Gettysburg. As a consequence the South wins the Battle of Gettysburg and that is the turning point of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation is never issued, and within a couple years the South achieves total victory. Slavery becomes the law in all the northern states as the country is united under the Confederate Flag. Spanky rises to prominence as is promoted to highest ranking army general. In his acceptance speech he gives credit where it is due, stating that the institution of slavery would have perished if it weren't for Buckwheat. In gratitude, Spanky promotes his life-long slave to corporal, the highest rank any slave ever held. Buckwheat never quite comprehends how his actions fighting for the South led to lifetimes of slavery for tens of millions. Ths history of this film remains unclear. One rumor is that Lincoln, who had no reason to be assassinated after the end of the Civil War, enlisted the aid of Allan Pinkerton and his detective agency to confiscate all copies of the film, made before filmmatking techniques were known to the general public. Then some strongarming of every newspaper in the country produced stories that convinced the country that the Civil War had a different outcome.
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Post by buckwheatisawesome on Feb 20, 2015 8:33:25 GMT -5
Hal Roach's Full-Length Comedy Extravaganza! ( 1937) Oh, please.. Don't get me started.. A really horrible movie starring Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase ( in his last Roach appearance) Jimmy Finlayson, and Patsy Kelly, and Anita Garvin. They all have pointless 3-minute cameos, except they're all advertised first, when a theater advertises the feature. The main plot of this movie is that one of those people that would be better suited off in a talentless 20th Century Fox movie just shows up, with no explanation at all saying that he wishes he could have a party with all of the Hal Roach cast members, for some weird reason. His wish comes true, and the party is crazy. MGM took some offense to this movie, and tried to sue Roach for making this movie, which is one of the reasons why he had to lay off the Our Gang cast members. He couldn't afford them.
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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 22, 2015 22:34:24 GMT -5
The New Little Rascals (1966) - After the success of "The New 3 Stooges," Norman Maurer and Cambria Productions teamed up again to create another part-live action/part-animated series, this time paying tribute to the Little Rascals. Maurer hired Don Marlowe to star in a series of live action wrap-arounds for cartoons. At the time, Marlowe was still going around claiming he played "Porky," and most people seemed to believe him.
Episodes would have typically found not-Porky telling stories about his childhood to a bunch of mischievious neighborhood children. A cartoon starring the Rascals would then follow, usually with Marlowe playing an adult role. Unfortunately, Cambria spent most of their money for animation on their previous series. As a result, they had to go back to using the "Clutch Cargo" method - having live actors move their lips on top of motionless cartoon cels.
The cartoon featured in the pilot found the Rascals facing off martians. Marlowe plays a kooky scientist. Much of the story was borrowed from "The Three Stooges in Orbit."
The pilot tested poorly, and Spanky McFarland sent Maurer a nasty letter, informing him that Don Marlowe was an imposter. Afterwards, Maurer went back to pitching Three Stooges TV concepts, including a game show and a travelogue. 'Cause kids sure couldn't get enough of those travelogues.
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Post by buckwheatisawesome on Feb 23, 2015 17:53:58 GMT -5
The New Little Rascals (1966) - After the success of "The New 3 Stooges," Norman Maurer and Cambria Productions teamed up again to create another part-live action/part-animated series, this time paying tribute to the Little Rascals. Maurer hired Don Marlowe to star in a series of live action wrap-arounds for cartoons. At the time, Marlowe was still going around claiming he played "Porky," and most people seemed to believe him. Episodes would have typically found not-Porky telling stories about his childhood to a bunch of mischievious neighborhood children. A cartoon starring the Rascals would then follow, usually with Marlowe playing an adult role. Unfortunately, Cambria spent most of their money for animation on their previous series. As a result, they had to go back to using the "Clutch Cargo" method - having live actors move their lips on top of motionless cartoon cels. The cartoon featured in the pilot found the Rascals facing off martians. Marlowe plays a kooky scientist. Much of the story was borrowed from "The Three Stooges in Orbit." The pilot tested poorly, and Spanky McFarland sent Maurer a nasty letter, informing him that Don Marlowe was an imposter. Afterwards, Maurer went back to pitching Three Stooges TV concepts, including a game show and a travelogue. 'Cause kids sure couldn't get enough of those travelogues. Hmm... that's actually not too bad.... Now, I wish that there was such a thing as that!
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Post by mtw12055 on Feb 26, 2015 21:21:27 GMT -5
Persona 2 Persona (1938) - One of the last shorts produced for Roach. Directed by Swedish born Andrew Anders, this strange psychological drama finds Alfalfa taking orphaned Junior Jasgur to his secret hideout to look after him. Junior's unwillingness (or inability) to talk (or sing) slowly frustrates Alfie, who winds up going insane. Especially so when he finds a scribbled note from Junior to Leonard Landy, implying that he has been studying Alfalfa this whole time. Features a controversial scene in which Alfalfa reminisces about the time he got into a pillow fight with Darla. Pillow fights were considered risqué in 1938.
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Post by myhomeo on Mar 12, 2015 16:22:49 GMT -5
The Sunshine Trails Naturists Present 'The Little Rascals' - A fundraiser event staged by this Arizona-based nudist club in the late 70's featuring adaptions of classic Rascals stories performed entirely in the nude by various members of the club. Unfortunately, their debut production of 'Came The Brawn' just confused everyone.
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