Symbolism and esoteric references in Our Gang

[imnotallenhoskins]

Has anyone noticed symbolic or encrypted jokes and references in Our Gang?

[dchord568]

This is probably not at all what you're looking for, and it's certainly stretching the definition of an "in" joke.

But it always tickled me whenever Spanky would adopt some of Oliver Hardy's stock expressions — both visual and verbal. For example, his general look of disgust when some physical mayhem was visited upon him — like when he gets a face full of jelly sandwich in "Hi-Neighbor!" courtesy of Scotty. Or once again, after he parrots Scotty's "Maybe we ain't us" in "Mike Fright" with a decided Ollie inflection.

In his later years, Spanky was known to deny that he got any of his bits from Oliver Hardy. You gotta love the guy, but that's just plain ridiculous!

[imnotallenhoskins]

Oct 27, 2023 13:34:10 GMT -5 dchord568 said:

This is probably not at all what you're looking for, and it's certainly stretching the definition of an "in" joke.

But it always tickled me whenever Spanky would adopt some of Oliver Hardy's stock expressions — both visual and verbal. For example, his general look of disgust when some physical mayhem was visited upon him — like when he gets a face full of jelly sandwich in "Hi-Neighbor!" courtesy of Scotty. Or once again, after he parrots Scotty's "Maybe we ain't us" in "Mike Fright" with a decided Ollie inflection.

In his later years, Spanky was known to deny that he got any of his bits from Oliver Hardy. You gotta love the guy, but that's just plain ridiculous!

McGowan saw Spanky's resemblance to Hardy and directed McFarland, a gifted young mimic, into his Hardy impression, whether or not Spanky knew about it at the time.

[imnotallenhoskins]

In "Barnum & Ringling Inc" we are shown a "single humped camel", a small lamb with a derby hat affixed to its back, facing to our right. Immediately after we are shown a "double-humped camel", a large goat with two derby hats on its back, looking much like Laurel & Hardy's pair of hats, facing leftward. I see an in-joke here, one at the expense of the studio's new superstars (Such an interpretation is probable chronologically: the film was filmed in late '27, early '28 by which time the team was already a national phenomenon). The left facing goat may well be a sneakily disparaging metaphor: Hardy belonged to a certain fraternity and was known to consult with fortune tellers, so the left side of the goat = the "left-hand path" of magic, goats being widely associated with black magic. Thus the innocent lamb Laurel needed Hardy's "magic touch" in order to find major success.

We also see a tall black bird (purported to be a stork by Hal Roach's Rascals, who are putting on a phony animal show. The long legs are actually conical tubes which taper out at the bottom attached to the birds actual feet), gloves attached to the bottom , looking much like human feet and legs with a long tube (the beak) projecting from between the "thighs". The title card says "He brings babies and never takes them back." Get it? Similar visual gags for most of the other animals are also present.

[imnotallenhoskins]

1929's Lazy Days (Robert F. McGowan) is a short film about a baby contest that never happens, padded with footage (which constitutes most of the running time) of Farina in his backyard: washing a crying baby but mainly reclining under a tree while complaining to himself and his sister about how tired he is (in a brilliant twist, the film's coda involves a tired Farina whining to himself under a tree while en route to the location of the contest*) Of some note is Chubby's bit as Joe's younger brother whom Joe forces into a baby outfit to try and win the 50 buck baby contest prize. Chubby is all too convincing when delivering his lines, fretting about being revealed as a fraudulent 11 year old "baby". This bit was partially recycled from a previous silent film, so the correspondence between real events (Chubby was actually born in 1914, not 1918 as claimed in Maltin's book or 1920 according to 1929 publicity material) may well be a coincidence but it must have been a very uncomfortable day for Norman: like Chubby's Lazy Days character, Norman had reason to worry about getting caught or "pinched" as he says, himself. Or maybe there was no secret between Roach and the Chaneys, the erroneous birthday was invented by publicists and the story-men were wittily poking fun at their clueless audience, with Chubby himself in on the gag.


*Even though Farina was not actually informed of this location by Joe in their first scene together in spite of Joe being his only source of information about this contest.

[myhomeo]

Given the loose, 'family' atmosphere cultivated by the studio, it wasn't uncommon for the shorts to use the names of people at the studio in 'letters' and such shown briefly on camera