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Post by mtw12055 on Jun 23, 2013 20:02:27 GMT -5
I've sotted five references on "Mystery Science Theater 3000".
- In one of the earliest episodes, "City on Fire", there's a host segment where Crow and Tom Servo prank Joel with the classic black-eye telescope gag. After looking through a telescope, Joel gets a black ring around his eye. Servo says, "Say, Joel, did anyone ever tell you you look like Petey from Our Gang?".
- A first season episode, has the gang watching a horror movie, "The Corpse Vanishes". Featured in the film is rather unfitting music. Twice in the show, someone quips that the music is from "The Little Rascals" (and at one point, it said to be from "Laurel and Hardy").
- The season three episode featuring "It Conquered the World" also features a short, "Snow Thrills". During the opening titles of the short, Servo says "Hal Roach presents an Our Gang comedy".
- In the fifth season episode, "Santa Claus", Servo hums the "Good Old Days" theme twice during the movie. Once when a group of boys sit on a curb (in a very Rascaly fashion), and again when the same boys are being observed by Santa who says something to the effect of "What are those little rascals up to now?".
- The season eight episode, "Jack Frost", features a scene with a rather homely girl getting spruced up by her mother. Crow cracks that it's "Alfalfa's greatest role".
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Post by Hard-boiled Harry on Jun 24, 2013 8:55:49 GMT -5
I came across this online. I don't know what this picture is from, although it is possibly an ad for trainers as they all appear to be wearing Nike trainers which are the only things in the photo that are in color. Attachments:
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Post by Hard-boiled Harry on Jun 24, 2013 9:42:54 GMT -5
1984 Jell-O magazine ad Attachments:
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Post by mtw12055 on Jun 24, 2013 10:07:09 GMT -5
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Post by mtw12055 on Jun 24, 2013 12:57:28 GMT -5
A little background on the Jello commercials. This is an excerpt from Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top by Nina DiSesa. I took this from a Google Books preview, which is sadly missing a page from this bit. Would anyone on here have the rest of the excerpt, by any chance?
"Pops: Michael (Hampton) had just sold a TV commercial that was a big musical extravaganza to introduce a new product for General Foods called Jell-O Gelatin Pops. I didn't know much about TV commercials at the time, but even to my untrained eye, this one looked like a disaster. It featured unconnected scenes (those dratted vignettes) of various people eating Jell-O Gelatin Pops on the beach and singing-in rhyme-all of the copy points that made this product desirable: refreshing, cool, fruity. AUUUGGGHHH! It was awful.
Much to Michael's dismay, this commercial had tested the best out of all of the ideas he had presented (no one could figure out why), and he was stuck with producing it. He asked me to cover the shoot with him, because the guy who'd written the d****d (censored for this forum) spot had had enough good sense to resign. This was my first trip to L.A.-The Big Time-and I was the surrogate copywriter for a commercial I would have never created in a million years. Even back then, I didn't do jingles, and I hated vignettes.
What made matters even worse, if that was possible, was that we had to film this in December, and even though it was L.A., it was freezing on the beach. The girls in bathing suits had goose bumps all over their bodies, so during the close-ups we had to have heaters everywhere, and because there were so many of them everyone kept tripping on them, and they kept breaking down.
But here is the absolute worst part of this story: For some reason, the d****d finished commercial didn't test as well as the animated test spot did, which proves that if an idea isn't good to begin with, one-dimensional people will be more interesting than real human beings. The client was both appalled and confused, and they joined Michael and me in our hatred of the spot. Now we were out of time. the product was scheduled for distribution in March, and we had no advertising to introduce it. Something had to be on the air by March 1-and it was the end of January.
Michael was under the gun to come up with a big idea, and fast. He thought he had one, but he needed a good writer to help him pull it off. That writer turned out to be me. The idea was to create The Little Rascals and to use our versions of Alfalfa,* Buckwheat, Darla, Spanky, Froggy, and Pete the dog to sell the pops. The idea could go either way. If the spots were written and cast well and directed flawlessly, they could become a famous campaign. Any slipups and we would have another embarrassment on our hands. What gave me courage was that I knew I could write cute copy for kids, and I had total confidence in Michael's production skills and taste as an art director.
'The Little Rascals' was my first big foray into the power of 'cute'. We had five six-year-olds and a dog. And we were talking to moms. Come on, it's almost cheating. What mother could resist a gang of adorable kids discovering Jell-O Gelatin Pops and then inventing mischievous ways to sell them? They were always getting into trouble with another ongoing character, the Grocery Man, who wanted to sell the pops in his store. Naturally, he took exception to the Rascals' business plan of selling Jell-O Gelatin Pops on the street. It didn't matter that the kids at more pops..."
"*For this part, we hired a young Seth Green, who has since grown up to be a talented, successful, and rather handsome young man. When we cast him, he was peculiar-looking enough to make a great Alfalfa."
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Post by scotty1958 on Jun 26, 2013 15:58:56 GMT -5
I remember an episode of "Roseanne" back in 1991 where D.J. was dressed up as Alfalfa for Halloween against his will, not fully understanding who he was supposed to be. The episode was called "Trick Me Up, Trick Me Down" and I found it on You Tube. This link should bring you to 5:23 where D.J. first appears as Alfalfa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRWXpusdRfI&t=5m23sAnd here is a link to 8:08 where he reappears as "The Alfalfinator": www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRWXpusdRfI&t=8m8sThis is one example of humorous reminders of Our Gang that I've seen over the years ;D
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Post by Hard-boiled Harry on Jun 26, 2013 16:19:43 GMT -5
I'm glad you enjoyed it but I didn't even get to find out what it was like because, according to YouTube...
This video contains content from Carsey-Werner LLC, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
Oh well so much for internet freedom
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Post by scotty1958 on Jun 26, 2013 16:29:50 GMT -5
Sorry to hear that. I'm posting from the USA and the links work for me. Maybe you could search it out and find it somewhere else. Michael Fishman as D.J. is pretty funny as a puzzled and reluctant Alfalfa, but solves the problem by adding sunglasses, a leather jacket and a machine gun to his getup, becoming the much cooler "Alfalfinator". ;D
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Post by Hard-boiled Harry on Jun 26, 2013 16:53:18 GMT -5
There is a full episode video on YouTube and also the episode split into three sections but unfortunately both the full episode and part one of the three sections are all blocked here in England. However anyone from England who wants to view this episode can see it here... www.tudou.com/programs/view/mY5Tlnuv2Uo/Part 2 is in the panel on the right too. He looked way good as Alfie.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jun 27, 2013 12:18:04 GMT -5
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 18, 2013 17:47:35 GMT -5
A very brief, barely noticeable mention in the series premiere of the short lived TV series "Muppets Tonight". On the chart of scheduled TV shows, one (the green box on the top left) reads "The Little Rat Sculls". youtu.be/fWg3nDjDhsA?t=16sAnother Muppet reference, the Muppet Babies episode "Is There a Muppet in the House?" features clips from "Shivering Spooks". youtu.be/MxPhLn_pHmw?t=2m28s
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Post by Hard-boiled Harry on Jul 21, 2013 13:50:34 GMT -5
I came across this advert on Tumblr a while back Attachments:
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 21, 2013 16:15:55 GMT -5
I suppose various attempts at recreating the series would count. Not counting the many ripoffs made during the series run: - Roach's two late forties "Curley" films. - A Spanish series of four features called "La pandilla en acción" (or "The Gang in Action"), produced around 1950. - Jules White's one-film ("Kids Will Be Kids") "The Mischief Makers" series, produced around 1954. - Walt Kelly's "Our Gang" comics (1942-1949). - Dell's "Little Rascals" comics (1956-1962). - The unsold Norman Lear's Little Rascals TV series (with Gary Coleman as "Stymie"). - Century Film's "Magnificent Six and 1/2" and "Here Come the Double Deckers". - Jackie Cooper's unsold series. - Ron Howard's "Littleshots". - "The Little Rascals Christmas Special" and the spun-off PSA's. - The Hanna-Barbera series. - The Jello commercials (with Seth Green as "Alfalfa". - "The Uh-Oh Gang" Spaghettios" commercials (with Jaleel White and an obvious nod to Froggy). - The 90s movie. - The 2013 movie. - Pretty much any live action movie made during the 80s and 90s with child actors in the lead.
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Post by myhomeo on Sept 5, 2013 16:25:36 GMT -5
New one, I believe: The author of the popular CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS children's book series stated he gave his two boy heroes the last names Beard and Hutchins after his favorite Rascals, Stymie and Wheezer. Moreover, their schoolteacher nemesis, Mister Krupp, was sorta named after Mister Crutch from 'Shrimps For A Day.' (He remembered it wrong.)
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Post by mtw12055 on Sept 5, 2013 17:15:10 GMT -5
New one, I believe: The author of the popular CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS children's book series stated he gave his two boy heroes the last names Beard and Hutchins after his favorite Rascals, Stymie and Wheezer. Moreover, their schoolteacher nemesis, Mister Krupp, was sorta named after Mister Crutch from 'Shrimps For A Day.' (He remembered it wrong.) Additionally, author Dav (sic) Pilkey used "Yum, yum! Eat 'em up!" (from 'The Kid From Borneo') and the "certainly ain't no midget" joke (from "Mama's Little Pirate") in two of his books. And one of the two main characters has two pets named "Porky" and "Buckwheat". Furthermore, the character "Super Diaper Baby" has the last name "Hoskins" (possibly a Farina reference?). I think it's safe to assume Pilkey was/is a Rascals fan.
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