He was honorably discharged from active duty, receiving a National Defense Service Medal and a Good Conduct Medal. Most casual fans of Our Gang are particularly familiar with the 19361939 incarnation of the cast: Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, and Porky, with recurring characters such as neighborhood bullies Butch and Woim and the bookworm Waldo. 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.[63][64]. . Joe Rivkin, a casting director for Hal Roach Studios, cast her in the role of Darla in the Our Gang shorts. The 1930 Our Gang short Pups is Pups was an inductee of the 2004 National Film Registry list. 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. Production continued at Roach until 1938, when the Our Gang production unit was sold to MGM, where production continued until 1944. Until its closure in 2018, the MGM Our Gangs were available for streaming via the subscription-based Warner Archive Instant streaming video service.[77]. The Our Gang Collection. Unlike other kids, he couldnt really go outside and play, and not because of his stardom, but rather because the neighborhood they lived in was so dangerous. [citation needed]. As it turned out, he was suffering from a glandular ailment which resulted in his weight reaching 300 pounds while he stopped growing at 47. After years of gradual cast changes, the troupe standardized in 1936 with the move to one-reel shorts. watched it. Many of these shorts include early appearances of Jerry Tucker and Wally Albright, who later became series regulars. Beginning with the short When the Wind Blows, in 1930 background music scores were added to the soundtracks of most of the Our Gang films. Beard maintained his sobriety, giving lectures on drug-abuse awareness. Watch The Little Rascals | Netflix 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. Carl Dean Switzer was born on Aug. 7, 1927, in Paris, Illinois. He was 64. After Beard left the series at the tender age of 10, he went on to score some minor roles in such feature films as Captain Blood (1935) and The Return of Frank James (1940) with fellow child star and Our Gang alum Jackie Cooper. Blakes parents began a song-and-dance act in 1936 with his three siblings, billed as The Three Little Hillbillies. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1938, where the kids began working as movieextras. The Lee family traveled from Texas to Culver City, California. 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. He is one of the most memorable and recognizable Little Rascals. He did undergo surgery, after which he dropped down to 140 pounds and then 110, but the end result was disastrous. 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. The television rights to the silent Path 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. We were just a group of kids who were having fun. Unfortunately, Daniels career never took off after the shorts. WHERE ARE THEY NOW: the Cast of 'the Little Racals' - Insider second assistant director (as Ronnie Chong) Art Department . The Our Gang Collection: Saving Alfalfa. Discovery through Turner Entertainment. The characters of Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Porky, Darla, Froggy, Butch, Woim, and Waldo were especially well known. 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. All we knew was that it featured an appealing bunch of kids and that it was funny as Hell! The last few of the Roach comedies featured Alfalfa Switzer as the lead character; Spanky McFarland had departed from the series just before its sale to MGM. William Thomas Jr. was born on March 12, 1931, in Los Angeles. "[14] In a separate interview, Ernie Morrison stated, "When it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind. Thomas initially played Buckwheat speech impediment and all as a girl dressed as the stereotypical African-American pickaninny. He wore bowed pigtails, a large hand-me-down sweater, and oversized boots. There he attended public school and attempted a life of normalcy. 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. Before he joined Our Gang, McFarland modeled childrens clothing for a Dallas department store. Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first black actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history[7] and the first major black star in Hollywood history. The attendees were very receptive, and the press clamored for "lots more of those 'Our Gang' comedies." As to where Hal Roach came up with the concept for Our Gang,Do You Rememberturned to film historian Leonard Maltin, who also wrote the bookThe Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang. Loads more TV Themes at: http://teeveesgreatest.webs.com/Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals) is a series of American comedy sh. I didnt quit Hollywood. The Little Rascals (1994) - Clubhouse Fire Scene (3/10) | Movieclips. My wife knew of my background, otherwise I was happy to conceal the Porky tag until the last few years.. Their legend continued on the big screen in the 1994 Universal release, The Little Rascals, which was a feature film loosely based on interpretations of those classic Our Gang shorts. He was posthumously honored with a star on Hollywoods Walk of Fame in January 1994. 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. [22] A reviewer wrote of the Farina character depicted as female though played by a male child[23] in Photoplay: "The honors go to a very young lady of color, billed as 'Little Farina.' 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. "The Little Rascals" was released in August 1994. That portrayal would be deemed quite controversial in the years to come. Lee retired and became analternative school educator at Broomfield High School inColorado. The Little Rascals (1994): Dir: Penelope Spheeris / Cast: Bug Hall, Travis Tedford, Brittany Ashton Holmes, Kevin Jamal Woods, Zachary Mabry: Misguided family film about trouble and innocence. The names of the actors and actresses who portrayed each character are included below as well, so use this The Little Rascals character list to find out who played your favorite role. She notoriously dated Christian Brando, Marlons son, while she was with Blake. The franchise began in 1922 as a silent short subject series produced by the Roach studio and released by Path Exchange.