The series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way. While child actors are often groomed to imitate adult acting styles, steal scenes, or deliver "cute" performances, Hal Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children. Our Gang also notably put boys, girls, whites and blacks together in a group as equals, something that "broke new ground," according to film historian Leonard Maltin. Of course, when sound came in at the end of the 1920s, McGowan was forced to modify his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Later Our Gang directors such as Gus Meins and Gordon Douglas used a more streamlined approach to McGowan's methods, in order to meet the demands of the increasingly sophisticated movie industry of the mid to late 1930s. Douglas in particular was forced to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach was forced to halve the running times of the shorts from two reels (20 minutes) to one reel (10 minutes).
One notable exception is Jackie Cooper, who was later nominated for an Academy Award and had a full career as an adult actor. Cooper is best known today for portraying Perry White in the Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve, as well as for directing episodes of TV series such as M*A*S*H and Superboy.
The 1930 Our Gang short Pups is Pups was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2004.
In later years, a large number of adults falsely claimed to have been members of Our Gang. A long list of people, including persons famous in other capacities such as Nanette Fabray, Eddie Bracken, and gossip columnist Joyce Haber have all claimed to be or have been publicly called former Our Gang children. Bracken's official biography was once altered to state that he appeared in Our Gang instead of The Kiddie Troupers, although he himself had no knowledge of the change. There are many other persons who have falsely claimed to have been Our Gang characters such as Spanky, Alfalfa, Froggy, and often other characters who never existed.
Among the most notable Our Gang impostors is Jack Bothwell, who claimed to have portrayed a character named "Freckles", and went so far as to appear on the game show To Tell The Truth in the fall of 1957 perpetuating this fraud. In 2008, a Darla Hood impostor, Mollie Barron, passed away claiming to be one of the "Darla" actresses cast in the Our Gang series. Her AP obituary reported her as an Our Gang cast member. Another is Bill English, a grocery store employee who appeared on the October 5, 1990, episode of the ABC investigative television newsmagazine 20/20 claiming to have been Buckwheat. Following the broadcast, Spanky McFarland informed the media of the truth, and in December, William Thomas, Jr., the son of Billie Thomas, the actual actor who played Buckwheat, filed a lawsuit against ABC for negligence.
Another child actor of the era who claimed to have portrayed a character named "Freckles" in Our Gang was Wesley Barry. In the 1979 book Behind Japanese Lines: With the OSS in Burma, author Richard Dunlop, a former OSS member, made this statement about then-OSS member Wes "Berry." Barry was in fact a child actor of the time who acted in films similar to the 'Our Gang shorts, and was particularly known for his freckles. While it does appear likely that Barry did serve in the OSS in Burma in 1944, there is no evidence that he appeared in the Our Gang movies apart from this source.
In 1983, with the VHS home video market growing, Blackhawk began distributing Little Rascals VHS tapes available through catalogue only, with three shorts per tape. Blackhawk Films was acquired in 1983 by National Telefilm Associates, later renamed Republic Pictures. Republic would release Little Rascals VHS volumes for retail purchase in various, non-comprehensive collections through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s. By this point, all but 11 of the Roach-era sound films were available on home video.
Cabin Fever began pressing DVD versions of their first 12 Little Rascals VHS volumes (with the contents of two VHS volumes included on each DVD), but went out of business in 1998 before their release. The Little Rascals home video rights were then sold to Hallmark Entertainment in 1999, who released the DVDs without an official launch while cleaning out their warehouse in early 2000. Later that year, the first 10 Cabin Fever volumes were re-released on VHS with new packaging, and the first two volumes were also released on DVD as The Little Rascals: Volumes 1–2. Two further Hallmark collections featured ten shorts apiece, and were released in 2003 and 2005, respectively.
In 2006, Legend Films released colorized versions of fifteen Our Gang comedies (14 Roach entries, and the public domain MGM entry Waldo's Last Stand), which were released across three Little Rascals DVDs.
RHI Entertainment and Genius Products released an eight-disc DVD set, The Little Rascals – the Complete Collection, on October 28, 2008. This set includes all 80 Hal Roach-produced Our Gang sound short films. Most of the collection uses the Cabin Fever restorations, while a handful of the shorts are presented with older Blackhawk Films transfers.
On September 1, 2009, Warner Home Video released all 52 MGM Our Gang shorts in a compilation titled The Our Gang Collection: 1938–1942 (though it contains the 1943-44 shorts as well) for DVD and digital download. The set is available by mail order only as part of the Warner Archive Collection.
RHI Entertainment (successor-in-interest to Hallmark Entertainment) owns the copyrights of and holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Our Gang shorts. RHI acquired these after absorbing Hal Roach Studios, Roach's estate, and Cabin Fever Entertainment in the late 1990s.
King World held the rights to the Little Rascals trademark and the Little Rascals television package until 2007. Today, King World's rights are with CBS Television Distribution (which was formed by the merger of King World with CBS Paramount Domestic Television), which offers both original black-and-white and colorized prints for syndication. King World/CBS's Little Rascals package was featured as exclusive programming (in the United States) for the American Movie Classics network from August 2001 to December 2003, with Frankie Muniz as the host. As part of a month-long tribute to Hal Roach Studios, Turner Classic Movies televised a 24-hour marathon of Roach Our Gang shorts - both sound films and silents - on January 4-5, 2011.
The MGM-produced Our Gang shorts, General Spanky, and the rights to the Our Gang name became the property of Turner Entertainment in 1986 when its founder Ted Turner bought the classic MGM library. Today, the MGM Our Gang shorts are distributed for Turner by Warner Bros. Television Distribution. Turner made a deal with King World in the early 1990s to jointly market the Little Rascals and Our Gang films and properties, instead of competing with one another. The MGM Our Gangs now appear regularly on the AmericanLife TV Network, and periodically on the Turner Classic Movies cable network. Thirty-three of the MGM Our Gangs were also available for viewing online at AOL's In2TV website during the mid-2000s.
The widely circulated rumor that entertainer Bill Cosby bought up the rights to Our Gang to keep the racial stereotypes off of television is false. Cosby has never owned any rights to the series at any time.
The following is a listing of the main child actors in the Our Gang comedies. They are grouped by the era during which they joined the series.
Surviving cast members of Our Gang include Dickie Moore, Jackie Cooper, Marianne Edwards, Jean Darling, Mildred Kornman, Robert Blake, Jerry Tucker, Sidney Kibrick and Jackie Lynn Taylor.
The following is a listing of selected Our Gang comedies, considered by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann (in their book The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang) to be among the best and most important in the series.
Category:American films Category:Comedy films Category:Hal Roach Studios short film series Category:Dell Comics titles Category:Television series by CBS Paramount Television Category:Television series by Warner Bros. Television
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| Bgcolour | silver |
|---|---|
| Name | Mickey Daniels |
| Caption | Mickey Daniels in Dogs of War (1923) |
| Birthdate | October 11, 1914 |
| Birth place | Rock Springs, Wyoming, U.S. |
| Deathdate | August 20, 1970 |
| Deathplace | San Diego, California U.S. |
| Occupation | Film actor |
| Yearsactive | 1915-1932 |
| Birthname | Richard Daniels, Jr. |
Richard "Mickey" Daniels, Jr. (October 11, 1914 - August 20, 1970) was a juvenile actor. Signed by Hal Roach in 1923, he was, along with fat Joe Cobb, scruffy Jackie Condon, pretty Mary Kornman, and smiling "Sunshine Sammy" (Ernie Morrison), a regular in the popular Our Gang comedies.
After Our Gang, Daniels continued playing bit parts in feature films and comedy shorts through 1946, often cast as newsboys. He continued public appearances with co-star Mary Kornman for some time and appeared in the Roach series The Boy Friends with her. He eventually quit the movie industry to become a construction worker.
Category:Deaths from cirrhosis Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:People from Rock Springs, Wyoming Category:1914 births Category:1970 deaths Category:Our Gang
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| Bgcolour | silver |
|---|---|
| Name | Mary Kornman |
| Caption | Mary Kornman in Dogs of War (1923) |
| Birthdate | December 27, 1915 |
| Birth place | Idaho Falls, Idaho U.S. |
| Deathdate | June 01, 1973 |
| Deathplace | Glendale, California U.S. |
| Occupation | Film actress |
| Yearsactive | 1922-1940 |
| Birthname | Mary A. Kornman |
| Homepage | http://www.marykornman.com/ |
Mary Kornman (December 27, 1915 – June 1, 1973) was an American child actress who was the leading female star of the Our Gang series during the Pathé silent era.
When recently asked if Mary was as kind and genuine a person as she appeared to be in her movies, sister Mildred Kornman replied, "She was all of that and more".
:*One Terrible Day (1922), listed by the Internet Movie Data Base :*Young Sherlocks (1922), listed by the Internet Movie Data Base and by Maltin and Bann :*Saturday Morning (1922), listed by the Internet Movie Data Base :*A Quiet Street (1922), listed by the Internet Movie Data Base
Category:American film actors Category:American child actors Category:Actors from Idaho Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:1915 births Category:1973 deaths Category:People from Idaho Falls, Idaho Category:Our Gang
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| Name | Hal Roach, Sr. |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Harold Eugene Roach |
| Birth date | January 14, 1892 |
| Birth place | Elmira, New York, United States |
| Death date | |
| Death place | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Spouse | Marguerite Nichols (1915-1941) |
| Occupation | Director/Producer |
| Years active | 1912–1992 |
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer and director from the 1910s to the 1990s.
After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood in 1912 and began working as an extra in silent film. Upon coming into an inheritance, he began producing short comedies in 1915 with his friend Harold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as "Lonesome Luke." In 1915 Roach married actress Marguerite Nichols. They had two children, Hal, Jr. (1918–1972) and Margaret (1921–1964).
Roach released his films through Pathé until 1927, when he went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He would change again in 1938 to United Artists. He converted his silent movie studio to sound in 1928 and began releasing talking shorts early in 1929. In the days before dubbing, foreign language versions of the Roach comedies were created by re-shooting each film in the Spanish, French, and sometimes Italian and German languages. Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang kids (some of whom had barely begun school) were required to recite the foreign dialogue phonetically, often working from blackboards hidden out of camera range.
In 1931, with the release of the Laurel & Hardy film Pardon Us, Roach began producing occasional full-length features alongside the short product. Short subjects became less profitable and were phased out by 1936. The Our Gang series continued until 1938, when Roach sold the contracts of the Our Gang cast members and the series name to MGM.
From 1937 to 1940, Roach concentrated on producing glossy features, abandoning low comedy almost completely. Most of his new films were either sophisticated farces (like Topper and The Housekeeper's Daughter) or rugged action fare (like Captain Fury and One Million B.C.). Roach's one venture into heavy drama was the acclaimed Of Mice and Men. The Laurel & Hardy comedies, once the Roach studio's biggest drawing cards, were now the studio's least important product and were phased out altogether in 1940.
In 1940, Roach experimented with medium-length featurettes, running 40 to 50 minutes each. He contended that these "streamliners", as he called them, would be useful in double-feature situations where the main attraction was a longer-length epic. Exhibitors agreed with him, and used Roach's mini-features to balance top-heavy double bills. United Artists continued to release Roach's streamliners through 1943. By this time Roach no longer had a resident company of comedy stars, and cast his films with familiar featured players (William Tracy and Joe Sawyer, Johnny Downs, Jean Porter, Frank Faylen, William Bendix, George E. Stone, etc.).
In 1941, his wife of 26 years, Marguerite, died.
In 1947, Hal Roach resumed production for theaters, with former Harold Lloyd co-star Bebe Daniels as an associate producer. Roach was the first Hollywood producer to go to an all-color production schedule, making four streamliners in Cinecolor, although the increased production costs did not result in increased revenue. In 1948, with his studio deeply in debt, Roach re-established his studio for television production, with Hal Roach, Jr. producing shows such as The Stu Erwin Show, Steve Donovan, Western Marshal, The Gale Storm Show, and My Little Margie, and independent producers leasing the facilities for such programs as Amos 'n' Andy, The Life of Riley, and The Abbott and Costello Show. By 1951 the studio was producing 1,500 hours of television programs a year, nearly three times Hollywood's annual output of feature movies.
The visionary Roach also recognized the value of his film library. Beginning in 1943 he licensed revivals of his sound-era productions for theatrical and home-movie distribution. Roach's films were also early arrivals on television; the Laurel & Hardy comedies in particular were a smashing success in TV syndication.
For two more decades Roach Sr. occasionally worked as a consultant on projects related to his past work, and was planning a comeback comedy at age 96. Hal Roach was a guest on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, where he recounted experiences with such stars as Stan Laurel and Jean Harlow; he even did a brief, energetic demonstration of a hula dance.
In 1984, at the age 92, Roach was presented with an honorary Academy Award. Former Our Gang members Jackie Cooper and George "Spanky" McFarland made the presentation to a flattered Roach, with McFarland thanking the producer for hiring him 52 years prior.
In the spring of 1992, not long after his 100th birthday, Roach once again appeared at the Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Billy Crystal. When Mr. Roach rose from the audience to speak during the ceremony, the sound system did not pick up his words. Crystal quipped "I think that's fitting, after all — Mr. Roach started in silent film..."
Most of the film library was bought by a Canadian company that adopted the "Hal Roach Studios" name. It primarily handled the business of keeping the library in the public eye and licensing products based upon the classic film series.
In 1983, Hal Roach Studios was one of the first studios to venture into the controversial business of film colorization, creating digitally colored versions of several Laurel and Hardy features, the Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life and other popular films. In the 1980s, Hal Roach Studios produced Kids Incorporated in association with old business partner MGM. From 1988 to 1990, while producing Kids Incorporated, Hal Roach Studios was known as Qintex.
In the years that followed, the Roach company changed hands several more times. Independent television producer Robert Halmi bought the company in the early 1990s, and it became RHI Entertainment. A short time later, this successor company was acquired by Hallmark Entertainment in 1994, but Halmi, Robert Halmi Jr. and affiliates of Kelso & Company reacquired the company in 2006. Hallmark Entertainment was absorbed into RHI Entertainment (with Vivendi as the current home video output partner).
In that same decade, a new incarnation of Hal Roach Studios (operated by the Roach Trust) was established, and today this new version of the company has released classic films on DVD, many of which are from Roach's own archival prints of his films, while others are public domain titles mastered from the best available 35 mm elements.
Category:1892 births Category:1992 deaths Category:American centenarians Category:American film producers Category:American film studio executives Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Hal Roach Studios Category:People from Elmira, New York Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Our Gang
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