Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader

by Michael Brunsfeld

  Roach was fascinated. “I knew they would probably throw away the sticks as soon as they walked around the block,” he recalled more than 60 years later, “but the most important thing in the world right then was who would have which stick. All of a sudden I realized I had been watching this silly argument for over fifteen minutes because they were real kids.”

  FORMING THE GANG

  Roach thought movies about “kids doing the things that kids do” might make interesting viewing. As he told Leonard Maltin in The Life and Times of the Little Rascals: Our Gang, “I thought if I could find some clever street kids to just play themselves in films and show life from a kid’s angle, maybe I could make a dozen of these things before I wear out the idea.”

  Roach started putting together a cast of archetypal kids that audiences would be able to relate to: the leader of the pack, the pretty girl who gets teased by the boys, the tomboy, the nerdy smart kid, the chubby kid, the spoiled rich kid, etc.

  Q: What is a group of 12 or more cows called? A: A flink.

  Roach also decided to cast black kids in some of the parts. That may not sound like a big deal, but in the 1920s it was unheard of. In fact, he was the first Hollywood filmmaker to depict black kids and white kids playing together, treating each other as equals, even going to the same schools. (The integrated school scenes were cut out whenever the films played in the South.)

  Characters like Farina, Stymie, and Buckwheat have since been criticized for perpetuating ethnic stereotypes, and ethnic humor was common in the series, especially in the early days. But the fact that the cast was integrated at all was a milestone. Hollywood films of the 1920s never portrayed blacks and whites as social peers, and they wouldn’t for years to come. But Roach was determined that his kids would be peers.

  Casting that first group of little kids was a snap—Roach just asked around the studio lot. Everybody, it seemed, either had a kid or knew one they thought would be good for a part. An eight-year-old black child actor named Ernie “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison was already appearing in Roach comedies, and his family knew of a one-year-old named Allen Hoskins. (Allen, better known as “Farina,” would go on to appear in 105 Our Gang comedies—more than any other kid.) Photographer Gene Kornman’s five-year-old daughter Mary was interested; so was her friend Mickey Daniels. Roach also hired a six-year-old child actor named Jack Davis, a three-year-old named Jackie Condon, a chubby four-year-old named Joe Cobb, and a few other kids as well.

  TESTING THE WATERS

  The very first film, titled Our Gang, was shot twice with a different director each time because Roach didn’t think the first version was funny enough. The second film, a 20-minute silent short, directed by an ex-fireman named Bob McGowan, was a hit with test audiences, critics, and movie exhibitors alike. When Roach received repeated requests for “more of these Our Gang comedies,” he decided that would be the name for his series. The kids themselves were billed as “Hal Roach’s Rascals”; the name “Little Rascals” came much later.

  The fourth Our Gang movie to be filmed, One Terrible Day, was actually the first one released to the public; it hit the theaters in September 1922. Our Gang (the first film) was released two months later.

  Jupiter has 63 moons.

  These films were unlike any that audiences had seen before. Kids were the stars, but the films were designed to appeal to people of all ages. And they were a hit from the start—kid actors were acting like real kids, arguing, getting dirty, and getting into all kinds of mischief. The acting was so natural that audiences forgot they were watching a movie.

  ACT NATURALLY

  How was Our Gang director Bob McGowan able to coax such authentic performances out of actors as young as two years of age? He didn’t have many options—reading scripts and memorizing lines was out, since many of the kids were too young to read. So McGowan made acting a game: he explained the scenes to the kids as carefully as he could, then he filmed them as they playacted their parts. (One unintended consequence: as the kids grew older and became more aware of themselves as actors, their acting style sometimes became less natural.)

  Because the Our Gang films were so successful, it wasn’t long before every child star in Hollywood—not to mention thousands of aspiring kid stars all over the country—started clamoring for a part in the series. Mickey Rooney came to Hollywood just to audition for Our Gang. He didn’t make the cut, and neither did the biggest child star in Hollywood history, Shirley Temple.

  SHOW BUSINESS

  • A kid could be cast in an Our Gang film as young as two or three years of age (infants and toddlers were sometimes used as extras), and the average age was around seven. Most started out as supporting players and were promoted to more central roles as they got older. Spanky was a notable exception—he was cast in starring roles from the very beginning.

  • The youngest actors weren’t allowed to be on the lot more than six hours a day, and they spent at least half that time playing off camera, not working on the films. Once actors reached the age of six, however, they were expected to put in a full nine-hour shift (five hours of acting, three hours of school, and one for lunch).

  Each year, Americans burn about 200 billion gallons of fuel in their vehicles.

  • By the time most of the actors hit 11 or 12, they were starting to look too old for the series, so they were phased out. Kids who matured early had to leave sooner than that.

  MAKING NOISE

  The Hal Roach Studios shot 88 silent Our Gang films between 1922 and 1929. In 1928 they started releasing their films with phonograph records containing music and sound effects that were synchronized with the films—but no dialogue. The first real “talkies” followed a year later. Then from 1929 to 1937 Roach made another 73 Our Gang shorts. Most film buffs consider these later years to be the best of the series, with the most popular characters—Farina, Jackie, Chubby, Spanky, Buckwheat, Darla, and Alfalfa—delivering their best performances.

  DOUBLE TROUBLE

  Our Gang films were 20 minutes long until 1936. Around then, theater owners started to drop short-subject comedies from their schedules to make room for double features. In addition, the big Hollywood studios like Columbia, Warner Brothers, and MGM were bundling their own short-subject films with their feature films and forcing theater owners to take them as a package—if an owner wanted to show an MGM blockbuster like Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), he had to show the MGM shorts with it.

  The future for independent short-subject producers like Hal Roach looked grim, so Roach switched gears and started making feature-length films. Any short-subject that didn’t work as a feature was discarded, and soon the Our Gang series was the only one left at the studio. Roach ordered up a feature-length Our Gang film called General Spanky. When it died at the box office, the fate of the Our Gang series was sealed…or was it?

  It turned out that Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, was an Our Gang fan, and he thought there was still a lot of demand for the films. Mayer promised Roach that if he cut the films down to 10 minutes in length, he’d see to it that they got distribution. Roach agreed and made another 23 shorts over the next two years. But even with MGM’s support, demand for short comedies kept falling, and so did the profits. In 1938 Roach sold the Our Gang unit to MGM, including all of the films made between 1927 and 1938.

  Cats have no collarbones.

  THE SHOW’S OVER

  The quality of the Our Gang series suffered terribly at MGM. Instead of assigning a single top-notch director to film the shorts, the studio used the series to prepare inexperienced directors for feature film work. As Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann write in The Life and Times of the Little Rascals: Our Gang, “Hal Roach Studios was geared to making nothing but good comedy shorts, while MGM was geared to make everything but. The result was a strictly-for-kids mixture of ten minute morality plays and pep talks pushing American virtues during wartime.”

  As the quality deteriorated so did audience interest; after 16 years of solid profits the films start
ed losing money. MGM ended production in 1944; the last original Our Gang film, Tale of a Dog, was released in April 1944.

  LIVING ON

  The era of first-run Our Gang shorts may have ended, but the age of reruns was just around the corner. In 1949 Hal Roach bought back the rights to his Our Gang shorts and began licensing them for television (MGM kept the rights to the ones they made). The only problem: MGM kept the rights to the Our Gang name in case they ever decided to make more films. Roach had to come up with another name for his films. Since the kids were already known as “Hal Roach’s Rascals,” he decided to name the series The Little Rascals for television.

  Thanks to TV, by the mid-1950s the classic films were more popular than they’d ever been, entertaining a new generation of kids and bringing back fond memories for people old enough to remember them from the first time around. The Little Rascals has been airing almost continuously since then and is now available on video as well.

  Do you have a favorite Little Rascals character? Visit the “Little Rascals Hall of Fame” on page 508 to learn more about them. For a darker view, see “The Curse of the Little Rascals” on page 337.

  There are exactly 216 noodles in every can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup.

  IT’S A WEIRD, WEIRD WORLD

  Proof that truth is stranger than fiction.

  HI-HO, HI-HO, IT’S OUT OF WORK WE GO

  “Snow White had to make do with just four dwarfs due to cost-cutting at a theater in the German town of Stendal. The Altmark Stendal theater said it could afford only six actors for its Christmas rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which led to protests from theater-goers from the nearby city of Hanover who wanted to see all seven dwarves.

  “The theater attached two puppets in dwarf outfits to a background wall to give the production six dwarfs. And the actor playing the prince was supposed to double as the seventh dwarf, but only made one brief appearance on stage. ‘That dwarf wasn’t on stage the whole time,’ theater spokeswoman Susanne Kreuzer told reporters, ‘because he was stuck down in the mine working overtime.’”

  —Gold Coast Bulletin [Australia]

  LIFE’S UPS AND DOWNS

  “For months, 14-year-old David Mossmann constructed a roller coaster in the back yard of his parents’ house in Offenburg, Germany. Now he must tear it down. The roller coaster stands about 325 feet long and 16 feet high, and can reach a speed of 30 mph, but according to city officials, the wood construction does not comply with safety regulations, and it must be demolished.

  —N-TV [Germany]

  NEIGHBOR’S PLOT FOILED

  “A home in a Sacramento, California, neighborhood is surrounded by sheet metal, and neighbors are calling it an eyesore. But the residents, the D’Souza family, say the aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick. ‘It’s a protective measure,’ Sarah D’Souza said. The family claims the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that the radio waves have caused them health problems ranging from headaches to lupus. Sacramento officials have ordered the family to remove the metal and they say they will comply with the order, but also plan to gather evidence to show city officials the problem with radiation.”

  Women of the Warramunga tribe in Australia don’t speak for a year after their husbands die.

  —Wall Street Journal

  TIME TO GET UP

  “After Bill DiPasquale was dismissed from his waiter’s job at Abe & Louie’s steakhouse in Boston because of a booze problem, he locked himself in his home and drank himself unconscious. Relatives found him near death and took him to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was put on life support, but with hope fading, last week they decided to pull the plug. When the dying man’s ex-boss, Charles Sarkis, heard about it, he barked, ‘You tell him to wake up and get his a** back to work!’ DiPasquale’s friend Ralph Nash figured there was nothing to lose, so he delivered the message, whispering into his pal’s ear, ‘Charlie says to get out of bed and get your a** back to work.’

  “Five minutes later, DiPasquale suddenly awoke and uttered, ‘I’ve got to get to work.’ And he began a quick recovery. DiPasquale believes God is giving him a second chance. ‘He’s telling me, ‘If you want to be struck out, have another drink.’ It will not happen. The show must go on.’”

  —New York Post

  LAKE WHOA BE GONE!

  “A Russian village was left baffled Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight. NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately. Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations. ‘I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us,’ said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.”

  —Reuters

  Instant makeover: Ribbon worms can turn themselves completely inside out.

  BRAINTEASERS

  BRI stalwart Maggie McLaughlin collected these puzzles and dared us to solve them. Uncle John immediately took them straight to our “research lab.” We now pass them along to you. (Answers are on page 518.)

  1. A Thousand Squares A rich old lady died and left a precious diamond to her family, but first they had to find it. She gave them one clue: “It is inside a cylinder surrounded by a thousand squares.”

  Where did she hide it?

  2. Horse Sense The dying king wanted to pass his crown on to the wiser of his two sons, so he held a horse race. He told them: “The son whose horse rides to the lake and returns to the castle last will inherit my kingdom.” The younger son immediately jumped on a horse and rode away. Instantly, the king knew the younger son would inherit the kingdom.

  How did he know?

  3. Wrong Way Corrigan A truck driver named Corrigan traveled three blocks down a one-way street—in the wrong direction. Along the way, he waved at a passing cop, who did not arrest him.

  Why not?

  4. Holed Up Down at the city park, a baby bird fell into a hole that was four feet deep but only eight inches wide. Some kids who were playing on the swings nearby came over to help the bird, but just couldn’t reach it. Their parents, who were sitting on a bench, couldn’t reach, either. They wanted to try using a stick but were afraid it would hurt the bird. Little Julia, who was playing in the sandbox, came over and said, “I can save this bird, but it will take some time.”

  What did she do?

  5. Dollars to Dogs You have a dime and a dollar; you buy a dog and a collar. The dog is a dollar more than the collar. How much is the collar?

  6. Pressing Riddle I have keys without locks. I have space without rooms. I can be entered, but you can’t come in, even though I am your type.

  What am I?

  Meteorologists’ definition for drizzle: “No more than 14 drops per square foot per second.”

  FABULOUS FLOP: THE DELOREAN, PART I

  Stainless steel. Gull-wing doors. Back to the Future. A big-time drug bust and $250 million in investment capital down the tubes. Here’s the story behind one of the most spectacular flops of the 20th century.

  THE TURNAROUND KID

  In 1956 a 31-year-old engineer named John Z. DeLorean quit the Packard Motor Car Company and went to work for the troubled Pontiac division of General Motors. In those days Pontiac had a reputation for selling stodgy mid-market cars that didn’t appeal to young people. Sales were down and getting worse.

  DeLorean was instrumental in changing Pontiac’s image with the introduction of the first muscle car, the GTO. Sales soared and so did DeLorean’s career. In 1961 he was promoted to chief engineer; four years later he was named Pontiac’s general manager. At just 40 years old, he was GM’s youngest division head ever.

  Pontiac’s sales continued to rise, and in 1969 DeLorean was promoted to general m
anager of GM’s largest division, Chevrolet. By 1972, Chevy’s market share was on its way to record earnings when DeLorean was promoted to GM’s corporate headquarters.

  Only 47 years old, DeLorean was the hottest executive in Detroit—thought to be one of the only members of GM’s senior management who understood what the public wanted and how to give it to them. He seemed a shoo-in for the presidency of GM.

  Six months later, he was out of a job.

  MAKING CHANGES

  According to DeLorean, he quit GM. But his detractors at GM say he was shown the door, reportedly because he was steering contracts to suppliers in which he had a financial interest. DeLorean had also begun to clash with GM’s conservative corporate culture: In recent years he’d gotten a facelift and started dyeing his hair black. He grew long sideburns and took to wearing bell bottoms to the office in a company where everyone else wore business suits. In an even bigger shock to GM’s culture, in 1969 DeLorean dumped his wife of 15 years and married 19-year-old Kelly Harmon just six months later.

  25% of Americans will catch more than four colds this year.

  DREAM CAR

  Whatever it was that caused the falling-out between DeLorean and GM, once he was on his own it wasn’t long before he started contacting the company’s auto dealers around the country to see if they’d be interested in carrying a new car—one completely different from anything GM had to offer. For some time DeLorean had wanted to start his own company and build his dream car: a two-seat luxury sports car that would be light years ahead of its time. It was just the kind of car that GM wasn’t interested in producing—the market was too small to be worth the investment.

  Building an auto company from scratch wasn’t going to be easy. The last person to pull it off was Walter P. Chrysler, formerly the president of Buick, who founded his namesake company in the 1920s. Other companies had tried and failed: the Tucker Automobile Company folded in 1948 after producing only 51 cars, Kaiser-Frazer failed in 1956 after losing $100 million, Packard went under in 1958, and Studebaker followed in 1966. But inspired by Walter Chrysler’s example, DeLorean was determined to try and immediately set about raising money for his corporation.