Darla Hood
Recapture the magic of Hal Roach's in this delightful musical comedy compilation released to theaters in 1959 and featuring classics from the peak period of the most popular movie series of all times. Darla Hood makes her Our Gang Debut in their neighborhood musical revue, singing "I'll Never Say 'Never Again' Again," and is designated their entrant in a radio station singing contest, but fails to show up on time. Alfalfa goes on in her places, performing his unforgettable rendition of "I'm in the Mood for Love," while Spanky turns into a pint-sized Fred Astaire when the Adams Street Grammar School stages a musical show.
Join all you favorites--Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa, Darla, Butch, Froggy and more--in a jam-packed special covering more than twenty years and 200 episodes of Hal Roach's inimitable brand of childhood magic. This fascinating video offers insight into the Gang's personal lives, as rare footage follows each member's career through the joys and misfortunes that went along with being one of America's most beloved kids. See how the series began in 1922 and changed after the first all-talking release in 1929, why Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney never made the Gang, a fifteenth anniversary reunion, and clips from their only feature.
Stymie, Spanky and the Gang have to save Pete from the dog catcher's gas chamber in "The Pooch", while Spanky and Alfalfa headline the school pageant with a pair of midgets mistaken for children on "Arbor Day". In the 1923 silent "Derby Day", the Gang is selling hot dogs and lemonade outside the racetrack when Mickie hits upon an idea of holding their own race--between a mule, a horse, a cow, a doh, a goat and a bicycle.
The Gang goes on a camping trip as "Bear Shooters" in which Chubby greases Wheezer with Limburger, then puts on a floor show in a barn to try to sell a reluctant Froggy some lemonade in "Waldo's Last Stand". The silent "Dogs of War!" depicts the great battle of Kelly's tomato patch waged by "Stonewall" Jackie and "Private" Farina, then the Gang tries to get wok in the movies, driving director Harold Lloyd to distraction.
The Most Memorable Adventures from the "Our Gang Comedies" aka "The Little Rascals", Narrated By Jerry Lewis, Music by Nelson Riddle.
Spanky and Porky try to figure out a way to get their mother a winter coat for Christmas after she buys them a Blue Comet electric train.
Mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder has rented a country house called "The Oaks", which not long ago was the scene of some murders committed by a strange and violent criminal known as "The Bat". Meanwhile, the house's owner, bank president John Fleming, has recently embezzled one million dollars in securities and has hidden the proceeds in the house, but is killed before he can retrieve it.
An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.
Spanky and the gang discover a demonstration of a "human-like" robot named Volto and are inspired to create a robot themselves to do their chores for them. Slicker Walburn convinces them they will need "invisible rays" to bring it to life which he just happens to have to sell to them. As they rush off to get their money, Slicker gets Boxcar Smith to wear the robot's outer body so when he "brings" the robot to life, it will be Boxcar bringing it to life. The gang unsuspectedly gets their robot to mow the lawn at Froggy's house, but with a signal from Slicker, Boxcar runs amok and mows down everything in his path. Froggy gets to explain what happened to his parents who bust up the fraud and get the miscreants to work with the gang to clean up the mess.
The Our Gang kids worry that Darla's new stepmother will be an evil stepmother like of fairy tale fame.
On Mickey's birthday, Miss Pipps, the school teacher, serves cake and ice cream during school hours. Sour old Mr. Pratt, head of the school board, stumbles on the festivities and has Miss Pipps fired. The Our Gang conspire to save her job by inviting all the parents to a special meeting. There the gang stage a melodrama, with Mr. Pratt portrayed as Simon Legree. The parents react by demoting Mr. Pratt to janitor. They appoint kindly Mr. Swanson, the current janitor, to head the school board. And of course they reinstate Miss Pipps as school teacher. Sometime later, in an act of forgiveness, Miss Pipps and the gang hold a birthday party for Pratt who is then humbled by the experience.
Inspired by his soldier brother, Spanky decides to organize a military unit among his friends, collecting odds and ends for the war effort.
It is a premiere night at the Fox Carthay Circle theater, and the Our Gang show up to observe the festivities. But after the Gang causes a disruption, the police send them scurrying home. Not to worry--the Our Gang stage their own premiere night in the clubhouse barn.
Mickey's parents are constantly quarreling because his mother serves hash every Monday night. The kids decide to put on a radio skit to try to get them to stop fighting.
Our Gang member Alfalfa comes face to face with his wealthy lookalike Cornelius.
The gang offers to help their pal Waldo attract customers to his lemonade stand. Redecorating their clubhouse as a lavish nightclub, the kids stage an elaborate floor show, with Darla Hood as the star vocalist.
To impress Darla, Alfalfa drinks a concoction of Butch's "dynamite" brew.
Spanky and Alfalfa both try to impress the new girl at school, much to Darla's dismay.
Rich 'Old Man' Bill Morton is a hypochondriac. After bringing new sugar pills to Bill Morton's house, his physician, Doctor Malcolm Scott suggested to Bill Morton's wife that adopting a child might help cure Mister Morton of his delusions. After overhearing their conversation, Bill Morton quickly invited the "Our Gang" members, (as they were at the front come to the door, offering to work and pay for a broken window pane, that had just occurred) to a lunch, in order to sour his wife's thoughts of adopting any children. Then, the unexpected occurs as Alfalfa's two twin little brothers, Tisket and Tasket got to Bill Morton's medications' table, they ate up a majority of them, leading Bill Morton to call his physician, Malcolm Scott back to his house, immediately! When, Doctor Malcolm Scott return to Bill Morton's house, he laughs at what he hears and then tells Bill Morton they are worthless sugar pills, teaching a lesson to Bill Morton he is not sick at all.
An abandoned old show boat is moored in a lazy creek. The Our Gang put the old vessel back to use when they stage a show featuring "Darla's Dancin' Dandies" and a "meller dramer" entitled "Out in the Snow You Go." All is not smooth sailing however, as Butch seeks revenge for having been excluded from the cast.
Alfalfa imagines himself being the star football player on a college team. After a big pep rally he ends up letting the team down when his poor grades cause him to be suspended from play.
The Our Gang kids put on a circus in the barn to raise money to help Porky's family pay the rent and avoid getting evicted.
Mary and Larry are are a modestly successful skating team. Shortly after their marriage, Mary gets a picture contract, while Larry is sitting at home, out of work.
Alfalfa "trades in" his whining baby brother for another baby--who turns out to be a midget criminal.
While under a hypnotic spell, Alfalfa thinks he's one of the Three Musketeers and challenges Butch to a duel.
Alfalfa introduces his prissy, snooty cousin Wilbur to the gang. He instantly gets on everyone's bad side. Especially Alfalfa.
Alfalfa and the gang build their own "speedboat" powered by ducks, and challenge Waldo to a race for the hand of Darla.
In an effort to impress Darla, Alfalfa tells her that he's a famous bear trainer. Little does he know that Darla's father owns a circus - and a bear costume. It's time for everyone to uncover the "bear facts".
It's Mr. Hood's birthday and he's looking forward to a quiet celebration with his family. But Darla's friends show up with living presents, eat his dinner, argue about Tarzan and Alfalfa croons a special song for the unhappy man.
Butch has been playing practical jokes on the gang, but now they get their turn.
Alfalfa enters a rigged wrestling match against the Masked Marvel, unaware that neighborhood bully Butch has secretly donned the disguise of his opponent.
Alfalfa imagines himself as a western movie hero battling with Butch for Darla's heart.
Spanky and Alfalfa wants to do a show based on the "Aladdin's Lamp" story with Darla in the cast, but Darla doesn't want to participate.
Alfalfa, Butch and Waldo compete for Mayor For A Day. Whoever becomes Mayor gets to take Darla to the Strawberry Festival.
The kids go to the hospital to visit Darla, who's recovering from a tonsillectomy. Chaos soon ensues.
Detective Alfalfa and his assistants Buckwheat and Porky try to solve a missing-candy case but find themselves in an amusement park haunted house.
Darla pretends to like Butch, hoping to motivate Alfalfa into a better performance in the football game against Butch's team.
The gang promises to keep away from girls on St. Valentine's Day, but Alfalfa can't resist Darla.
The gang puts on a musical show at a reunion for some of the former Gang kids.
Alfalfa gives up being "King of the Crooners" to sing opera, but a nightmare of being under the thumb of an evil producer sends him back to his roots.
Stan and Ollie travel with a band of 18th-century Gypsies holding a nobleman's daughter.
When the caddies at the local golf course go on strike, the gang steps in to earn some money.
A lonely, rich, hypochondriac is celebrating her 65th birthday in the same manner in which she observes the other 364 days of the year by complaining, berating her servants, taking her pills and grumping about everything around her, including the sunshine. A toy airplane comes flying through an open window and breaks a vase, and when its owner, Spanky, comes in search of it he is informed he will have to pay seventy-five cents for the broken vase. Spanly has never seen six-bit, much less having it in his pants, so he offers his and his friend's help in cleaning up the yard in exchange. Before the kids are through, they've given the old lady a new outlook on life.
The "Our Gang" kids stage a production of "Romeo and Juliet," but the show is threatened when leading lady Darla walks out on star Alfalfa.
Our Gang is a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way, as Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. In addition, Our Gang notably put boys, girls, whites and blacks together as equals, something that "broke new ground," according to film historian Leonard Maltin. That had never been done before in cinema, but has since been repeated after the success of Our Gang. The first production at the Roach studio in 1922 was a series of silent short subjects. When Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1927, and converted the series to sound in 1929, the series took off. Production continued at the Roach studio until 1938, when the series was sold to MGM, continuing to produce the comedies until 1944. The Our Gang series includes 220 shorts and one feature film, General Spanky, featuring over forty-one child actors. As MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark following their purchase of the production rights, the 80 Roach-produced "talkies" were syndicated for television under the title The Little Rascals beginning in 1955. Both Roach's The Little Rascals package and MGM's Our Gang package have since remained in syndication, with periodic new productions based on the shorts surfacing over the years, including a 1994 Little Rascals feature film released by Universal Pictures.
