appreciates in his foreword, Lee (a childhood fan herself) never forgets that. But for kids, fun was always high on the agenda. (Cluck Cluck Klams was the kids’ club.) Down the decades, the series continued to fuel, and flout, fantasies and anxieties as Americans wrestled with integration, multiculturalism, and post-racial hopes. Our Gang, born and bred in the Jim Crow era, played to pickaninny stereotypes, and also parodied the KKK. A professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, she relishes the deeply mixed messages embedded in, and extracted from, the films’ vision of racially integrated childhood. Re-edited versions and movie remakes followed.Īll along, the African American stars were making bigger mischief, too, as Julia Lee reveals in her agile and insightful cultural history.

In the 1950s, the films were repackaged for TV. See more ideas about child actors, rascal, gang. Kendall McComas (64) and Scott Beckett (38) committed suicide. Smith, who lived to 87 years old, was stabbed to death by a homeless man he had befriended. Norman Chubby Chaney died of a glandular ailment at 21. Darla Hood, who frequently figured in as the show’s love interest, died of a heart attack at 47 after contracting hepatitis from a blood transfusion. Today, the Our Gang legacy of equality, perseverance and determination is still felt today. Kendall McComas (64) and Scott Beckett (38) committed suicide.

Winning over audiences of all colors and ages, they made the transition to talkies. Our Gang was the name of a popular and successful American film series of comedy shorts with child actors known collectively as 'The Little Rascals.

How about a firecracker in a birthday cake?Ī succession of young actors took it from there. Bob McGowan, the avuncular director, made sure the crew never ran out of hijinks. Little Rascals television show Posthumous Reunion, a Find A Grave. Contribute, create and discover gravesites from all over the world.

Chubby and scrawny, bossy and sweet, black and white: The producer, Hal Roach, saw to it that his posse of children was motley. The World’s largest gravesite collection. The little rascals, originally known as Our Gang, have stirred up irresistible trouble ever since the short comedies debuted on silent film in 1922.

The cast of the original little rascals