Title: Mail and female /
Authors: Roach, Hal, 1892-1992; Thomas, Buckwheat, 1931-1980,; Cooper, Jackie, 1922-2011; Darling, Jean,; Hal Roach Studios.
Year: 1937
Subjects: School children Drama.; Our Gang films; Children Drama; Youth; Infant boys.; African Americans; Minorities; Infant girls.; Switzer, Carl,; United States Social conditions
Abstract: In this episode, when he is excluded from one of the girl's parties, Spanky decides to create the "He-Man Woman Haters Club". When the gang suggests a president, Spanky elects his pal Alfalfa because he knows that Alfalfa "hates women". What Spanky doesn't realize is that Alfalfa's absence at the meeting was due to the fact that he was writing a letter to his sweetheart Darla. When Alfalfa is informed by Buckwheat and Porky that he has been elected president of Spanky's new club and that the club's new rules include no fraternizing with girls, he knows he is in deep trouble. Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of comedic short films featuring a group of neighborhood children and their misadventures. Rather than have them imitate adult acting styles, Roach and director Robert F. McGowan worked to elicit unaffected, natural performances from their young actors. Our Gang, put boys, girls, whites and blacks together as equals, something that broke new ground at the time. The franchise began in 1922, as a series of silent short subjects produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange. According to Hal Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, when he was auditioning a child actress. The girl was, in his opinion, over rehearsed and wearing too much makeup. After the girl and her mother left his office, Roach looked out his window at a lumberyard across the street, where he saw several children having an argument. The children had all grabbed sticks from the lumberyard to play with, and the smallest child had the biggest stick. The others were trying to make him give it to the biggest child. After realizing that he had been watching this gang of kids argue for 15 minutes, Roach realized that short films with children just being themselves might be as interesting as the kids across the street.