Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals

Shirley J.               Adult Non-Fiction                        The history of the times and lives of the child actors both on and off the film sets known first as Our Gang then later as the Little Rascals

Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals by Julia Lee    328 pages

I love the Little Rascals be they the original Our Gang and all the "generations" throughout including the new movie versions.   What a revelation that all the kids in the 1920s played together and enjoyed each other's company so much they considered the group and the crew to be family.   Hal Roach saw a group of black and white kids playing outside his studio and got the idea of filming their funny antics as short reel films to be circulated to theaters along with feature films, sort of the prelude to the features.   The idea took off and found a huge fan following throughout the country with some less enthused in the south but for the most part people were lining up to see them.   They became so popular and got so much fan mail that Roach started doing publicity tours and booking the kids at events so their fans could meet them in person.   It was an insulated thrill ride - Hal Roach kept the kids safe from naysayers and haters within the protective bubble of the Hal Roach Studios.   They were sheltered from any racial prejudices under Hal Roach and his right hand man, Bob McGowan and since they attended school on the studio lot they didn't come in contact a lot of outsiders except on their home time which was after 5p.m. so there wasn't a lot of contact time between dinner, learning their lines, which Roach kept to a minimum and most often allowed them to improvise their own dialogue.  That all changed when Roach allowed Louis B. Mayer to buy him out and MGM took over the latest crew of kids' contracts.   The upside was every day at Roach Studios was like play time even though they were working.  When MGM took over every day became work as they had scripts to memorize.  When Hal Roach took the kids and their guardians out on promotional tours if a hotel wouldn't allow Sunshine Sammy, Farina, Stymie or Buckwheat to stay there due to Jim Crow laws, Hal Roach would find a hotel that would let all the kids and Petey (the pup) stay together.   When MGM took over, black actors were relegated to black hotels.  The book tells the beginnings of the actors' lives and careers, tells about their families, talks about filming and shares tidbits of life on the set, various films and the fun had by all, the work involved, the joy and the sorrows experienced.  It talks about the kids early retirement when they aged out (got too tall or mature looking), reunions, what the kids went on to do in their lives and even talks about the passing of the actors and crew   A great book for fans of the Little Rascals from the shorts (short film reels) to syndication on t.v. to the 2 films done in 1994 and 2014, and who knew that Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame got Stymie the derby he wore in the original short films?  He did.  Laurel and Hardy were also under contract with Hal Roach studios at the time.   Small world.  So much good information and trivia to be found here.   I recommend this book to all fans though it would likely be more to the tastes of high school students on up to us old foggies who remember them from t.v.   Loved it.