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He didn’t work from scripts, but instead guided the kids through structured improvisations, coaching them constantly as the cameras rolled (a technique no longer available when sound came in). But McGowan clearly had a profound rapport with children. McGowan would go on to direct most of the “Our Gang” films until he left Roach in 1933, reportedly exhausted by the stress of dealing with the dozens of child actors who passed through his care. McGowan, who could capture the natural behavior Roach had in mind. After a couple of false starts, he also found a director, Robert F. Real kids, Roach believed, would be a richer source of comedy than the painted and pampered stage children usually seen in the movies, and drawing on recommendations from friends and studio employees, he put together a first cast of mostly nonprofessionals.
#Who were the original little rascals series#
According to Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann’s book, “The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang” (Three Rivers Press, 1992), Roach conceived the series while watching a group of children argue over bits of wood they’d taken from a lumberyard near his studio in Culver City, Calif. Roach (1892-1992) was a pioneering independent producer of short comedies who also started the careers of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chase and the team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. (MGM continued to produce “Our Gang” shorts, with diminishing results, until 1944.) For the generation that grew up with them, these 80 shorts are the essence of the series, and watching them is a Proustian experience, yielding wave after wave of memories.īut many of the “Our Gang” comedies are remarkable movies in their own right. This set consists of the 80 sound films produced by Hal Roach and released to television in the 1950s as “The Little Rascals” a name change made necessary because Roach had sold the “Our Gang” trademark to MGM in 1938. Some 220 shorts were produced between 19 starring the “Our Gang” kids and their assorted animal companions. Fields is said to have been the source of the show business maxim “Never work with children or animals.” “The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection,” a boxed set of eight DVDs from Genius Entertainment, offers approximately 20 hours’ worth of reasons Fields was right: nobody could compete.