While organizing my DVD's, I found an "Our Gang Hilarious Hits" 4-short DVD that I guess I bought years ago (probably out of a bargain bin in some store). On it was:
"The Pooch": Evil dogcatcher tries to gas Stymie's dog Pete.
"Fly my Kite": Grandma's evil son-in-law tries to kick her out of her house. She finds Gold Bonds which, originally thinking them worthless she ties them to the tail of Chubby's kite. The Gang comes to the rescue!
"Hi Neighbor": A rich kid with a fire truck pedal car steals Jackie's girl. The Gang makes their own fire truck and hilarity ensues.
Now the short in question...
"Mary Queen of Tots": Poor little rich girl Mary and her collection of magical dolls, that resemble the Our Gang kids.
The above is the description from the DVD case. The other 3 descriptions are paraphrases of the case. To give you more of the plot, Mary's Governess won't let her have dolls The gardener buys 4 dolls from a street peddler and gives them to Mary while the Governess is away. Mary plays with the dolls, reads them a story, then goes to sleep and dreams that they come to life. While sleeping the Governess finds the dolls and throws them away. Mary wakes, sees that the dolls are missing and looks outside. She sees the Gang delivering the laundry and she assumes her dolls have come to life. She explains this to the shocked gardener, who then later discovers the dolls in the garbage can. When the Governess can't get the Gang to leave, she gets a cop. The gardener has the Gang hide and puts out the dolls. The cop then takes the Governess to the "Happy Hilton".
OK, that long summary was necessary because IMDB is kind of lacking.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0016096/Questions:
1. This short was released in 1925 in the typical silent film format. For the DVD they added appropriate period instrumental music. How many other "Our Gang" shorts were also silent films? This is the first one I've ever seen. IMDB is a messy hodgepodge of listings of questionable veracity.
2. Is there a good "Our Gang" website? Like this is for the Stooges? When I was a child ('60's, early '70's), WKBD in Detroit used to show the 3 Stooges and Our Gang/Little Rascals in the afternoon on weekdays. I love them both.
3. Why is TV crappier now with hundreds of channels available now for $50/month, as opposed to when the 5th largest city in the US got only 8 channels for free? And why do I need 10 remotes to run 3 TV's? We only needed 1 remote control in the 1960's... me! I was the youngest so I had to do the "honors".
4. What was the first "Our Gang" talkie?
5. One of the story boards in MQoT has the gardener asking the Gang why the dolls look so much like them. The Gang's leader (not sure who it is) says on the storyboard "We pose for a 'wop' that pays us a $1 a week".
OK. That is why I've never seen this short on TV. Aside from it being a silent film.
Now we know that the Stooges have some shorts that are "politically incorrect" (God, how I hate this PC-Crapola!). But this is the first time I've ever seen it in an Our Gang short. The 5th query... Are there any others like this?
I'm sure the comedy experts here will have some good responses!
James
