It makes sense that during the summer breaks the creative crew would take the opportunity to assess what was working and where improvements could be made.
Yup, that has always been my theory. I find it hard to sit through any Our Gang short from the 1929/30 season. L&H fared much better during that season.
The Our Gang comedies must have required much more work behind the scenes at the Roach Studio than those of L&H for the simple reason that the Our Gang cast was always changing; they had to remain on the lookout for new kids all the time. Plus, they had to arrange and manage schooling at the studio, since the kids could not attend a traditional school. Add to that the fact that the kids usually had zero training as actors/actresses. The latter fact was probably a good thing, and why their performances were so natural.
It was either Tommy Bond or Jerry Tucker who told me the problem with those Little Rascals "remakes" in the 90s was the fact that they were forcing the kids to imitate the real Our Gang characters from the 30s. The Roach studio, namely Robert McGowan, wisely allowed the kids to be themsleves, and their characters evolved. I've never sat thru any of those "remakes", but I do remember that the kid actor they got for Spanky actually looked like Butch! Just take a close look at his face. Suffice it to say that they did not know what they were doing. Plus they forever made it hard to google "The Little Rascals" without getting hits for that darn 1994 movie! (I just did it -- first result!) Same for eBay!
It is pretty amazing how they kept the quality at a very high level from late 1930 until 1938, when Roach sold the whole unit to M-G-M. Equally amazing was the fact that they were able to keep Spanky on-board, unlike Jackie Cooper and Dickie Moore. They did lend out Spanky a few times to other studios, however.
