In fact, King World Productions are the owners of the show and have held the rights to the series for nearly 35 years now. And while “The Little Rascals” program, which has been syndicated on TV ad infinitum, was licensed to Cabin Fever Entertainment in 1997, Cosby had no involvement in any of the show’s ventures.
The Little Rascals episodes for the express purpose of keeping them off of television because of their demeaning portrayal of blacks. This rumor has nothing to it, of course: King World Productions has owned and licensed the rights to The Little Rascals for over thirty years.
Our Gang (later known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals) is a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series was produced from 1922 to 1944 and is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way.
Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals) is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. The films were created by studio executive Hal Roach, who was best known as the man behind the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.
Status of ownership. Currently, the rights to the Our Gang / Little Rascals shorts are scattered. Sonar Entertainment (formerly known as RHI Entertainment, Cabin Fever Entertainment and Hallmark Entertainment) owns the copyrights of and holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Our Gang shorts.
Like the television prints, Blackhawk’s Little Rascals reissues featured custom title cards in place of the original Our Gang logos, per MGM’s 1949 arrangement with Hal Roach not to distribute the series under its original title. The films were otherwise offered unedited.
What is the Little Rascals?
“ The Little Rascals — Our Gang ” series of short comedic films about the adventures of poor neighborhood children have delighted audiences throughout the ages from its inception in 1927. The series actually did not hit the small screen until the mid-’50s when the Hal Roach -produced shorts, with sound added to them, were syndicated for television. As the decades progressed and viewers reached new levels of sophistication, the black-and-white films, which had an integrated cast of characters, portrayed its Black cast members in roles that were oftentimes looked upon as stereotypical or denigrating to the race. In response, did comedian and scholar Bill Cosby take it upon himself to eradicate what he thought to be a negative portrayal of Blacks on TV by purchasing all of the show’s rights so that the program would never air again?
And while “The Little Rascals” program, which has been syndicated on TV ad infinitum, was licensed to Cabin Fever Entertainment in 1997, Cosby had no involvement in any of the show’s ventures. Still, there are many who agree that the “Little Rascals” should remain locked up in a vault with the key thrown away — never to be seen again.
While it has remained unclear as to who started the rumor, the fact is that Cosby actually had no involvement with pulling the “Our Gang” show off of TV. In fact, King World Productions are the owners of the show and have held the rights to the series for nearly 35 years now.
What is the Little Rascals?
Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals) is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures.
The folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang was named for the troupe because lead singer Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane’s last name was similar to that of George “Spanky” McFarland. The band had no connection with the actual Our Gang series.
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The final Roach-produced short in the Our Gang series, Hide and Shriek, was his final short-subject production.
Roach agreed, producing shorter, one-reel Our Gang comedies (ten minutes in length instead of twenty). The first one-reel Our Gang short, Bored of Education (1936), marked the Our Gang directorial debut of former assistant director Gordon Douglas and won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (One Reel) in 1937.
According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, when he was auditioning a child actress to appear in a film. The girl was, in his opinion, overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her mother left the office, Roach looked out of his window to a lumberyard across the street, where he saw some children having an argument. The children had all taken sticks from the lumberyard to play with, but the smallest child had the biggest stick, and the others were trying to force him to give it to the biggest child. After realizing that he had been watching the children bicker for 15 minutes, Roach thought a short film series about children just being themselves might be a success.
Hatley and Shield’s jazz -influenced scores, first featured in Our Gang with 1930s Pups is Pups, became recognizable trademarks of Our Gang, Laurel and Hardy, and the other Roach series and films.
Across 220 short films and a feature-film spin-off, General Spanky, the Our Gang series featured over 41 child actors as regular members of cast.
Who owns the Little Rascals?
This rumor has nothing to it, of course: King World Productions has owned and licensed the rights to The Little Rascals for over thirty years. The series has been syndicated to television many times and the video rights to some episodes were licensed to Cabin Fever Entertainment in 1997, but Bill Cosby has never owned any part …
Claim: Bill Cosby bought up the rights to The Little Rascals (or Our Gang) comedies in order to keep them off television because they depict racial stereotypes. Status: False.
This rumor is similar to another claim that circulated in the mid-1990s: that Ted Turner had bought up the rights to the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard to keep it off of television because of its demeaning portrayal of Southerners. (The series is currently syndicated on TNN.)
theless, old episodes of Amos ‘N’ Andy continued to run successfully in syndication for many years until another round of protests during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s finally prompted CBS to permanently withdraw it from syndication (and attempt to destroy the negatives) in 1966.
When CBS brought the long-running and immensely popular radio program Amos ‘N’ Andy to television in 1951, the series lasted only two seasons, due in part to pressure from groups (primarily the NAACP) who objected to its portrayals of blacks.
When did the Little Rascals come out?
The Little Rascals, which debuted on television in 1955, introduced a band of ragtag children to the world. They were born from the 1922-1938 ‘Our Gang’ shorts from MGM. Producer/crea
tor Hal Roach re-bundled 79 of the shorts to make The Little Rascals TV series, which is still broadcast today.
Hal Roach’s Little Rascals, Carl Switzer, Spanky McFarland, 1938. After leaving the series in 1940, he was the victim of typecasting and struggled to find roles. He appeared in bit parts and B movies as an adult, including the classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).
For her third birthday they went to New York to seek fame and fortune in the arts. Joe Rivkin, a casting director for Hal Roach Studios, cast her in the role of Darla in the Our Gang shorts. Darla is mostly remembered for her coquettishness, as she often was the object of affection for Alfalfa, Butch, and Waldo.
In the series, Spanky was known as the president of the “He-Man Women Hater’s Club.”. At 24, McFarland left showbiz and joined the United States Air Force. Like William Thomas, he couldn’t get out from under the Spanky stereotype and worked odd jobs at a soft drink plant, a hamburger stand, and a popsicle factory.
The nickname is said to have come from his mother, who urged him not to misbehave in Roach’s office.
William Robert Laughlin was born on July 5, 1932, in San Gabriel, California. Laughlin rose to fame at the age of 8, joining Our Gang in 1940. Laughlin’s character Froggy was known for his strange, guttural voice, which sounded like a frog’s croak — thus a nickname was born. Laughlin did the voice himself.
George Robert Phillips McFarland was born October 2, 1928, in Dallas. Before he joined Our Gang, McFarland modeled children’s clothing for a Dallas department store. He also was famously seen on Dallas highway billboards and in print advertisements for Wonder Bread. Spanky McFarland, 1930s.
