The following is a complete list of the 220 Our Gang short films produced by Hal Roach Studios and/or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer between 1922 and 1944, numbered by order of release along with production order.[1]
Jean Darling and Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins do not appear.
The Roach/MGM silents (1927–1929)
These silent Our Gang shorts were produced by Hal Roach Studios and distributed to theaters by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All films are two reels (20 minutes) long, except Spook Spoofing, which is three reels (30 minutes) long. Shorts marked with an asterisk (*) were originally released with a synchronized music and sound effects track.
Released with synchronized music and sound effects, on disc only.
The Roach/MGM talkies (1929–1938, The Little Rascals)
The Our Gang sound shorts were produced by Hal Roach Studios and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. These 80 films, with some removed due to content concerns, were later packaged and syndicated by King World Productions under the title The Little Rascals. The shorts produced up until Arbor Day (1936) were two reels in length, typically running 17 to 20 minutes, with the exception of Small Talk which extended to three reels (26 minutes). From 1936's Bored of Education to 1938's Hide and Shriek the shorts were reduced to one reel, approximately 10 minutes each, except for Our Gang Follies of 1938 which was a brief return to the two-reel format. In 1936, the feature-length film General Spanky was also released. Over the years, many of the shorts were edited for television, and King World Productions excluded several from The Little Rascals television package. The shorts that were either edited or withheld from broadcast are noted accordingly.
First sound film; release dates of first five sound shorts overlap with those of final three silents shorts.
Television prints heavily edited for time and sound quality. Initially in the Little Rascals television package, but eliminated in the early 1980s due to sound quality.
Never shown on television because the film's sound track, released only on separate phonographic records, was presumed lost since the mid-1940s. Railroadin's sound track turned up in the MGM vaults in 1982; while it was released on home video, it never became part of the television package.
Willie Mae Taylor (a girl) plays "Buckwheat", who at first was a female character.
First appearance of Leonard Kibrick, Marianne Edwards, and Billie Thomas, all uncredited as general Our Gang kids. Later in the series, Billie Thomas would become famous for playing Buckwheat when the character was changed to male.
Jerry Tucker does not appear.
Television prints edited due to racial humor involving African Americans.
Willie Mae Taylor (a girl) plays "Buckwheat", who at first was a female character, identified in this episode as "Stymie's kid sister". Billie Thomas, who would later become famous as Buckwheat when the gender was changed to a boy, appears briefly in this episode as a mischievous little boy emptying the gang's canteens.
Jerry Tucker, Leonard Kibrick, and Marianne Edwards do not appear.
Television prints edited due to racial humor involving African Americans.
Scotty Beckett, Leonard Kibrick, Marianne Edwards, and Pete the Pup do not appear.
Withdrawn from television package from the early 1970s to early 1980s due to racial humor involving African-Americans. The short was later reinstated, though edited heavily for the same reasons.
Final film in series. Planned follow-up Home Front Commandos canceled during production.
Foreign-language versions
During the early days of sound American motion picture companies often made foreign-language versions of their films. The following is a list of known foreign-language versions of Our Gang films.
The Cracked Iceman (January 27, 1934) - a Hal Roach Charley Chase short subject, featuring Chase as a schoolteacher and the Our Gang kids as his students. Our Gang players featured are "Stymie" Beard, Tommy Bond, and "Spanky" McFarland.
The Boy Friends (September 13, 1930 through June 18, 1932), a Hal Roach produced short comedy series considered by some to be a spin-off of Our Gang. Former Our Gang stars Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman were among the series' stars. One Boy Friends short, Too Many Women, featured a direct reference to Our Gang - flashback footage of Mickey and Mary as children.
Curley (August 23, 1947) and Who Killed Doc Robbin (April 9, 1948), two Streamliners produced by Hal Roach and Robert F. McGowan and directed by Bernard Carr with a similar cast and tone as the Our Gang comedies. Both films starred Larry Olsen, Billy Gray, and Matthew "Stymie" Beard's brother Renee Beard. Roach forfeited his option to buy back the rights to the Our Gang trademark to produce these films.
The Little Rascals Christmas Special (December 3, 1979), a thirty-minute animated television special featuring Philip Tanzini as Spanky, Jimmy Gatherum as Alfalfa, Randi Kiger as Darla, Robby Kiger as Porky, and Al Jocko Fann as Stymie. Darla Hood and Matthew "Stymie" Beard are also featured.
Rascal Dazzle (1980), a compilation film featuring clips from various Roach produced films. Narrated by Jerry Lewis.
For many years, Blackhawk Films released 79 of the 80 Roach talkies on 16 mm film. The sound discs for Railroading' had been lost since the 1940s, and a silent print was made available for home movie release until 1982, when the film's sound discs were located in the MGM vault and the short was restored with sound. Like the television prints, Blackhawk's Little Rascals reissues featured custom-created title cards in place of the original Our Gang logos, as per MGM's 1949 arrangement with Hal Roach not to distribute the series under its original title.
In 1983, with the VHS home video market growing, Blackhawk began distributing Little Rascals VHS tapes available through catalogue only. The 80 sound shorts were made available across twenty-seven VHS volumes (one volume had the MGM short Waldo's Last Stand which was public domain to round out to 81), three shorts to a tape. Half a dozen silent episodes were also available across three additional VHS volumes. Four volumes on VHS went out of print by 1986, then leaving only 69 out of 80 episodes available.
National Telefilm Associates, later renamed Republic Pictures, purchased Blackhawk in 1983, and continued the catalogue releases while also making The Little Rascals available on retail home video collections in 1984. 30 Little Rascals shorts were released in a set of five VHS compilations, with six shorts to a volume: Little Rascals Comedy Classics 1, Little Rascals Comedy Classics 2, Best of the Little Rascals, Little Rascals on Parade, and Adventures of Little Rascals. Each of these tapes contained two volumes of the 1983 catalogue releases, making each tape contain six episodes. In addition, Republic made the first two catalogue volumes available for retail.
Twelve Little Rascals shorts made their way to home video through Spotlite Video in 1986. These also were all previously released on the catalogue Blackhawk releases and contained none of the ones that had been out of print. These were available through retail. Meanwhile, MGM released 20 of its 52 Our Gang shorts in a five-volume VHS set with four shorts per tape.
In 1991, Republic repackaged 30 Little Rascals shorts for a fifteen-volume VHS set, with two shorts per tape. Out of the 30 episodes released, only one of them (Night 'n' Gales) had been previously unreleased.
Cabin Fever/Hallmark releases
In 1993, Republic sold the home video rights to the 80 sound Roach shorts and some of the available silent shorts to Cabin Fever Entertainment. Cabin Fever also acquired the rights to use the original Our Gang title cards and MGM logos; for the first time in over 50 years, the Roach sound Our Gang comedies could be seen in their original format. In June 1994, Cabin Fever released a 12-volume set of Little Rascals VHS tapes, hosted by Leonard Maltin. With four shorts per tape, Cabin Fever made 48 Roach sound shorts available for purchase, uncut and with digitally restored and remastered picture and sound.
Due to the success of these volumes, Cabin Fever released nine more volumes in June 1995, which made the other 32 Roach talkies available for purchase (some of which had never been available on home video before). Five of these volumes contained four sound shorts, while the other four featured three sound shorts and a silent short.
Cabin Fever began pressing DVD versions of their first 12 Little Rascals VHS volumes (with the contents of two VHS volumes included on each DVD), but went out of business before the release was announced in late 1998. Early in 1999, they sold their catalog to Hallmark Entertainment.
In April 2000, Hallmark cleared out their warehouse, making all of the Little Rascals DVDs and VHS tapes available for retail, but never did an official launch of the Cabin Fever Little Rascals DVDs. In August, the first 10 volumes were re-released on VHS with new packaging, and the first two volumes were released on DVD as The Little Rascals: Volumes 1-2. In 2003, the VHS tapes went out of print. That spring, Hallmark issued a DVD called Little Rascals Vols. 3–4, which actually did not completely compile volumes three and four of the Cabin Fever VHS set, but included ten Our Gang shorts. On November 13, 2005, ten more Little Rascals shorts were issued on a DVD entitled Little Rascals Collectors Edition III.
MGM/UA releases
Throughout the early and mid 1990s, MGM/UA released a handful of the 1938-1944 MGM Our Gang shorts on VHS. The 1936 feature film General Spanky received both a VHS and LaserDisc release. Additionally, MGM/UA released a LaserDisc set of Our Gang comedies, consisting of both silent films and sound films.
Later releases
In 2006, Legend Films released colorized versions of twenty four Our Gang comedies, which were released across five Little Rascals DVDs. Twenty three of these shorts were Hal Roach talkies, while the remaining film is Waldo's Last Stand, a public domain short from the MGM era. These DVDs went out of print in 2009.
RHI Entertainment and Genius Products released an eight-disc DVD box set entitled The Little Rascals - the Complete Collection on October 28, 2008. This set includes all of the Hal Roach sound short films in the Our Gang series (1929–1938), encompassing all of the Our Gang shorts distributed to TV as The Little Rascals (save for a handful of silents). Sixty-four of the shorts are sourced from the Cabin Fever restorations, while the remaining sixteen shorts utilize older Blackhawk Films transfers without their original title cards. On June 14, 2011, Vivendi Entertainment re-released seven of the eight DVDs from the RHI/Genius box set (which encompasses all of the sound Roach Our Gang shorts and excludes the eight "special features" bonus disc), replacing the Blackhawk transfers with their respective Cabin Fever restorations.
Throughout the 2000s, Warner Home Video used individual MGM Our Gang shorts as supplemental features on DVD releases of entries in their classic film library. On September 1, 2009, Warner Bros. released the fifty two MGM Our Gang shorts in a compilation as part of their Warner Archive Collection mail-order series. The collection, Our Gang Comedies 1938–1942 (despite the title, includes the 1943 and 1944 MGM shorts as well), is available for DVD mail order through the Warner Bros. Studio Online Store, and for digital download through both the WB Studio Online Store and the AppleiTunes Store. On January 19, 2016, General Spanky was released on DVD through Warners.
Public domain
The following Our Gang comedies are in the public domain, and have appeared on many different VHS and DVD releases over the years.
All pre-1929 comedies
1930: Bear Shooters; School's Out
1937: Our Gang Follies of 1938
1940: Waldo's Last Stand
Notes
^Production order from The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann, which says on p. ix that "the film entries are ordered according to production sequence, not by release dates or copyright dates." In the book the feature-length film General Spanky is counted as number 150 on the list, whereas this page's list only includes the shorts, so for shorts whose number is over 150 in the book, the production# on this page's list is the number in the book minus one (for example, Reunion in Rhythm is listed as #151 in the book, but #150 for this list).
^Demoss, Robert. "Bouncing Babies". theluckycorner.com. Retrieved 2020-10-16.. The Maltin/Bann book credits Bouncing Babies as Cobb's final appearance, but Demoss confirms that he does not appear in the finished film.
^ abcdeDemoss, Robert (2008-11-09). "The Lucky Corner". Retrieved 2008-11-19.. This is the copyright date for this film. The dates given for shorts 131 through 135 in the Leonard Maltin/Richard W. Bann book The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang were based on data prepared at the beginning of the film season as projected release dates. Our Gang director Gus Meins stepped in to take over direction of Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland in mid-1934, leaving him unavailable to direct Our Gang. When Babes ran over schedule, James Parrott was called in to direct short #131 Washee Ironee; the others were delayed in shooting until after Babes wrapped in October, pushing the shooting and release dates for much of the 1934 – 35 season back several months from the projected and planned dates. This is based upon information from the Hal Roach Studios archives and the Library of Congress, including filings of documents (cutting continuity, title sheets, film copyright) done during the processes of production.
Maltin, Leonard & Bann, Richard W (1977, rev. 1992). The Little Rascals: The Life & Times of Our Gang. New York: Crown Publishing/Three Rivers Press. ISBN0-517-58325-9.
