Our Gang was a child-like, idealized vision of America, one that offered an alternative to the racial strife going on outside the theater. With Woodrow Wilson as president and the return of soldiers from World War I, the years before 1921 had seen dozens of deadly attacks on blacks in American cities along with a resurgent Klu Klux Klan in rural areas. It was the age of Jim Crow, a term that originated in a 19th-century caricatured minstrel song and was soon applied to racial segregation laws that lasted through the 1960s. The success of Little Rascals was all the more surprising considering the racial climate of the time. Over the next 23 years, 220 films were produced. The films, which were originally shown in theaters nationwide and syndicated to television decades later, were an immediate hit-kids and adults loved the slapstick gags and the fiction of a kiddie society uniting to confound authority. The Little Rascals, originally known as Our Gang, was created by Hal Roach in 1921. By watching The Little Rascals, I was introduced to a powerful fantasy of America as racial utopia: Here was a group of kids of vastly different backgrounds who somehow managed to get along.
I had no idea the series had been filmed 50 years earlier, that most of the stars were dead, and that it was once unusual for black and white kids to play together. My parents were Korean immigrants who had moved to the city in the 1970s, the first in a wave of Korean immigrants who would transform the city’s racial makeup.
John, Annie Ross, Daryl Hickman and Dwayne Hickman.When I was a kid, I used to watch episodes of The Little Rascals on TV in our living room in Los Angeles. The other seven surviving cast members are: Donnie Smith, Mildred Kornman, Margaret Kerry, Betta St.
The other known name is Robert Blake (real name Michael Gubitosi) who was the annoying, constantly crying Mickey in the 1940s series of Our Gang films. The most significant living cast member is Sidney Kibrick who played “Woim,” the sidekick of tough kid “Butch” Patrick. Today there are only nine surviving cast members of the scores of kids who appeared in the Our Gang films. Leonard Maltin’s authoritative book about Our Gang makes no mention of Don Law. One month after Alfalfa died, Helen Parrish another real Our Gang alumus died of cancer at age 35 on February 22. Eclipsing Alfalfa’s death that same day was the passing of legendary director Cecil B. An argument over a dog and a reward was the cause. Just two weeks previous to Law’s death one of the biggest Our Gang stars did die.Ĭarl Switzer, better known as “Alfalfa: was shot to death on January 21, 1959. Then there’s the outside chance that someone close to Law saw an opportunity to create a hoax on an anonymous death. Family and friends probably spread the word from Law himself. Who provided the information about Law appearing in Our Gang is unsourced. Law left behind a wife and three children. He later managed a clothing store and worked for Greyhound – Harmony Shortline Bus Companies. After his film career Law’s family moved to Meadville. In a longer obituary in the New York Herald Tribune it says Law appeared in 20 Hal Roach comedy films. Possibly Don Law was in some kiddie film as child, but was told he was in Our Gang.
So the fact checkers back in 1959 just didn’t do any checking when it came to Don Law. Many of the non-Our Gang child actors were told by their parents that they were part of Our Gang, In fact they may have been in motion pictures but were not in Our Gang.
When you are a youngster and have a brief movie appearance, your memory may not be the best barometer of accuracy. Over the years a handful of people claimed to have been part of the Our Gang films who were not. So how did Don Law get identified as a former Our Gang Comedy star known as Fats? Norman and Joe were the large children who played “fat” kids.īut Our Gang creator Hal Roach never named any of his rotund child actors “Fats.”As a matter of fact in its 22 year run from 1922 -1944 there is no record of anyone called Fats. Not too much work coming up with nicknames. True, there was Joe Cobb who played “Joe’ and and Norman “Chubby” Chaney who replaced Cobb and played…Chubby.