The Gang's All Here

I was taking a civil service exam several months ago when, turning the page of the test booklet, I was confronted with a table featuring numbers, blank spaces and the dreaded, lower case v and y.

Dropping my No. 2 pencil in disgust, I thought, “Algebra, this is no place for you!”

Those “of a certain age” will remember that line from the one, the only “Little Rascals” TV show or, as they were originally called in the theatrical one-and two-reelers produced from the early 1920s to the mid 1940s, “Our Gang.”

Dub the pint-sized posse of Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, Farina, Stymie, Chubby, Wheezer, Scotty, Butch, Woim, Pete the Pup, Dinah the Mule (aka the above referenced “Algebra”) and too many others to mention what you will. I’ll just call them hilarious and some of the most quotable characters ever to hit the large and then small screen.

The antic appeal of the “Rascals” is thanks to producer Hal Roach, who was turned off by child actors groomed to be “mini adults” and wanted the most down-to-earth squirts he could find to portray a gang of poor neighborhood kids. Since they were too young to read, the director would explain the scene and let them go at it, so who knows if the bon mots the kids mouthed were their own or dreamed up by Roach’s comedy writers.

Over time, some of the lines became code in my family for situations both comic and calamitous:

“Don’t drink the milk. It’s spoiled.” (Mom’s dinner stinks.)

“Yum, yum, eat ‘em up!” (Mom’s dinner is pretty good.)

“Well, well, well. Jack fell in the well.” (Na! Na! You got yours!)

“I have to stay home and grease Wheezer.” (I’m stuck doing chores.)

“Learn that poem. Learn that poem.” (I’m stuck doing homework.)

“And you’ll make hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (Oh sure, that scheme will pay off.)

“John Brown. Ask me again, and I’ll knock you down.” (Listen the first time, ya putz.)

“We want the Flory Dorys!” (Bring on the entertainment!)

And let’s not forget such random words as “Chubsy Ubsy” (fat kid), “wee-wah” (sucker) and “remarkable!” (uttered either sincerely or sarcastically).

There’s another reason I’ll always revere the “Rascals.” For a kid growing up in a white bread and mayonnaise suburb where bigotry was always just below the surface (and sometimes right in plain sight), the spectacle of these multi-ethnic mischief makers getting along while getting in trouble was a real eye-opener. Hey, they even played with girls like me! (Except, of course, for the members of “The He-Man Woman Haters’ Club.")

In later years, the series came under fire for its supposedly racist overtones, but cast members such as Matthew “Stymie” Beard and Allen “Farina” Hoskins put that viewpoint to rest, arguing that all the performers played “a type.” “We were just a group of kids who were having fun,” Beard said.

Finally, let’s put another scurrilous belief to rest. Contrary to a widely-circulated rumor, comedian Bill Cosby did not buy up the rights to the “Rascals” to keep racial stereotypes off television. Even though they’re scattered to the four winds like the gang after another fine fiasco, some episodes are available on DVD and others turn up on Turner Classic Movies.

O-tay? O-tay!