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| Our Gang | |
|---|---|
 Title card for the 1937 Our Gang comedy short Rushin' Ballet | |
| Created by | Hal Roach |
| Original work | Our Gang (1922) |
| Owner |
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| Print publications | |
| Book(s) | A Story of Our Gang: Romping Through the Hal Roach Comedies (1929) |
| Comics |
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| Films and television | |
| Film(s) |
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| Short film(s) |
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| Animated series | The Little Rascals |
| Television special(s) | The Little Rascals Christmas Special (1979) |
| Direct-to-video | The Little Rascals Save the Day (2014) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Series directors |
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| Series producers | |
| Series screenwriters | |
| Series musical directors | |
| Series cinematographers |
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| Series theatrical distributors |
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| First short | One Terrible Day (September 10, 1922) |
| Final short | Dancing Romeo (April 29, 1944) |
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. Created by film producer Hal Roach, also the producer of the Laurel and Hardy films, Our Gang shorts were produced from 1922 to 1944, spanning the silent film and early sound film periods of American cinema. Our Gang is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way; Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children, rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series also broke new ground by portraying white and black children interacting as equals during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation in the United States.[1]
The franchise began in 1922 as a silent short subject series produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting to sound in 1929. Production continued at Roach until 1938, when the Our Gang production unit was sold to MGM, where production continued until 1944. Across 220 short films and a feature-film spin-off, General Spanky, the Our Gang series featured more than 41 child actors as regular members of its cast.
As MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark after buying the series, the Roach-produced Our Gang sound films were re-released to theaters and syndicated for television under the title The Little Rascals.
The Roach-produced Little Rascals shorts (1929–1938) are currently owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (through Halcyon Studios), which manages the copyrights as well as theatrical and home video and streaming releases, while Paramount Global (through King World Productions) owns the television distribution rights to the 1929–1938 Roach-era shorts for broadcast and cable. Meanwhile, MGM's Our Gang series (1938–1944) is currently owned by Warner Bros. through Turner Entertainment Co.
Any short released before 1929 is public domain, owing to the Copyright Law of the United States.
New productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including the 1994 feature film, The Little Rascals, released by Universal Pictures.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (1994). The Little Rascals: Remastered and Uncut, vol. 22, introduction. Videorecording. New York: Cabin Fever Entertainment/Hallmark Entertainment.