The Little Rascals is a 1994 American family comedy film produced by Amblin Entertainment, and released by Universal Pictures on August 5, 1994. The film is an adaptation of Hal Roach's Our Gang, a series of short films of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s (many of which were broadcast on television as The Little Rascals) which centered on the adventures of a group of neighborhood children. The film, with a screenplay by Paul Guay, Stephen Mazur, and Penelope Spheeris - who also directed - presents several of the Our Gang characters in an updated setting, and features re-interpretations of several of the original shorts. It was the first collaboration by Guay and Mazur, whose subsequent comedies were Liar Liar and Heartbreakers.
A sequel, The Little Rascals Save the Day, was released as a direct-to-video feature in 2014.
Video The Little Rascals (film)
Plot
Spanky McFarland (Travis Tedford) is the president of the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" with many school-aged boys from around the neighborhood as members. Alfalfa Switzer (Bug Hall), Spanky's best friend, has been chosen to be the driver for the club's prize-winning go-kart, "The Blur", in the upcoming Soap Box Derby go-kart race. Unfortunately, Alfalfa is nowhere to be found.
The boys go to find Alfalfa and they discover him in the company of his sweetheart Darla (Brittany Ashton Holmes), with whom he is forbidden to be in love because she is a girl and that is against club rules. Alfalfa invites Darla on a picnic, and to prove his devotion to her, he agrees to have the picnic inside the Clubhouse. Unbeknownst to Alfalfa, his fellow club members find out about his plans.
At the picnic, Alfalfa and Darla think they are alone, but the other club members secretly pull several silly pranks to sabotage their romantic date (whoopee cushion, cat litter in sandwiches, etc.). When they finally reveal themselves and demand to come inside the clubhouse, Alfalfa frantically tries to convince Darla to hide in the closet, which causes her to mistakenly believe that Alfalfa feels ashamed of her. In the frenzy, a candle flame gets out of control, ultimately causing the clubhouse to burn down.
Darla breaks up with Alfalfa and turns her attentions toward Waldo (Blake McIver Ewing), the new kid in town whose father (Donald Trump) is an oil tycoon. Because Alfalfa burned down the clubhouse and also fraternized with a girl, one of the members, Stymie (Kevin Jamal Woods), assigns him to guard the go-kart until the day of the race.
Alfalfa makes several attempts to woo back Darla, including sending her a fake love note. When that attempt fails, Spanky goes with him to formally break things off with Darla. They are initially turned from the door of her ballet school, but Spanky insists that they will wait for Darla to come out; Spanky gives Alfalfa a frog to play with while they wait. They are soon spotted by the neighborhood bullies Butch (Sam Saletta) and Woim (Blake Jeremy Collins), who chase them inside the building. To get away, the boys duck into a costume room and disguise themselves in ballet drag. They manage to evade the bullies, but when they attempt to enter another room to get out of their disguises, they are surprised to find the room filled with girls, including Darla, dressed in ballet outfits. The boys nervously pretend to be in the ballet recital that is about to take place, but Alfalfa almost gives them away when the frog he is still holding croaks. Just as they are about to back out of the room, the ballet mistress (Lea Thompson) enters and ushers them all on stage.
Spanky and Alfalfa awkwardly try to dance along but Alfalfa immediately begins squirming in discomfort, for the frog was in his tights. The recital quickly falls into chaos, and Alfalfa and Spanky run off of the stage and dispose of the frog.
The ballet mistress, furious that they ruined her recital, confronts them and throws them out immediately, Alfalfa in his underwear and Spanky still in drag. Butch and Woim are waiting for them outside the door, so Spanky distracts them while Alfalfa sneaks out. When Spanky loses his wig, the bullies give chase. Spanky manages to lose them, but they bump into Alfalfa, who is trying to run home in his underwear. They chase him into a mansion but are turned away by the butler. Alfalfa gets through and escapes out the back door, but is chased by a Doberman and he leaps into a pool and swims to the other side, but his underwear slips off just as he climbs out. As Alfalfa retrieves them, he discovers Darla and Waldo in a hot tub, laughing at him, to his embarrassment. The doberman then chases Alfalfa off the property.
At the carnival talent show the day before the race, Alfalfa once again tries to win Darla back, this time through song, being that Darla mentioned after she dumped him that the only thing she ever really missed about him was his voice. Waldo and Darla also entered the show in a duet. Alfalfa then requests the chance to perform for her and win her back. However, Waldo sabotages his attempts to serenade her by putting soap in his drinking water, causing him to burp out bubbles all throughout his song.
The boys try to fund-raise $450, the cost of the lumber needed to rebuild their clubhouse. The youngest club members, Buckwheat (Ross Elliot Bagley) and Porky (Zachary Mabry), have unwittingly come up with $500, not realizing that their method for earning the money was not exactly honest. Their school teacher, Miss Crabtree (Daryl Hannah), finds out about the scheme and confronts them, but Spanky convinces her to donate the money to be given as first prize in the go-kart derby.
As a result of Alfalfa's carelessness, "The Blur" is eventually stolen by Butch and Woim, so that now, in addition to having to rebuild the clubhouse, the boys need a new go-kart. They band together to build "Blur 2: The Sequel," and prior to race day, Spanky and Alfalfa (who previously had a falling out when the latter discovers the gang's "prank list") reconcile their friendship and decide to ride in the two-seat go-kart together. They hope to win the prize money and the trophy, which is to be presented to the winners by A.J. Ferguson (Reba McEntire).
Butch and Woim make several sneaky attempts to stop Alfalfa and Spanky from winning the race. Waldo and Darla are also in the go-kart race, but they're eventually annoyed with each other, and Waldo seemingly kicks Darla out from his car midway through the race. In a wild dash to the finish, and despite the many scrapes and crashes throughout the race, "The Blur 2" crosses the finish line ahead of the pack in a photo-finish between "The Blur" and "The Blur 2" literally by a hair, due to Alfalfa's pointy hairstyle. After the race, Butch and Woim are angry towards Alfalfa because he won the trophy and the prize money. They attempt to beat him up, but Alfalfa finally stands up for himself and punches Butch in the face, knocking him into a pool of pig slop. Woim then gets scared and jumps into the slop willingly.
Along with first prize, Alfalfa also wins back Darla, after it is revealed that it had been Darla who had kicked Waldo out of their car and finished the race alone because she found out that Waldo was responsible for the bubbles at the talent show. Spanky, meanwhile, is shocked at the trophy presentation when he finally meets his favorite driver, A.J. Ferguson, who turns out to be female. Spanky confesses to Darla that he and the boys pulled the pranks on her at their picnic lunch, not Alfalfa. After the club house is rebuilt, the boys collectively have a change of heart towards membership and they decide to welcome Darla as well as other girls into the club, adding a "Women Welcome" sign onto the front door.
Maps The Little Rascals (film)
Cast
Animals
- Petey american bulldog
- Fifi doberman pinscher
- Elmer white throathed white capuchin monkey
Production
Bill Thomas, Jr., son of the late Bill Thomas, who played the original Buckwheat, contacted the studio and was invited down to visit the set, but got the impression that the filmmakers did not want him or any of the surviving original cast members involved in any production capacity. The surviving cast members saw this as especially hurtful, in light of the fact that director Penelope Spheeris had previously made a point of including Buddy Ebsen, from the original Beverly Hillbillies, in her 1993 feature film adaptation of that series. Eugene Jackson, who played the original Pineapple from the silent Our Gang comedies, and tried unsuccessfully to contact the studio to be a part of production, stated, "It's real cold. They have no respect for the old-timers. At least they could have recognized some of the living legends surviving from the first films." Filming took place from January 11, 1994 to April 6, 1994.
Release
Critical reception
The film received mostly negative critical reviews upon its original release; it currently holds a 23% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the mostly negative reception, the film had scored a 70% audience rating and Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a thumbs up.
Box office
The Little Rascals earned $10 million at the North American box office during its opening weekend. The film grossed a worldwide total of $67,308,282.
Repurposed scenes and situations
Many of the gags and subplots in the film were borrowed from the original Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts. These include:
- The scene in which Buckwheat and Porky are fishing and get their fishing lines tangled originates from a scene in the 1943 Our Gang short Three Smart Guys with Buckwheat, Froggy, and Mickey.
- The He-Man Woman Haters Club originally appeared in the 1937 Our Gang short Hearts are Thumps; the club would return in the short Mail and Female the same year. The plots for both shorts were reused for the film. In addition, the scene where the gang ruins Alfalfa and Darla's lunch date, as well as the scene where bubbles come out of Alfalfa's mouth while he sings, were borrowed gags from Hearts are Thumps. Alfalfa sending Buckwheat and Porky to deliver a love note to Darla was borrowed from Mail and Female.
- The "hi-sign" originally appeared in the 1935 Our Gang short Anniversary Trouble, and the animated 1979 special, The Little Rascals Christmas Special.
- The children dressing up as fire fighters and attempting to put out a fire appeared in the Our Gang shorts Fire Fighters (1922), The Fourth Alarm (1926), and Hook and Ladder (1932). The gag in which Spanky (Travis Tedford) winds up on a flying water hose was originally used with Farina in The Fourth Alarm.
- The gag involving Spanky and Stymie disguising as adults appeared in a handful of Our Gang shorts. Mickey Daniels and Johnny Downs attempted to dress up as Santa Claus with this gag in the 1926 short Good Cheer. Farina and Pleurisy tried this routine in the 1929 short Election Day. Stymie and Dickie Moore tried it in the 1933 short Fish Hooky, while Spanky and Alfalfa tried pulling it off in both the 1935 short Teacher's Beau and the 1936 short Two Too Young.
- The scene in which Spanky and Alfalfa accidentally find themselves performing in a ballet recital was inspired by the plot of the 1937 short Rushin' Ballet. The costumes that the duo wear are exact replicas of the costumes that the original Spanky and Alfalfa wore in Rushin' Ballet. The gag in which Alfalfa gets a frog loose in his clothes was originally used in the 1937 short Framing Youth, where Spanky was trying to convince him he had a frog in his throat.
- Alfalfa singing "The Barber of Seville" originated in Our Gang Follies of 1938.
- The idea of the children building their own vehicle out of junk and scrap metal had been used in several Our Gang shorts, most notably the 1934 short Hi'-Neighbor!. The gag in which the kids' car causes several adults to leap into the air was also borrowed from Hi'-Neighbor!, and also appears in One Wild Ride (1925), Free Wheeling (1932), and Divot Diggers (1936).
- Much of the Go-Cart race climax (including the gag in which the car belonging to Butch and Woim accidentally goes into reverse) was borrowed from the 1939 short Auto Antics. Material from Hi'-Neighbor and Three Men in a Tub (1938) is also present.
See also
- Our Gang
- The Little Rascals (animated TV series)
- The Little Rascals Save the Day (2014 film)
References
External links
- The Little Rascals on IMDb
- The Little Rascals at the TCM Movie Database
- The Little Rascals at AllMovie
- The Little Rascals at Box Office Mojo
- The Little Rascals at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of article : Wikipedia
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