Our Gang Collection, 80 shorts, Oct. 28 (1 Viewer)

[Mark Lx]

I was going to say the same thing

 

[MilesH]

Tom Hatten is a famous Los Angeles kids television host. He used to show Popeye cartoons and Little Rascals shorts every Saturday morning on KTLA Channel 5. If you grew up in Los Angeles, he was responsible for introducing you to Popeye and the Little Rascals.

 

[Garysb]

When MGM bought the rights to "Our Gang" it included the title "Our Gang".
The reason the films were shown on TV as the "Little Rascals" was because
MGM owned the "Our Gang" name. When MGM released some of their "Our Gang"
comedies years ago on VHS , they used the name.

When the Little Rascals were shown on TV in the 50's and 60's, all title references to "Our Gang" had to be
cut from the prints. It nice that the original titles will be restored.

 

[Mike*HTF]

Thanks for that Gary - but I understood the story behind the name change. My question was asking if these are the original uncut theatrical shorts, then why aren't they called by their proper title?

Just more curious than anything, I suppose.

 

[Mark Y]

Legally, the name Our Gang belonged to M-G-M (presumably now Warner Bros.). To promote the set under that name, Genius would have to be licensed to use it.

Of course, that gets me thinking about two things now:

(1) King World owns the name The Little Rascals, right?

(2) Why is it okay for these films -- any older films, for that matter -- to be shown with their original studio logos and names, in cases where the original releasing studio no longer owns the film, when it wasn't okay 30 to 50 years ago?

Just curious too. I am glad this set is coming out and looking forward to it!

 

[Steve...O]

GREAT NEWS:

A representative from Genius has confirmed to me that these discs will be dual layered (DVD-9). These single layer reports are in error and, as previously speculated by Eric Peterson, likely the result of someone confusing single sided with single layer.

The rep had no info on L&H "at this time". Sounds like the kind of response you'd give when you really mean "can't say yet". (I may be reading too much into it)

Steve

 

[Joe Karlosi]

(whew) - good news. Nice work!

The L&H thing is at least hopeful at this point. At least your answer wasn't a definitive "Nope".

 

[DanMel]

That is great news! I hadn't cancelled my pre-order yet and will not be after hearing this. I tried to revisit the forum Littlerascals.net to see if there were any updates to the person that talked to a genius representive at comic con but their site has been down ever since I visited their forum a few days ago and copied and pasted the user's comments to this thread.

http://www.thelittlerascals.net/

 

[PaulP]

That's good news. I suspected the initial report was false. But are these dual-sided? They don't need to be, do they?

Now with this set and the silent Our Gang shorts also coming soon, will WB release the other third of the entire series?

 

[DanMel]

For anyone interested in the Laurel & Hardy shorts and movies from the 30's, check out the TCM line up for Aug 23rd where they will be showing 32 shorts and movies:

Turner Classic Movie Schedule - TCM Channel Guide

 

[Eric Peterson]

Great news Steve! Thanks for digging deeper!

 

[Charles Ellis]

But where's Leonard Maltin in the new set? If he's not in it, I might as well keep the Cabin Fever DVDs in addition to the new set!

 

[Garysb]

In the early 1950's Studios considered TV to be a threat to their well being. Why go to a movie when you can stay home and watch TV. The studios did not want their names associated with TV. Part of the agreements to sell to TV was that the studio name be removed from prints. Therefore RKO, one of the first to sell films to TV, became C&C Movietime, Paramount had its name removed from all its cartoons etc. Later in the 50's it did not matter as studios started selling directly to TV.
The TV prints were already changed. In some cases the original credits were destroyed and couldn't be restored. You can see this on some RKO films on TCM. The title page of the film is a still picture.
It looks frozen. Rather than fade to the next credit , it jumps. The rest of the credits fade as they are meant to.

 

[Eric Peterson]

He is definitely a strange omission considering he's one of the preeminent "Our Gang" scholars. His introductions from the old videos wouldn't work here though. Those introductions were based on four shorts that were not in chronological order. I'm sure that the majority of the info in these introductions is available in his book which already sits on my shelf, so it's not a huge loss. It is bizarre that he didn't record anything new though (especially a commentary track or two). I wonder if he wanted too much $$$ to be involved.

 

[Mark Y]

I remember in the late 1970s, Blackhawk Films released a special anniversary edition of Laurel & Hardy's "Big Business," and unlike their usual retitlings, they included the original theatrical titles except for placing their own Indian-head (sorry, I mean Native American-head) over the M-G-M logo. In their bulletin, they said they had to do this for legal reasons. This was in the late 1970s...

There are one or two early Our Gang talkies on the Cabin Fever tapes that had the M-G-M logo (the small one at the bottom of the screen) taken out or obscured in the titles. I'm thinking "Bouncing Babies" may have been one of them, but it's been a long time since I watched them. I wonder what project that was done for...I note that otherwise, the shorts all had the original unaltered titles, but some had the opening roaring lion cut off. Maybe that happened on the original negatives?

The Little Rascals shorts are currently airing on Chicago on Me-Too (Channel 48), which I can't pick up very well. They formerly aired on Me-TV (Channel 23, or 223 on Comcast). They are colorized versions with the color turned off. Apart from that, they appeared to be the King World edits, but with the original theatrical titles. But there were a few odd cases. A few of the shorts have a contemporary "Hal Roach Studios" logo and the name "The Little Rascals" replacing M-G-M and Our Gang...but just on a few shorts. Some also have added music. I didn't see this one, but a friend told me one of the shorts (is it "Little Sinner?") appeared to have LeRoy Shield music dubbed over almost the entire soundtrack, obliterating all the dialogue. Anyone seen these?

Not trying to scare you...the above will not be on the DVDs. That's just what they're showing in Chicago.

 

[MilesH]

Has anyone asked Leonard about why he isn't part of the set? I thought he was pretty good about answering emails.

 

[Charles Ellis]

Regarding credit changes due to film libraries changing hands- you have to hand it to the gang at Warner Bros. for restoring a good deal of the credits from classic cartoons that changed hands over the years. As a kid I grew up with those awful AAP credits for classic WB and Popeye cartoons. Also, does anyone also remember the MCA TV credit put out in from of every old Paramount film shown on TV? It was "mca tv" in small letters with a fanfare before the Paramount logo was shown (this was for the pre-50 library that MCA bought). Alas, in some cases the original credits have yet to be found or restored yet. I remember seeing Annabel Takes A Trip starring Lucille Ball on TCM and the opening credit wasn't an RKO original, but one from TV syndication. I only hope the people at Warner Home Video can somehow locate an original print or recreate the original RKO credits for DVD release.

Back to Our Gang: I recently rented a DVD of colorized shorts made by Legend Films, and yes, the credits betrayed their PD status, using prints that were used in syndication with different names for the series, like "Hal Roach's Kids & Pals", that sort of thing. It was only as a teenager reading about the history of the series (thanks for writing your book, Mr. Maltin!) that I discovered the MGM connection. Hopefully we'll see Leo the Lion in the new DVD set, followed by the original Hal Roach Studio credits.

 

[WadeM]

With Laughsmith's 27 silent shorts (+5 non-Rascals shorts=32) and the additional 3 silents on this set, that'd be 30 out of the 88 silents released in a decent manner on DVD. Someone still needs to release the other 51 silents, also, not counting what I think I've read are 7 "lost" films. With as many years as it's taken Laughsmith to put this set together, I doubt we'll ever see the remaining silent shorts in a decent release.

Personally, I'd rather have the remaining silents before the WB-owned shorts, but it'd be nice if WB released what they own anyway...

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Is anyone wanting the MGM "Our Gang" shorts to be released on DVD? You know, the ones with Froggy, Janet (gag) and that vile Mickey Gubitosi? Or would you rather do what I do, i.e., pretend they don't exist?

 

[Steve...O]

Perhaps Mr. Maltin is MIA on this set because he's working on a L&H set? One can only hope. As much as he's done for "the Boys" over the past 40 years it would only be fitting.

Ideally Randy Skretvedt, Scott MacGillivray, and Lois Laurel will also be part of a L&H set.

Warner does not release dedicated collections of their short subjects (I wish they would) which makes an MGM Our Gang collection unlikely.