Unexpected Riches

This is George "Spanky" McFarland's last short as a member of Our Gang. He is much too old to be part of the gang and is bursting out of his costume. Why MGM still insisted on using him in the kid comedies at age 13 is a mystery. In this short comedy, the gang dreams about what it would be like to be rich. We see Buckwheat's dream, Mickey's dream, and Froggy's dream. But we do not see Spanky's dream. I guess Spanky was just too old and too fat to dream! Like Matthew "Stymie" Beard's final appearance in "Teacher's Beau" where he does not have one line of dialogue, MGM is saying to Spanky, "You're out, and you do not matter anymore." Sad, isn't it.

After appearing in 95 Our Gang's over 11 years, Unexpected Riches marked the departure of arguably the most recognizable character of the entire series, George "Spanky" McFarland. To be fair, Hal Roach would've probably cut him loose several years before it dawned on MGM that he was 14. As the MGM entries go, Unexpected Riches isn't the worst by far--- it explores the dreams of kids in sort of a Mark Twain-esque context and doesn't deviate from what we've come to know about each member of the gang. Yeah, there's some un-PC thoughts banging around in Buckwheat's head involving handing out watermelons and fried chicken on the dark side of town from a limo... but getting past that, Unexpected Riches looks like Citzen Kane compared to the likes of Robot Wrecks and 1-2-3 Go! Or for that matter, pick any of the later painfully-unfunny 'message' shorts that the studio dumped on the public. All in all this is a throw-back to the so-so scripts done by Hal Roach, only with better MGM production values. Being the best of the late MGM installments isn't admittedly saying much, but you have to rate 'em accordingly--- at least Spanky left on a relative high note. 4 out of 10.