Forgotten Babies

This Hal Roach comedy short, Forgotten Babies, is the one hundred twenty-first in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the thirty-third talkie. The gang-after temporarily watching their infant and toddler siblings outside-decide to go on their own for some play and leave Spanky-a toddler himself-to watch those little kids. They're all at his house while he spins his own Tarzan story but they're bored so the house becomes quite a mess! And it gets messier when a phone is off the hook while a mystery program is playing on the radio...This was a fine showcase for Spanky in not only doing a free-form monologue but also in his constant running around trying to take care of many kids not much younger than himself without losing control. Of note is the appearance of Spanky's actual younger brother, Tommy McFarland, jumping on the bed and wrecking it and also, Wheezer's younger sibling Dickie Hutchins being the one saying "Remarkable!" constantly! Oh, and this short also marked the first appearance of one Tommy Bond, years before becoming Butch! So on that note, I highly recommend Forgotten Babies.

The "Our Gang" short Forgotten Babies serves as a fascinating timestamp of the lack of Department of Child and Family Services' involvement on film sets, specifically for very young toddlers. The Little Rascals is a show that could never pass on today's Television, given all the outlandish stunts and dangers they included; this explains why the modern-day equivalent program, Nickelodeon's Rugrats, is animated.

Forgotten Babies is one of the most excessive displays of child endangerment I've yet to see, yet considering the time the short was made, this is hardly a surprise. Actors, particularly children and animals, didn't have the kind of rampant, around-the-clock protection like they do today, and one can just watch a short like this and quietly hope more fun was had than actual pain. The plot concerns the gang of tykes, all of whom stuck babysitting when they want to go to the local swimming pool and soak up the nice day. As a result, the gang looks towards Spanky (George McFarland) to babysit their younger infant siblings, to which he accepts.

Spanky, who himself is a toddler just like them, isn't fit to watch five children at once, so when his decision to tell them the story of Tarzan fails, he must try and stop the children from going around the home and breaking things. While one is sliding down the stairs on a pillow cushion, one is making the Leaning Tower of Pisa with fine China and another is jumping on the bed so violently the bedboard cracks and subsequently damages the floor. It's maddening chaos and Spanky runs breathlessly, tripping over his stout legs, in order to try and stop all the commotion from occurring.

Forgotten Babies is built on simple laughs and pleasures, revolving around the common, early-cinematic convention of "house-breaking," where a home is fully intact at the beginning of a short before being completely desecrated in the end. This one reminds me of Laurel and Hardy's Big Business short from 1929, involving Laurel and Hardy completely desecrating a homeowner's new home, albeit to a far greater extent than the rascals do here. Nonetheless, this short is fun because it's more-or-less a showcase of changing times and how amazingly unrestricted children were in the realm of being reckless before us for the sake of good comedy.

Directed by: Robert F. McGowan.

This is probably the best episode made. The story that Spanky tells is timeless humor. To this day December 2021 I still don't know what he's saying but it's hilarious.

The greatest Our Gang short ever. 4 year old Spanky gets stuck babysitting with 6 toddlers - need I say more? It's nothing short of miraculous how Robert McGowan was able to get this on film. Included are scenes like a two-year-old standing on a table between two teetering towers of china, putting a china cup on one, watching it fall, then saying "Remarkable" on cue as the other one falls. This all in one take without any special effects or trick photography. Or how about Spanky's near-perfect retelling of a Tarzan movie, with one baby's random reaction of falling head-first off a chair and getting up unfazed. You couldn't film this today even if you had McGowan's genius. Remarkable!!

An OUR GANG Comedy Short.

The Gang coerces Spanky into watching their younger siblings. Caring for these FORGOTTEN BABIES turns out to be quite a chore, leaving the little nipper with no choice but to come up with some ingenious solutions to the baby-sitting problem...

Spanky is in his glory in this hilarious little film, arguably his best. Highlight: Spanky's retelling the plot of the TARZAN movie he's recently seen to the audience of infants. Movie mavens will recognize Billy Gilbert's voice in the radio drama.