Circus Fever

This Hal Roach comedy short, Circus Fever, is the thirty-fifth in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series. On the day of the only performance of the circus, Farina and Gene are sick in bed and can't attend. Mickey, brother Jackie, and Joe are not and have to attend school but when they find out Gene and Farina are stuck in bed for six weeks, they resolve to pretend to be sick in order to attend the festivities. If the story seems familiar, you might have seen some of the same plot in the talkie remake, Spooky Hooky, with Spanky, Alfalfa, and the rest which was made several years later. I'll just say that I found this funny most of the time so on that note, I recommend Circus Fever. P.S. One title card says: "Mary-Believes in long engagements-She promised to marry Mickey in 1944" That year is significant since that's the time the Our Gang series ended.

In 1936, there was an Our Gang comedy ("Spooky Hooky") where the kids pretended to get sick in order to sneak away to see the circus. Well, the idea wasn't original, as a very similar plot can be found in 1925's "Circus Fever".

When the story begins, the kids learn that the circus will only be in town for one performance...and it will be during their school day. So, Joe, Mickey and Jackie come up with the idea of faking illness in order to sneak off to the circus after they see Pineapple (Ernie's replacement) and Farina (here, playing a girl) will with a weird white-spotted illness. So, the trio paint themselves with red paint and pretend to be sick. Well, not surprisingly, the doctor sees right through this and he and their mothers decide to teach them a lesson.

While I liked the portion of the story involving Joe, Mickey and Jackie, I felt a bit uneasy about the beginning with Pineapple and Farina. While normally I don't see the Our Gang films as being racist (heck, after all, they black kids were friends and equal to their white friends), here there are a couple cheap comments about watermelon and shooting dice. Additionally, their mother clearly is a white guy who's painted black with burnt cork....and it also appears to be a guy! It's hard to defend this other than to say it was a different time and with different attitudes. Still, the rest of the film is cute and well worth seeing.

It's for one performance only, but what is there to do? The last time he played hookey, Mickey Daniels got his rear tanned so hard it hurt for a week. But when Farina and Gene get off school for six whole weeks, Mickey comes up with a plan to get him, Jackie Condon, and Joe Cobb off from school for a similar term.

There are a lot more adults than usual in this episode of Hal Roach's enormously popular series; three mothers, and two doctors, one played by Ernest Morrison Sr. They don't stop the gang from carrying out their plan... at first.

The copy that I looked at was far from pristine, but given that it's been missing in action for decades, I'm very glad to have seen it.