Surprised Parties

Froggy gets to go with the others to a party but is depressed because he's a February 29th kid...and only gets a birthday party every four years. The others get together to give him the Alice In Wonderland "Unbirthday" party.

Froggy is sad at a birthday party and the other kids confront him. Froggy reveals that he almost never has birthday parties since he was born on February 29th. He only gets a party on a leap year. Our Gang decides to throw him a surprise party. Everybody starts avoiding him and he mistakenly assumes that he is being thrown out of the club. He sets about to sabotage the surprise party and disguise himself as a girl.

This has a cute premise and a fun execution. Froggy does some cross-dressing and actually looks like a cute girl. It is light and fun non-sense and that is all one looks for in Our Gang.

Two years after this short, the last "Our Gang" short was made. After seeing this, you wonder how it even lasted that much longer. The quality of "Our Gang" nosedived soon after moving from Hal Roach to MGM, and this short is a perfect example. The gags are all very unfunny and Froggy's last line of this being the happiest day of his life paints a bad picture in your mind of what it's like for him the rest of the time. A very poor example of film making.