Forgotten Babies

My Mom was the baby that was glued to the floor. Murlen Christine Powers. Her name was derived from the first parts of the names of her parents - Muriel and Leonard Powers.

My guess as to why she was in the short, is that her Father (my Grandfather) was one of the early cameramen in Hollywood. He had worked with Hal Roach.

My Mom went on to become a singer, and later net my Father, John Charles Scribner.

Mom actually passed away, from Cancer and a heart attack, in a hospital in Lancaster, CA.

Her name, when she passed was Christine Murlen Poplawski. She is buried in the California City Cemetery.

JohnScribner. (Son)

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 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!!

One of my favorite OUR GANG shorts. Spanky is conned into babysitting a house full of infants. He resorts to scary actions, even gluing a toddler to the floor. When Spanky is surrounded by the out of control tykes, and he looks in a drawer and says "Ah, glue....". It's with as much menacing glee as the line "No Prisoners" in LAURENCE OF ARABIA. My favorite bit is when one of the babies turns on the radio to a Radio Horror Show about the screamingly insane Dr. Nemo (Voiced over the top by the monsterously funny Billy Gilbert) What radio station would broadcast such lunacy? You couldn't make these sort of fun movies today because modern day audiences want realism. Shame.

This is one of the all-time great "Our Gang" shorts. Spanky is at his very cutest and funniest, and the babies that he get's left to babysit are also hilarious. Tiny Spanky is coerced by the gang into watching all their little siblings. The opening shot of them all in baby carriages, being entertained by various things hung by the gang from fishing poles is a beautiful gag.

Spanky's appearance wearing his huge toy knife when asked to babysit by the older fellows is priceless, as is his response --"Hey, where do you get that stuff -- I don't take care of no babies!" The tiny fellow saying "remarkable" throughout the film, all the beautiful sight gags, and Spanky telling the babies "all about Tarzan" add up to make this one of the best "Our Gang"'s you'll ever see.